HR Strategy Analysis of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is a major bank in UAE and providing various services and innovative products to its customers. It is named so after the merger of the Khaleej Bank with the Emirates Commercial Bank and Federal Commercial Bank in 1985. ADCB is public share holding company with limited liability. This bank ensures the customers satisfaction as its major objective and tends to provide good services to its customer. ADCB mission is to never forget that its customer always has another choice also. It treats every customer as individual that results in quality service delivery to every customer. It has 47 branches across UAE with two branches in India. It also has an offshore operation in Cayman Island. Abu Dhabi Investment Council, a state control body owns 65 % stake in the ADCB. ADCB was established in 1985 as Khaleej Bank and is presently the third biggest bank by asset in UAE.

ADCB has four divisions that operate whole business. The divisions are as follows:

Personal Banking: This division is responsible for the services like accounts, debit and credit cards. Also it regulates all the procedure of loans and bank assurance facilities. This division fulfills the basic requirements from the bank and deals with the general public issues.

Islamic Banking: This divisions provides all the services according the Islamic banking regulations and offers products like Bai’ al-inah, Bai muajjal, Bai’ bithaman ajil, Mudarabah, Sukuk, Murabahah, Musawamah, Ijarah, Bai salam, Qard hassan/ Qardul Hassan, Takaful, Hibah, Wadiah, Wakalah. Islamic banking and finance depends upon the principles of Sharia that defines several ideas of marketing.

Business Banking: This division of ADCB provides services like cash management and financing options for entrepreneurial ventures of businesses. This division deals with the corporate customers and provides treasury and investment services and also trade services for the businesses.

Investment Banking: This division of ADCB looks opportunities of investments for the bank and also provide consultancy in merger, acquisition deals of businesses. It also offers the takeovers, strategic alliances, restructuring of the businesses and divestment opportunities for them. This division helps organization in launching IPO and stocks at proper time and regulates its procedure.

The company’s mission is to provide the best services and innovative products and ensure that customers should get the best services. It has clear motive as follows and ensure these in all its operations:

Responsibility – The roles and responsibility should be clear to employees.

Accountability – The managers and employees should have a proper level of accountability for the functionality they are providing.

Transparency – There should be proper transparency of the company’s performance to all the stakeholders and employees, and also the information regarding any changes should disseminate at all levels.

Fairness – All the stakeholders should be treated fairly.

ADCB HR Department

Human Resource Department of ADCB is headed by Sultan Al Mahmood. The HR department has its head operations at companies headquarter Abu Dhabi. At all other branches few representatives of the HR department are present and there are regional office offices where they report about the operations of the branches. These representatives keep track of the working of employees and survey their performance. At head office there are approximately 30-35 employees working in HR department and at every branch there are 3-4 employees looking into the employee’s performance. At regional offices the HR functionality is operated by 15-18 employees. So, in total HR department comprise of 150-200 employees.

This department is very active in terms of formulating innovative policies to improve the working condition in the bank. The HR department provides various functionalities like Human Capital Development, Training-Scheduling, Performance Management, Grievance Handling, Compensation/Reward Administration, Third Party Transactions, Employee Relations/Union Affairs, Benefits/Pension/Gratuity, and Welfare-Medical Insurance. The HR department coordinates with other departments and keeps track of the employees and their compliance with the rules and regulation of the company. ADCB has its corporate governance code and employees should adhere with this code. HR department ensures the best training facility for employees.

Previously in ADCB human resource of the company was used to be managed by the line managers. But it has become very important for every organization to have HR department [1] and specialists for implementing several HRM practices to improve the condition of the company. HRM helps in improving the working environment of the company and works in benefit of the common employee to increase everyone’s performance to get better results. HR professional’s responsibilities vary from quality recruitment & hiring through giving world class training and experience, their role are very important in creating motivation for the employees. They inspire the workers by implementing different policies like succession strategy and leisure manager concept. Their task is to regularly analyze the activities of every employee all over the company and then promote them accordingly, also the incentive and increase in basic salary is done after the evaluation process by HR specialists.

Learning & Organizational Development Department has taken several initiatives to improve the employee base of the company. It has also organized seminars like the first ADCB Business seminar in 2009. This seminar was a major breakthrough in improving the interaction of the employees with the experienced management and authority. In the seminar several speakers discussed their experience of the business life and the employees got opportunity to interact with these professionals.

Divisions of HR Department

The whole HR department operates in coordination with other department and take feedbacks from them so as to regulate the company operations properly. The department has several functionality as described above and can be represented in three divisions which are mentioned as follows:

Regulations & Compliance:

Disciplinary & Litigation Unit: This unit ensures that all employees are following the rules and guidelines of the company and takes disciplinary actions against the defaulters. It takes consideration of the organizational standard and reduces the employee infractions. All issues of union and the conflict resolution are also handled by this same unit.

Transfer & Posting Unit: Deals with the issues of the human resource sharing in between the departments and maintain the skill balance of the branches by periodic reviewing.

Employee Separation Unit: When any employee decides to leave ADCB, this unit arranges the negotiations and then conduct interviews for the leaving employee. The report is then submitted to the regional head office HR department. These reports help in improving the employee policies for future.

Internal Monitoring Unit: This unit is responsible for time to time auditing of the issues from several divisions and ensures the compliance with the ADCB policies and practices. Cooperation with external and internal auditors and assurance of proper implementation and operation of auditing process also comes under the consideration of this unit.

Business Planning & Budgeting Unit: The corporate strategy and planning is done by this unit and it decides all the budgeting decisions of the Plans. This unit also regulates the budgeting of the various operations on month by month basis.

Administration & Co-Ordination Unit: It ensures the interaction between different departments and regulates the information flow. Day to day activities of the HR department is also monitored by it.

Reward Management & HRIS: This division is responsible for all the practices of employee’s recognition and distribution of reward for the performance on time to time basis. This division also maintains the database of all the employees and the associated projects. Some of the major functions of this division are mentioned below:

Compensation & Benefit Planning: This unit tries to plan and implement most suitable practices for the compensations and benefits of the employees. It regulates the activities related to development of these strategies.

Employees Database: This unit is responsible for storing all the relevant information regarding employees and it helps in drawing conclusion from the HR data. It helps in broadcast of the talent demand.

Service Record & Compliance: This unit deals with the private information of the employees and maintains their record and verifies any information given by them.

HR Automation: This unit ensures the proper implementation of the HR Information system and adaptability of the HR practices in the software system used by ADCB.

Talent Management, Learning and Organizational Development: This division manages the talent pool of ADCB and ensures the proper training and induction procedure of new employees. This division looks into the matters of the organizational development by putting proper resources in research and development of new strategies according to the latest needs of markets. The units and their functionality in this division are mentioned below:

The HR Planning, Job Analysis & Design: All the activities of job design and analysis of the roles associated with the jobs are done by this unit. It is responsible for the HR planning of the ADCB. This unit conducts the review of the HR demand and accordingly plan for the year and conducts the evaluation process of job.

The Recruitment Planning & Organizational Development: This division plans all the recruitment procedures for the need of ADCB. It ensures the recruitment of right person, at right time, and in right quantity. This unit also looks into the matters of change management related issues and deals with the implementation of latest strategies in ADCB for the business need.

The Recruitment Operations: This unit is like subsidiary to previous unit as it looks into the operation of the recruitment and adoption of optimized technique for testing the candidates before their entry in the ADCB.

The Assessment Centers: This unit keeps monitoring the employee’s/ candidates performances and helps the HR department in planning the internal promotions for employees and providing suitable offers to candidates.

The Employee Orientation: This unit is functioning for the proper orientation of the employee towards their department and integrating them to the practices associated with their department. It works for providing directions to the new employees so that they can inculcate the organization’s culture in their work activities and maintain a good relation with their fellow members.

The Internal Job Posting: This unit runs in association with the Assessment center unit and works for providing best opportunity for the well performing employees.

The Performance Management: This unit operates the Performance management system that provides meriting procedures according to the work activities of the employees and facilitates the promotion accordingly.

The Reward & Recognition: This unit works for the encouragement of the extraordinary work of the employees and providing them the recognition so as to inspire the performing spirit in other employees. It helps in improving the bank’s performance. This unit also considers the importance of these employee recognition celebrations as it improves the image of the ADCB in market and attracts talent.

The Succession Planning: This unit monitors the talent pool of the ADCB and periodical identification of successors for some particular roles are done. This procedure also helps in identifying the need of training in employees.

The Employee Motivation & Retention: This unit works for the employee satisfaction measures and the practices that are necessary for the employee retention in ADCB. This unit encourages the confidence of employees and provides them support in their personal life so that they can perform well in the company.

Aims of HR Department

The HR department of ADCB is dedicated towards providing best opportunities for the candidates looking for the job in banking sector. Also the department is involved in the different measures for the employee satisfaction. For the best performance at the work the employees should feel comfortable with the working conditions of the ADCB. The HR department provides good quality orientation program so that every new employee can understand the culture of the company soon. The practices of the HR department about monitoring the employees are aimed for providing the encouragement to the performing employees on periodic basis.

The department aims that the ADCB should be the first choice of skilled workers and any potential candidate. The HR department wants to develop an image of ADCB in market as quality employer which uses value proposition in its operations and encourages every piece of good work at every level. The department has a clear mission of empowering the company with the talent pool that is required for the proper functioning of its business.

Methods used by HR Department

The HR department regularly monitors the market condition and the activities of employees with the help of its different units. The representatives at every branch keep posting information to the regional offices and their preliminary assessment is done there. After the primary analysis report is submitted at head office. The head office at Abu Dhabi monitors the report and compares the company’s activities with the competitor’s actions. It looks for any need of modification in the practices under implementation. If there arises the need of modifications, the organizational development unit gives the feedback of the market situations and the available options. The administration and planning unit analyzes every option and look into the feasibility of its implementation at ADCB. Several phase of analysis is done on the new approach and also cost benefit analysis is done. After the whole assessment the guidelines are released that is to be followed according to the new approach and every branch is sent the circulars about that. The employees are informed and training and development sessions are arranged suitable as per the need.

HR department also uses several methods to properly maintain a good working condition at ADCB. These methods are mentioned below:

Human Capital Development: Provides opportunities to the employees to develop and improve their skills and it helps in continuous improvement of talent pool in ADCB.

Training-Scheduling: HR department provides time to time training sessions to match their employees with the changing trends of market and fill them with latest techniques.

Performance Management: The department also has policy of providing ratings to the employees and they encourage the employees with good performance which inspires other employees to perform better. Also it helps in providing succession planning so the candidates for some bigger roles can be identified easily when required.

Grievance Handling: In case of any problems like accidents and deaths, the department supports the employees and his/her family with compensation associated with the ranking of employees.

Compensation/Reward Administration: This is the most attractive part for most of the employee so HR department always do lot of analysis and then decides the compensations and rewards associated for any job or achievement.

Third Party Transactions: The HR department outsources some of its activities like auditing and market research.

Employee Relations/Union Affairs: It also have its guidelines and approaches according to which they used to deal with the union issues and employees related conflicts.

Benefits/Pension/Gratuity: These are the basic policies that HR department provides fot the after job support of the employees.

Welfare-Medical Insurance: This facility is to provide support for the employee and family at times of medical issues. HR department facilitates financial support for them and hence shows the ADCB’s affection towards its employees

Change Management: The HR department deal with the people issues related with any type changes in the methodology under adoption at ADCB. The HR department regulates the employee’s behavior to facilitate the smooth implementation of new strategies and techniques.

Past Success of HR Department

The HR department of ADCB was not properly managed previously. But in last 2-3 years it has taken an upward swift towards the innovation and employee satisfaction. Its approaches are showing great results a d the performance of employees at ADCB has improved a lot. It has employees from 47 countries which show the type of diversity that a company aims is already available there. Also the male to female ratio is 60:40, which means it has been attracting every type of candidate for to do job at the company. ADCB also has adopted the Emiratization policy as regulated by the government and providing lots of opportunities for the nationals. ADCB was recognized at the 12th National Career Exhibition where its HR department and CEO were awarded with the Best Achiever Bank in Nationality. In the exhibition the HR department provided information about their activities towards the empowerment of UAE nationals. The ADCB is dedicated towards attracting, training and developing young nationals so as to make them capable of playing crucial role in the overall development of UAE country.

Also the attrition rate in ADCB is showing a downward trend that is a sign of proper functioning of the HR department. HR department with the help of its information system is improving the appraisal system and motivating the employee suitably and making them succeed to higher levels with good performance and training.

Measurement of Outcomes

Outcome of the HR department activities can be easily concluded from the report r about the attrition rate comparison was past years. The employee satisfaction is also significantly high with respect to other companies in the ADCB. There are more and more number of candidates willing to enter the company as they are seeing that their peers in ADCB are getting proper benefits of the work.

The image of ADCB has also improved and the company has become the organization which ensures the corporate social responsibility. The company is helping the education sector and has invested in several social issues like empowering Emirati people by making amendments in the recruitment policies to attract more UAE nationals in the job. The positions that are being given to the people are fairly according to their performance. The company has adopted a transparent system for job sub succession planning through which they allow performers to succeed on higher positions.

Planned HR Strategies

HR department is implementing different approaches to improve the company’s performance. They are mainly trying to improve the communication between the employees so as to increase the coordination among different departments. This is very important for every company that their departments should work in integrated manner. Major strategies that ADCB HR department is implementing are mentioned below:

Building a Communication Channel: A strong communication channel is very much required for the timely information dissemination. This strategy is very helpful in the integration of the activities of several departments and keeps every involved person up to date. With this updated information the interface of ADCB to the customer will be more able to provide services customized according to the needs. These will lead to the performance enhancement of the company and client satisfaction.

Diversity: This strategy is being adopted to develop a healthy working environment and that helps in the performance improvement of employees.

Emiratization of ADCB: The Emiratization drive of UAE government is being supported fully by ADCB and it is getting Best Emiratization award continuously from past 4 years. ADCB has developed the Emirati Academy Programme where its HR department ensures that the UAE students graduating from schools and colleges should be ready with the suitable knowledge and technical ability to be able to work for the company. It is also providing the internship opportunities for the UAE students and also on the job training facility. This is very helpful in the development of the overall society of the country and will be helpful in economic development for the long run.

Employee Retention: The ADCB HR department is adopting the best in industry training programs and skilled trainers for orientation of the new employees and existing employees. This practice ensures the availability of talent pool at any point of time in continuously changing market conditions.

Market Image Monitoring: The HR department has also become the image conscious of ADCB in the market and doing a lot of Corporate Social Responsibility activities so as to attract the skilled workers.

Recommendations & Conclusion

Based on the above study of the organization regarding the Human Resources practices in the organization, there are few areas which are critical to the organization and there are suggested few recommendations to enhance the hold of Human Resource Department in the company. These recommendations are as follows:

For strengthening Human Resource Planning:

Non-Discrimination: Training and development programs at ADCB are biased towards the UAE Nationals. Many good quality candidates could not take leverage of the education and skills imparted at such institutes. The company thus must take suitable actions to remove any discrimination with any stream of employees.

ADCB should take into confidence the migrant workers while pursuing Emiratization policy. This is necessary because almost 50% of employees working in the company are migrants

Focus should be on quality rather than quantity while making recruitment decision. ADCB should ensure that they find the suitable candidate for the company so that employee becomes an asset for organization but not a liability.

For employee motivation: ADCB should believe that its HR policy is a major derivative of its performance management and employee satisfaction schemes. It shows some excellent ways to encourage its employees to contribute more in its growth. Some examples include:

Family Day celebration: this is a unique way that can be adopted by ADCB to motivate its employees to their workplace. In this day, employees can bring their families to their workplace. In provide an opportunity for people to meet new people can to develop better bonding among employees, which sooner or later results more efficient work by employee and hence improving performance of the company.

Half-Day leave for birthday: Under this, employees are provided with an option to take a brake on their birthday form their office work. The motive is to make them realize that their workplace cares about them.

Other perks: Some attractive perks and facilities can be provided by ADCB to its employees include celebrations of some festivals with their family members, five working days a week, no urgent meetings on weekends, compulsory off from office work for a particular time-duration, engagement with call center training etc. The important thing is these policies are they can be executed without any preferences or discrimination between different levels within the firm.

Health: ADCB should cares for health issues of its employees. Different aerobics workshop, workshops for yoga and other aids for mental and physical relaxation may run within the organization. It can have dew tie-ups with leading health caring firms which conduct routine check-ups of not only the employees but also their family members to some extent. ADCB gives its employee free medical insurance. Other incentives could include stress management classes and regular health camps etc.