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DBS To Proactively Re-Skill 1,500 Employees To Equip Them With New Skills And Competencies To Be Future-Ready

In an all-out effort to help its employees obtain the necessary knowledge and competencies to sharpen their competitiveness and deepen their skillset, DBS Bank today announced that it will proactively re-skill 1,500 employees in the next 18 months. These employees will be re-skilled under the bank’s proactive Professional Conversion Programme (DBS PCP).

In a first for a Singapore bank, DBS has proactively mapped out 8 job roles to help employees in these roles obtain the necessary knowledge and competencies to take on new or enhanced roles within the bank after being re-skilled.

The roles identified are from departments across the bank, such as back-end operations in Consumer Banking and Institutional Banking and client-facing ones in branches.

For example, a Branch Service Executive whose current job is to serve customers’ banking needs over the counter, can be re-skilled to help the bank raise awareness of its latest self-service options. In another example, a Customer Service Officer (CSO) currently stationed at the Customer Centre could be re-skilled to do more than just answering incoming calls. A CSO’s role can be enhanced to also serve customers through new digital channels such as live chat, video teller machines (VTM), emails and even social media.

Nahariah Mohd Nor, now 45 years old, joined DBS for the second time in 2008. As a Service Executive, her role was to serve customers’ banking needs over the counter at the branch and help them with account opening, cash deposits and withdrawals. This year, after close to nine years as a Service Executive with DBS, Nahariah wanted to try her hand at a new role and specifically requested to do something related to technology and banking.

After speaking with her manager, Nahariah underwent six weeks of intense classroom training and started her on-the-job training stint at the DBS Customer Centre as a Customer Service Officer. In this new role, she uses her 20 years of branch banking knowledge to help answer customers’ queries virtually through a VTM.

Nahariah said,

Nahariah Mohd Nor

“The banking industry is changing so fast and I kept reading about all these digital trends in banking. I’m glad that I took the leap to re-skill myself because I now feel more confident to face the future where technology is changing the way customers bank and transact.

My new colleagues and supervisors are very supportive and my new role gives me a greater sense of ownership and empowerment. I am always delighted when customers are happy with my service. And I love it when they take selfies with me after I successfully help them through a transaction or query!”

Another example is Ratna Manoharan, now 51 years old. Ratna joined DBS in 1985 as a branch employee processing more than a thousand cheques a day. Today as an Assistant Service Manager, she is empowered to take a more proactive role in helping customers with their banking needs.

Ratna said,

Ratna Manoharan

“With the training that DBS has equipped me with, I feel confident when taking on new opportunities and challenges that come with working in the banking industry. With these new skills, what’s most important is that I’m also able to advise customers to make banking simpler and more convenient for them.”

To fund the Bank’s proactive Professional Conversion Programme, DBS will receive partial funding from Workforce Singapore (WSG), with the balance of the re-skilling costs borne by the bank. Employees who are on the programme will undergo classroom training ranging from five days to a month and six months of on-the-job training.