Thirty years of increasing responsibility for bank employees

Mandate

Connect remuneration, succession and workforce decisions across the bank while strengthening the quality of management conversations.

Outcomes

• Introduced prospective conduct assessment in the 2022 incentive scheme for 320 relationship managers.
• Completed 118 internal placements during the 2023 transition affecting 160 employees.
• Funded four nine-month successor assignments following the 2024 review of twelve critical positions.
• Established ninety-day follow-up for internal moves, with 38 reviews completed by September 2026 from 46 first-half transfers.

Decisions in context

The CHRO appointment brought the whole people function into my remit, including rewards, employee relations, learning, talent and personnel operations. I report to the group CEO and present executive proposals to two board committees; I do not serve as a director. The function comprises eighty-six employees through seven direct reports, with S$24 million of delegated expenditure in 2026. The hardest work has involved choices that could not satisfy every objective at once. Prospective incentive changes left earlier conduct matters to separate processes. Internal placements required more overlapping cost than the operations timetable first allowed. Succession assignments required business heads to release people they relied on. I have tried to keep those consequences visible rather than describe each programme as an uncomplicated improvement. My present priority is the quality of the first months after an internal move, with receiving managers accountable for support and unresolved reviews kept open until they are actually completed.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; considering a future mandate only with a planned transition and employer consent for any external activity.

Mandate

Bring employee relations, staffing and management development into a coordinated regional function with country-specific implementation.

Outcomes

• Introduced named case ownership across sixteen regional personnel-service workflows.
• Established quarterly staffing discussions for twenty-four branch and operations units.
• Completed manager preparation sessions for 180 line managers during the 2018–2019 programme.

Decisions in context

I joined Neralith to broaden my contribution beyond remuneration. The role required staffing, employee relations and management development work across two countries, with local advice wherever employment obligations differed. By the end of 2019, forty-eight colleagues worked through five direct reports and my annual regional function budget was S$11 million. We introduced named ownership across sixteen personnel-service workflows and quarterly staffing conversations for twenty-four units. The manager programme reached 180 participants over 2018 and 2019, but attendance alone did not establish that every difficult conversation had improved. I asked the team to follow selected cases through to the employee's response and the manager's next action. That practice helped me see where the function was giving technically correct advice without enough attention to implementation. The promotion to CHRO followed a period of learning to coordinate specialists and country leaders without assuming that my rewards background answered every question they faced.

Reason for the move

Promoted to group CHRO in January 2020 after seven years leading the regional function.

Mandate

Develop pay structures and incentive proposals as the bank integrated operating teams and expanded its management population.

Outcomes

• Supported a common job framework for 240 employees in the 2009 integration.
• Arranged eighteen months of transitional allowances with an estimated S$640,000 programme cost.
• Reviewed twenty-two mapping appeals; eight mappings changed after reassessment.

Decisions in context

The compensation role gave me a specialist team and a closer relationship with finance and risk colleagues. I led six specialists during the 2009 integration and twelve rewards employees through three leads by the end of 2012. My S$2.4 million function budget did not authorise me to determine the bank's remuneration outcomes independently. The integration of 240 employees exposed a weakness in my initial approach: a common framework could look sensible while the timing of allowance changes imposed unequal practical burdens. We retained transitional arrangements, accepted a three-month delay and changed eight job mappings after review. That experience made consultation part of design rather than a step reserved for implementation. I left for Neralith because I wanted to work across employee relations and staffing as well as rewards. The move expanded my responsibilities, but it also required me to become more comfortable relying on specialists whose disciplines were not my own.

Reason for the move

Accepted the regional director role at Neralith in January 2013 to take broader responsibility for people management.

Mandate

Analyse job evaluations, proposed pay changes and remuneration data for the compensation manager.

Outcomes

• Prepared evaluation records for ninety-six positions during a two-year framework review.
• Separated responsibility, performance and retention grounds in the pay-exception submission format.
• Produced twenty-two quarterly rewards summaries during the appointment.

Decisions in context

As a rewards analyst, I worked in a five-person team with no direct reports or authority to approve employee pay. I prepared evaluation records for ninety-six positions during a two-year framework review and produced twenty-two quarterly summaries over the appointment. The most useful change I proposed was small: pay exceptions had to distinguish a change in responsibility from performance recognition and retention concerns. Previously, those arguments could be combined in a way that made the eventual approval difficult to interpret. My manager retained the decision-making role. I learned to test the consistency of a proposal without assuming that a numerical model could settle every judgement. The move to Tersali gave me my first specialist team and responsibility for organising other people's analysis. It was a deliberate step from producing a recommendation to ensuring that a group could produce coherent advice under competing requests from managers.

Reason for the move

Joined Tersali as compensation manager in July 2006 for a first specialist-team leadership role.

Mandate

Maintain joining records, resolve personnel-data exceptions and support branch staffing administration.

Outcomes

• Reconciled 340 joining-record exceptions during the 1998 data review.
• Helped introduce a second-person check for allowance changes.
• Supported personnel visits to eighteen branches over the appointment.

Decisions in context

I began the month after completing my degree, working in a nine-person personnel operations team. The role involved records, payroll checks and branch staffing administration under a supervisor's approval. I had no budget or management authority. A review in 1998 required reconciliation of 340 joining-record exceptions, and I helped introduce a second-person check for allowance changes. Visits to eighteen branches showed me how central processes affected daily work, particularly when a correction took longer than an employee had been told. I learned to follow the issue through rather than regard forwarding it to another team as completion. Those experiences made me curious about the decisions behind pay arrangements, not only their administration. Moving into rewards analysis in January 2001 allowed me to examine those decisions more closely while retaining the practical concern for the person receiving the eventual explanation.

Reason for the move

Moved internally into rewards analysis in January 2001 after developing an interest in pay decisions.