Full of Asian promise
Having started his career based in the Middle East where he was a lecturer and adviser to the Bahrain Ministry of Finance, Stephen Sidebottom, now head of HR with investment bank Nomura International, explains how important it is for Nomura to build up its talent pool in Asia, and why he thinks there is great competitive gain to be had by creating more opportunities for women.
You began your career based in Bahrain in the Middle East. How different are the HR issues in the Middle East compared with the UK?
The main issue with working in the Middle East was understanding the organisational dynamics and the importance of social and family relationships within a working environment. They have a much more personal, relationship-based approach. For me, working in the Middle East was a great experience in learning how to network and take the time to build relationships rather than just to focus on transactional delivery. Part of the fun of working there was to be immersed in a different culture and experience how it felt to work as part of a minority. For example, when I worked with the Bahrain Ministry of Finance where employees were predominantly Bahrainis. The biggest shock in moving back to the UK was that people at work felt so much more homogenous – with fewer different points of view or surprising approaches to issues.
How do you think HR has changed over the last 20 years?
I think the relationship between work and family life has changed considerably over the years, and we must now be more creative to address employee needs. For example, McDonald’s have embraced this challenge by introducing a family job-share scheme where, if the employee isn’t able to work for a specific reason, they can designate a member of the family to take their place. There is also the issue of how people define family and friends. For many people friends have the same importance in their lives as, historically, family did. There is also the impact of networking sites such as Facebook. To a degree, I think these interactive sites are reasonably healthy for employees as a networking tool as long as there is no negative impact on performance.
Part of revamping Nomura’s international operations included prioritising the allocation of personnel to Asia. Did it involve relocating European employees to Asia or did you focus on employing Asian talent?
The goal for us as an organisation is to continue our journey to build on our business success and our Asian domestic market. We are the fifth largest pure investment bank in the world and the only player with an Asian heritage. Delivering tailored innovative solutions that optimise both our European and Asian skills and expertise is a key driver for the bank. We recognise that building connections between our international offices and the client insight we obtain in each region is critical to the success of the organisation. We have an enormous amount of European talent to meet client needs and what we are trying to do is export this talent into the Asian network. In general, people are extremely enthusiastic to work in our Asian offices due to the many opportunities available there at the moment. We have actually just introduced a graduate programme that involves Asian graduates joining the English language induction and training programme here in London and then working in our London offices to gain product expertise. It is a way of building up our talent pool in Asia and achieving stronger integration between the two regions.
In March 2006 one of the direction and initiatives outlined by CEO Nobuyuki Koga was personnel reforms. Can you explain a bit more about this?
The personnel reforms involved two very different aspects. The first approach was focused on managing our overall talent base in Japan. We have to compete for talent in a very competitive market. In Japan, companies traditionally employ university graduates. There is a huge intake of people straight out of university who are trained with the expectation that they will stay with the company for a considerable length of time, perhaps even life. A relatively small percentage of recruits are experienced hires: there is definitely a focus on graduate talent. Now, however, banks in Japan are starting to operate in a more competitive market for talent and there is more employee movement.
The second approach was to create a focus on women’s careers in Japan. We set up a steering group dedicated to looking into women’s careers and how we could attract more successful women into senior professional roles in the organisation. We recognise that they are a vital talent base and have increasing economic power. In Japan, it has historically and traditionally been extremely difficult for women to achieve good managerial positions. Nomura wants to tap into this talent pool and give women full professional opportunities.
It is widely accepted that to attract talent financial reward is still one, but not necessarily the only, priority for a potential employee. In the finance industry, where bonus schemes play such a big role, do you think this is seen more of a priority for attracting talent?
It is true, people are attracted to the sector because of financial reward but there is also the much broader issue of generating energy and high levels of performance and motivation. It is not all about money, although people do expect fairness in reward. They accept that if people have a high level of performance they will be rewarded well. The other side of the coin is that, generally, they understand that if they don’t achieve then the reward will not be as significant. It is important that there is clarity in the way you measure performance and deliver reward. If you are measuring and rewarding performance effectively you will be in a much better place to motivate people.
Given that Nomura is very much a global organisation, do you tailor your strategies between countries?
Most global organisations combine global and local HR strategies. For example, much recruitment is managed locally, as is most technical training and employee relations. Strategic talent management initiatives and leadership programmes have to be managed on a global basis. As far as high potentials are concerned there can be the danger that they are defined around a single set of values – often informed by the values of the head office. It is important that we try to have a more catholic view – that we benefit from bringing perspectives from our Asian, European and American businesses. Creating elites in a high-potential programme can create friction between those who are included and those who are excluded. In the Asian context this becomes even more culturally difficult. We have recognised a need to move away from identifying high potentials as part of an elite to more of a network approach, focusing on those people who have the ability to connect with and influence their colleagues and the organisation and achieve success that way.
You have a very comprehensive crisis management structure
in relation to the safety of your employees. Was this in response to recent terrorism threats?
We hold a number of crisis management run-through sessions during the year and have established a pattern of continually reviewing our crisis management plans. A lot of work has gone into developing and testing our plans in action to give us a good understanding how equipped we are to respond to a crisis. I think it is accepted that it is good management practice to do so, given the current climate. As an organisation, we are well aware that there is an increased threat so we have gone through all the scenarios. It meant that when London experienced the terrorist attacks in 2005, we were able to spring straight into action.
Do you think that one of the biggest recent challenges in HR has been involving business managers, and indeed the CEO of the company, in your talent strategies?
If I was to give my honest opinion on this, it would be to say that this is symptomatic of a failing HR department. HR has got to be about delivering business value. Strong relationships with business managers and involvement in talent strategies follow on from delivery, not the other way round. The way we operate at Nomura is to ensure that HR relentlessly focuses on creating a high performance business and using human capital to achieve results. By delivering value in this way this question does not even arise.
If you had to name the biggest issue in talent management today, what would it be?
I think there are several issues to address, but if I had to name the one biggest issue I think it would have to be the issue of gender. There is a considerable pool of women that are not able to contribute at a senior level. It is a major competitive issue and unless we can create opportunities for these women then we are missing a massive trick. It is a very complex issue because it is not around a lack of willing. We need to work out responses to issues such as pay disparity, and why there are a lack of women returning to senior roles following maternity leave. It requires cultural change, real dialogue and much more research to understand what is happening, why, and what the levers are. These issues really are fundamental.
Personnel Today named you as one of the top 40 ‘movers and shakers’ in the HR industry. How does this feel?
I was delighted. It was good for me, it was good for my team and it was good for Nomura because one of the things we have been focusing on is building our employment brand. We want to make it clear to people why they would enjoy working at Nomura, being clear about what the opportunities are and that we are an innovative, successful firm. We are proud of our heritage, of being part of an Asian bank and the unique opportunity that that presents for current and potential employees.
