The Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards (AREA) 2023 is pleased to honor 78 outstanding business leaders and enterprises for championing sustainable and responsible business practices. Presented by leading regional NGO Enterprise Asia, the AREA is the most reputable award recognition program recognizing organizational efforts in creating a culture of compassion, integrity, and in being socially responsible corporate citizens. The AREA serves as a badge of excellence to spur further innovation and best-practice for sharing about the organization and the world at large.
Krungthai Bank PCL. (Krungthai Bank) was among the recipients who were conferred with the Investment in People Award. Established in 1966, Krungthai Bank is a leading commercial bank in Thailand. Aspiring to achieve full-scale digital banking, the bank has been investing heavily in digital infrastructure and technology to outpace disruption and better serve its customers in the digital era.
“The People Transformation Initiative” is aimed at creating an innovation culture and driving improvements for the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization, ensuring solid performance to weather digital disruption and a VUCA world. It is divided into three areas: People Skills Transformation, Leadership & Potential Transformation, and Culture Transformation.
For the People Skills Transformation, Krungthai Bank established key focus areas of development for business units in each business cluster and reviewed competency models to ensure that its employees are equipped with the skills required to work in digital banking and are ready to be assigned new roles and functions. They are then upskilled and reskilled accordingly. Simultaneously, efforts are made to recruit external talents, locally and globally, to bring in new skills required for a future-proof workforce. As for Leadership & Potential Transformation, Krungthai Bank puts emphasis on developing transformative leadership skills among team leaders, encouraging their participation in team development. The bank also encourages them to coach, mentor, and give feedback to their team members. Culture Transformation involves driving innovation culture by employing design thinking and OKRs to implement business units’ sustainability action plans. This process also includes holding corporate hackathons to encourage innovation and agile culture as well as finding hidden talents within the organization
The staff productivity ratio, which is calculated by dividing revenue by personnel expense was 6.65 in 2022, improving from 5.64 in 2020. Besides that, human capital ROI also increased from 4.5 in 2021 to 5.28 in 2022. Other achievements of this project include two corporate hackathons, in which a total of 282 employees generated 66 ideas for new business models or process improvements. As a result, 5 projects have been launched commercially. Finally, the bank’s employee engagement score from organization-wide biannual surveys has improved from 90.80% in 2021 to 91.60% in 2022.
Moving forward, Krungthai Bank will continue its work to ensure that employees have all the skills needed to do their jobs, improving their efficiency and productivity, hence the organization’s good performance and success.
Besides that, investing in people development is a never-ending process and has to be reviewed regularly, both in parts and as a whole, to ensure that the bank’s employees always have the ability and the will to execute its strategies. The framework and tools established in this initiative will be the foundation for future skill development, while the skills and competencies required will be reviewed to make sure that they are suitable for the current operations. This will lead to a situation where Krungthai Bank’s employees are future-proof.
About Enterprise Asia
Enterprise Asia is a non-governmental organization in pursuit of creating an Asia that is rich in entrepreneurship as an engine toward sustainable and progressive economic and social development within a world of economic equality. Its two pillars of existence are investment in people and responsible entrepreneurship. Enterprise Asia works with governments, NGOs and other organizations to promote competitiveness and entrepreneurial development, in uplifting the economic status of people across Asia and in ensuring a legacy of hope, innovation and courage for the future generation. Please visit https://www.enterpriseasia.org/ for more information.
About Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards (AREA)
The Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards program recognizes and honors Asian businesses for championing sustainable and responsible entrepreneurship in the categories of Green Leadership, Investment in People, Health Promotion, Social Empowerment, Corporate Governance, Circular Economy Leadership, Corporate Sustainability Reporting, and Responsible Business Leadership. For more information, visit: https://enterpriseasia.org/area/.