3 lessons from Standard Chartered Bank’s employee experience transformation

The employee and candidate experience at nearly every single organization across the world has changed since the beginning of 2020. Recruiting, onboarding in a digital space, supporting people in extended lockdowns or caregivers with responsibilities to homeschool their children, and now managing vaccination status in the workplace, many of us have had to adapt.

Standard Chartered Bank — one of the world’s leading international banks with more than 85,000 team members across 59 countries in Asia, Middle East, and Africa - is a leading example of an organization rethinking the way it approaches employee experience (EX). By ensuring the company’s EX meets team members’ diverse needs and expectations, Standard Chartered Bank has delivered some incredible results back to the business - including improvements to its customer experience.

At XM Live: Succeeding in the Age of Experience Transformation, David Wilson, Head of Organisational Development at Standard Chartered Bank shared three key learnings to help others on their employee experience transformations.

1. Getting serious about EX starts with getting serious about your employee value proposition

For Standard Chartered Bank, a positive employee experience is achieved when your employee value proposition (EVP) matches people’s expectations.

To identify its EVP, Standard Chartered Bank captured a range of qualitative and quantitative feedback from across its workforce. Insights helped the organization identify the key attributes helping to attract and retain people, as well as the strategic drivers of the business.

“Through qualitative analysis, we identified the attributes of our EVP that attract and retain talent, such as learning and development programs, work-life balance initiatives, and compensation. We then did a qualitative analysis to make sure we were looking at the right things, and we’ve continued to validate with additional insights,” explained David.

Equipped with its tried and tested insights, Standard Chartered Bank was able to confidently and precisely create a simple and compelling EVP that aligned with people’s expectations and needs.

2. Strategically invest in your employee value proposition, using data to drive your investment

Identifying Standard Chartered Bank’s EVP was just the start of the organization’s experience transformation. The bank knew that if it was going to move the needle on EX people needed to be experiencing the EVP every single day.

To make sure this was the case, Standard Chartered Bank invests significantly in ensuring its employment products and services match with the attributes identified. And importantly, the bank is continually evolving its investments to address changing and emerging needs.

“We’ve done a lot of work aligning our strategy with our purpose, ensuring the work our people do fits with their interests and values. To offer unrivaled career and growth opportunities we’ve partnered with third-party providers to create new learning experience platforms and leadership development programs. And finally, we’re redesigning our performance management process, as well as giving our people a permanent flexible working option,” said David.

3. If your peers benefit that’s great and amazing...but don’t claim victory until your customers do

“All of our investments only matter if we move the dial on EX, which in turn moves the dial on customer experience, which in turn moves the dial on business performance,” explained David.

With a relentless focus on outcomes, measurement and action are critical to Standard Chartered Bank. The organization is continuously listening to its employees and customers and democratizing access to data to people across the business to take action when it matters most.

And encouragingly, Standard Chartered Bank’s investment in EX is being felt.

“By ensuring our EVP matches expectations our engagement is trending upwards from when we started this journey, and we are exceeding expectations across the attributes we know matter.

“Importantly, this is translating into a better customer experience too, including improvements to how customers perceive our knowledge and expertise, the trust they place in us, the customer support we provide, and the value our customers receive from us,” said David.

Embarking on a journey of progress

Right now, employees are actively looking to join or recommit their loyalty to organizations that meet their expectations, preferences, and values. It means those organizations - like Standard Chartered Bank - that can continually uncover and respond to issues that matter when they matter have a distinct advantage. By co-creating an EX that meets the needs of the entire workforce, organizations can cultivate high-performing and inclusive cultures, as well as positive customer outcomes that benefit the entire business.

Dive deeper into Standard Chartered Bank’s story of employee experience progress from XM Live: Succeeding in the Age of Experience Transformation now.