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This article is brought to you by Societe Generale
The bank supports talents in developing their professional and personal capabilities, within an inclusive and engaging environment, while promoting creative career paths.
Founded by a group of entrepreneurs in 1864 to promote the development of trade and industry, Societe Generale (SocGen) is today one of APAC’s leading financial services groups. But a 158-year-old legacy doesn’t mean that the spirit of entrepreneurship has diminished – on the contrary, the business mission has spilled over into the workforce, creating a people-oriented company culture where employees can thrive.
SocGen’s leadership doesn’t only care about employees and their performance in the short term; they highly value long-term relationships with employees. With an industry-leading average staff tenure of seven years, recognition from the employer and colleagues has been identified as critical to one’s job satisfaction. This is why the yearly ‘Commitment Awards’ campaign is well-loved by the staff, which recognises exceptional contributions to the bank or the community at large. The ‘thank-you’ culture is further magnified by ‘Spotlight’, an internal interactive platform that recognises positive behaviours and celebrates colleagues’ milestones.
“To support our managers to motivate and recognise in the most efficient way, we have published a toolkit for managers which includes tips on effective recognition,” adds Mukta Arya, Managing Director, Chief Human Resources Officer, APAC, Societe Generale.
Apart from valuing professional accomplishments, SocGen gladly makes space for employees’ personal life, wellbeing, and growth. All staff in the Hong Kong office, which is the centre of operations in the Asia Pacific region, are entitled to work from home for up to two days per week – on top of a monthly ‘flexi day’ benefit. On the hardware side, reimbursement is provided to support the setting up of the work-from-home environment; on the software side, training resources are shared with both managers and employees on managing remote working.
Employees do, however, have plenty of reasons to return to the office given the facilities have just been upgraded. The bank has invested in improving the office environment. This sees the addition of a collaboration area, a ‘Recharge’ room, the calming ‘Zen Bubble’, expanded pantry areas, and a phone booth for quiet time.
Further along the employee lifecycle comes the ‘3P’ principle behind the talent policy – performance, potential, and projection. This talent segmentation feeds into several developmental programmes, among which one of the most recent additions is ‘Live my Life’.
Launched in 2021, the main objective of this initiative is to enable employees to discover and understand jobs and departments outside of their own, thus accelerating cross-learning opportunities. It leverages resources such as lunch-and-learn events, internal career fairs, as well as webinars and presentations.
Apart from on-the-job skills, employees also unlock life skills – take, for instance, the mental health first-aid training for staff in Hong Kong, which has given colleagues the confidence to act as first responders to support each other’s mental health before directing someone to trained mental health advisors.
Clearly, a career in SocGen is not just another banking job – it is a place where staff benefits from employability, meaningful tasks, and internal mobility.
Arya affirms: “For us, providing access to diverse tasks that will impact the community ensures that each individual can help build a better tomorrow.”
With Arya and her HR team leading the way, HR at SocGen is becoming a game-changer to the business. In the years to follow, she sees HR assessing and creating the company’s impact on its workforce and the wider community (essentially, the ‘S’ in ESG) through: diversity & equality, employee rights, wellbeing, and growth.
She concludes: “We will also continue articulating ‘moments that matter’ in the company’s culture through: expected behaviours, compensation and performance decisions, capability building, and recruitment.”
Photos / Societe Generale
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