Over the past few years ICBC is building its own team of international staff while growing its overseas presence, according to the First ICBC Training Seminar for the Foreign Staff held earlier. As of today, ICBC has 175 overseas branches and subsidiaries in 22 countries/regions with an overseas workforce of nearly 3600. Out of them, over 90% are foreign staffs. ICBC's international team is taking shape.
Experience has proved that an international bank should work toward the globalization of staff and corporate culture in order to be truly international, not merely international in terms of business operation, branches and market. To set the stage, ICBC takes both sides of the world of "Go Global" and "Bring in" by moving staffs from home and abroad under one roof.
In two of the focus areas one is to let the local staffs "Go Global". Under the plan, those of outstanding are sent to work in the overseas subsidiaries. A talent pool will be set up with the staff trained up for overseas assignment through various programs and sharing sessions. They are strong backup for driving forward the business in overseas branches.
Another area is to bring in good staffs from overseas. To all extent ICBC overseas subsidiaries employ local staffs as much as possible. That included the management team, professional staff who are familiar with the local customers to engage in product development and market expansion.
Foreign staffs working in ICBC overseas subsidiaries are the main entities. They have very good understanding on the local market, the regulatory rules, the customs and the skill to communicate with local customers. These factors play an important role for ICBC the new entrant to gain foothold and start business quickly in a new market.
However, foreign staffs joining ICBC are mainly through acquisition or newly recruits, implying that they have relatively few knowledge on the corporate culture and business style of ICBC. Therefore, ICBC organizes training sessions and visits to domestic branches primarily for them to know ICBC in a close distance.
Let them join the ICBC family and proud to be an "ICBC person". One foreign staff said after the visit to Shanghai Data Center and understood the IT strength of ICBC, "Before I know ICBC is the world's largest bank by market value and the most profitable. Today, I see the progress of ICBC is backed by the bank's mastery of IT.
I feel that ICBC deserves the name. Being an ICBC person, I feel very proud".
Besides organizing special training, ICBC pays special attention to bridge the culture gap in foreign staffs. ICBC respects staffs of different races, skin colors, religion or cultural background. ICBC Indonesia is a case in point. The Islamic culture and customs of Indonesia is vastly different from China.
As a token of respect to the Muslim staffs, ICBC Indonesia set up prayer rooms in each floor at the headquarters and in each branch for them to sit for prayer on the day. No meeting or assignment will be arranged during the five times of prayer in a day. The arrangement is warmly received by the Muslim staffs.
They feel better and loyal to work in ICBC.
According to ICBC spokesperson, ICBC remains committed to the core philosophy of "people oriented, brain trust". Staffs are the most scarce and precious resources. ICBC is drawing up a global staff management policy with the future globalization strategy combined. ICBC is taking various measures to build a management scheme to manage the foreign staff in line with the needs of the foreign markets yet with ICBC characteristics.
Such measures include recruitment from the market, management through unified platform, progress via different channels, exchanges through many dimensions, training to every level and personalized services. ICBC takes keen interest to empower the staffs to their maximum full play across the world and groom them into a competitive international workforce.
Meanwhile, ICBC will also incorporate corporate culture as one important force to cultivate and improve own international team in order to set for global advance.
