By Debbie Bolla
What drives success at global banking giant ING?
“There are a number of management practices that define the success of the bank,” says Hein Knaapen, CHRO of ING. “If you look at how company performance is driven, then culture is certainly an important element. But there is much more to it. There’s performance management, leadership development, the candidates you attract, and how you incentivise top talent.”
With this in mind, Knaapen has built a human capital management strategy around these pillars. In Banking on Behaviours, he shares how the organisation built its “Orange Code” culture based on employee practices that focus on collaboration, innovation, and accountability. The “Orange Code” touches all of ING’s human capital practices, including performance management.
ING “put performance management back to where it belongs: with managers,” says Knaapen. The “Step Up Performance Management” approach empowers managers to keep employees engaged through frequent check-ins that cultivate feedback that helps determine the key steps needed to produce favourable outcomes.
Having strong leadership is critical in today’s competitive marketplace. ING is investing in its leaders through its two-phase “Think-Forward Leadership Programme,” which provides executives with the skills and capabilities needed for the future.
What’s next? Knaapen says he is focusing on a new “Talent to Value” strategy that determines which roles bring the most value to ING. He believes this data-driven approach could be a real game changer for the organisation.
Because as he explains: “At the end of the day, HR does all of this only for one reason: We want to improve company performance.” We couldn’t agree more!
