Learn how DBS successfully engages its employees

/ 3 July 2019

The battle to acquire, and retain, the best talent looks set to remain heated for the foreseeable future as many of the world’s economies enjoy high levels of employment. Nowhere is this more true than in financial services and banking. As the industry continues to be transformed by technology, and increasing regulation, institutions face a new frontier when it comes to workforce expectations and employee engagement. For financial institutions to succeed, it’s imperative to have an effective employee engagement strategy.

Indeed, the case for successful employee engagement is clear. It’s not just staff that benefit from a positive and engaging work environment, businesses who rank top when it comes to employee engagement also enjoy:

– 20% higher sales
– 21% higher profitability
– 17% higher productivity
– 41% lower absenteeism
– 59% lower employee turnover

(Source: Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2017)

Despite this compelling evidence of the importance of employee engagement, research also shows that most of our organisations are not hitting the mark. Many of us have invested heavily in programmes but they are not resulting in measurable improvements in employee engagement.

The reason we are failing is that our engagement activities are just not actually that engaging – they lack the ability to grab the employees’ attention, tackle the issues that matter to them or remain front of mind. Let’s be honest with ourselves, most of this activity isn’t actually that much fun. It might be informative but it misses one important ingredient – entertainment.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Gamification is a tried and tested way of enhancing an experience so that it delivers increased levels of engagement and helps drive that much needed participation and subsequent behavioural change.

For four years now, 3radical has been working with DBS Bank on its employee engagement. DBS Bank put employee engagement among its top priorities and worked with us to incorporate game design and technology into the Bank’s employee engagement activities to great effect. Taking this gamified approach appears to be paying dividends for the Bank, it was recently voted Best Bank in the World by Global Finance, and Best Digital Bank by EuroMoney. Not only does it achieve exceptionally high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction, it also continues to see both income and profits rising year-on-year.

We thought their experience would be of interest to others looking to boost their employee engagement strategy so we invited Wenxian Yeo, DBS Singapore’s Chief Operating Officer, to share, first-hand, her insights into the Bank’s digital transformation journey and how they continue to engage employees in their vision and goals.

In her presentation, Wenxian discussed the Bank’s approach to employee engagement and shares how it engages its middle management through its annual Virtual Conference, an event that won Most Creative – Business Event, and Most Effective Use – Apps/Mobile in the prestigious MARKies awards in 2018.

Powered by the 3radical Voco platform for the fourth year running, this week-long digital event incorporates different game design elements to teach, engage, incentivise, and motivate participants. Each day new content is released to maintain participation levels and throughout the week employees learn about the Bank’s vision and strategic priorities in a way that is informative, interesting, entertaining and relevant to them.

Watch the short recording of her speech today to learn valuable insights and ideas to help you improve engagement within your organisation.

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