Winning Secrets: How TMBThanachart Bank is investing in EX to build 'REAL change' from the inside out

From mindset shifts to skill-building bootcamps, the people strategy focuses on personalisation at scale – empowering teams to grow with purpose and deliver better outcomes for customers.

At TMBThanachart Bank (ttb), employee experience isn’t just a programme – it’s the foundation of how the bank delivers on its mission to improve life-long financial wellbeing for all. With initiatives like the Retail Academy Bootcamp, the team has redefined learning through personalised, purpose-led engagemen –transforming over 3,000 sales advisors into trusted financial partners, as Natthawan Apiratanapimolchai, Chief Retail Strategy Group shares.

The leader and her team proudly took home six category-driven awards, as well one Overall award at the Employee Experience Awards 2025, Thailand:

• Overall Learning Award
• Gold:
  • Best First-Time Manager Programme,
  • Best Learning and Development Programme,
  • Best Skilling Strategy,
  • Best Learning Technology Implementation, and
  • Best Soft Skills Training Programme

• Bronze: Best Rewards and Recognition Programme

Speaking to HRO, Natthawan shares how she and her team balance scale with individual impact, why purpose and psychological safety matter more than ever, and how every team member plays a role in making “REAL” change happen.

Q How does your team define "employee experience", and what aspects do you prioritise most?

At ttb, employee experience is the foundation that enables us to “Make REAL Change” – to genuinely improve life-long Financial Well-being for our customers by starting from within; with our people. When we take care of our employees as individuals, they can better serve our customers as individuals. That’s how we embed REAL change by prioritising three key aspects:

Think differently: We stop assuming that one-size-fits-all works – even for our people. We design development journeys and AI learning assistant tools tailored to the needs, goals, and career stages of our employees as individuals, just as we do for our customers.

Work smarter: We empower teams with new ways of working – from agile learning to digital and AI “One Retail Society” – to create a culture that helps them self-directed learning, connect and adapt in fast-changing environments for delivering organisational impact.

Deliver with purpose: We foster emotional engagement by creating purposeful moments that connect employees to ttb’s bigger mission. From strategic communications to recognition programmes, we ensure our people feel seen, valued, and motivated to grow.

Q Can you walk us through your most high-impact EX initiative that led to your success at the awards this year? What business need did it solve, and how was success measured?

Our most impactful initiative was the “Retail Academy Bootcamp” designed to transform our sales team into the REAL Trusted Financial Advisors. We created a unique, engaging learning atmosphere that combined mindset development, essential skill-building, and practical sales tools. The content focused on shaping:

1. The right mindset from offering a “single product focused” to “customer centric - providing financial consultation and solutions personalised to individuals.”
2. Building key skills in product and financial knowledge, portfolio & account management and consultative selling to build trust with customers and deliver financial solutions.

To make it success, we introduced a role-play competition, giving feedback by management team for applying their learnings into real-life sales scenarios. This not only boosted engagement but also showcased skill practices under pressure.

Success was measured through learning progression, behaviour change and sales performance. The Bootcamp’s hands-on, high-energy approach directly contributed to our award for Best Learning and Development Programme and reinforced our commitment to impactful, experience-driven learning.

Q How do you balance personalised employee needs with scalable EX programmes?

At ttb, we believe that scalability and personalisation are not opposing forces – they’re mutually reinforcing when grounded in clear purpose and strong programme design. Our most impactful initiative, the Retail Academy Bootcamp, is a prime example of this balance in action.

The Bootcamp was designed to transform our nationwide sales team into REAL Trusted Financial Advisors by combining three key elements:

• Mindset shift – from product-focused to customer-centric.
• Skill development – covering financial knowledge, portfolio & account management, and consultative selling.
• Engagement through experience – with hands-on learning and live role-play competitions evaluated by leaders.

While the programme was rolled out at scale for over 3,000 financial advisors, we maintained personalisation in several strategic ways:

• Segmented content design to reflect diverse experience levels and job roles.
• Role-play scenarios that mirrored real-life customer profiles, enabling participants to practice tailored consultations.
• Personalised feedback from senior management, which connected individual learning to career development.

We didn’t just track attendance — we measured learning progression, behaviour change, and sales performance to ensure the experience resonated on both personal and organisational levels.

By blending structure with adaptability, and by keeping the employee journey at the centre, we created a scalable programme that still felt personal – and impactful — to each participant.

Q What are some underappreciated drivers of employee engagement that you think deserve more attention?

There are underappreciated factors that can be just as powerful especially in fast-evolving organisations like ours at ttb.

One such factor is clarity of purpose. Employees want to know how their work connects to something larger than a task or KPI. At ttb, our mission to “Make REAL Change to improve our customers’ life-long Financial Well-being” gives our people a sense of meaning. But it’s not just about having a purpose — it’s about how we “Think”, “Work” and “Deliver” across levels and functions.

Another often overlooked driver is psychological safety – creating an environment where people feel safe to speak up, experiment, and even fail without fear of judgment. Especially in sales and service roles, this can dramatically impact confidence, creativity, and performance.

Lastly, management being a role model and walk the talk matter more than we often acknowledge. Not just performance reviews or check-ins, but authentic, in-the-daily moment conversations, coaching and feedback that help employees feel heard, guided, and valued.

In our journey with over 6,000 financial advisors in retail business, we’ve seen that engagement isn’t just a programme – it’s a culture built on everyday experiences, small moments, and human connections. These quieter drivers, when nurtured, create lasting impact.

Q Finally, what is the most important message that you'd like to share with your team?

“Be bold enough to challenge status quo, and committed enough to make a difference — because REAL change starts with us.”

At ttb, our mission to improve the Financial Well-being of Thai people requires us to continuously rethink how we work and deliver. As we plan ahead, we are not just preparing for another year — we are shaping the future of what it means to be a REAL Trusted Financial Advisor.

To my team, I want to say:

Stay curious. Embrace discomfort. Keep learning. You are not just delivering training or sending communications – you are igniting sales transformation in over 6,000 financial advisors, and in every customer interaction that follows.

Together, we will keep building a culture where our people feel confident, connected, and proud to be part of something meaningful. That’s the power of employee experience – and that’s how we will continue to Make REAL Change.

Thank you for being part of this incredible journey.

Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!

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