A REPOT ON

MANAGING TALENT FOR SUSTAINABLE COMPETITVE ADVANTAGE

DECEMBER 9, 2018

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 A Report on
“Managing Talent for Sustainable Competitive Advantage”

Prepared for

Prof. Abu Sohel-Uz-Zaman

Fall 2018

Human Resource Management

Course code: HRM 604

Prepared by

Section: B

Name ID
Md Rafiul Islam Raju 112 181 033
Tahsin Ara Mizan 112 182 010
Sohana Reza 112 183 023
Hafsa Ahsan Mowry 112 183 029

Date: 9th December, 2018

United International University

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December 9, 2018

Prof. Abu Sohel-Uz-Zaman

School of Business
United International University

Subject: Report Submission on Managing Talent for Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Dear Sir,

We would like to thank you for all your support and encouragements that you have given
us. It has certainly been a tremendous help while we were completing this report. You
helped us overcome to become in many instances.

We have done our due diligence collecting and verifying the data while creating this report
to make sure we are presenting the correct information. We are very happy to inform you
that the experience we have gathered while creating this report has helped us discover new
things and certainly we had a paradigm shift on our thinking towards HRM now. Thank you
for getting the best out of us.

We are very much looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to reach out to us
with any question or need clarifications.

Yours Sincerely,
Behalf of the group

Tahsin Ara Mizan

ID: 112 183 010

DECEMBER 9, 2018

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The successful accomplishment of this Report is the outcome of the contribution and
involvement of a number of people, especially those who took the time to share their thoughtful
guidance and suggestions to improve the report. It’s difficult for us to thank all of those people
who have contributed something to this report. There are some special people who cannot go
without mentioning.

First of all, we would like to thank our honorable academic supervisor Prof. Abu Sohel-Uz-
Zaman sir, Professor, School of Business, United International University. We are thankful to
him for his continuous support and supervision, suggestions and providing us with valuable
information that was very much needed for the completion of these tasks.

Then, we express our sincere gratitude to the Rifah Tasnia commercial banking documentation
officer in HSBC for helping us by giving necessary information during the entire report period.
we would like to also express our gratitude to the entire person for teaching us and supporting us
for our report experience.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Part-ONE-Theoretical Background............................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 2
1.2 Talent Management ................................................................................................................................ 2
1.3 The seven components of talent management ........................................................................................ 4
1.4 Competitive advantage............................................................................................................................ 5
1.5 Sustainable competitive advantage ......................................................................................................... 5
1.6 Origin of the Report ................................................................................................................................ 6
1.7 Objective of the report ............................................................................................................................ 6
1.9 Limitations of the report ......................................................................................................................... 7
1.10 Scope of the Study ................................................................................................................................ 7
Part-TWO-Literature Review ....................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Talent Management ................................................................................................................................ 8
2.3 Competitive Advantage .......................................................................................................................... 9
2.4 Critical factors of Talent Management that must be considered............................................................. 9
2.5 Talent management and competitive advantage ................................................................................... 10
2.6 Theories of talent management ............................................................................................................. 11
2.7 Talent management coordinators .......................................................................................................... 11
2.8 Talent attraction and selection .............................................................................................................. 11
2.9 Talent retention ..................................................................................................................................... 12
2.10 Talent development ............................................................................................................................. 12
2.11 Role of talent management on organization competitive advantage................................................... 13
Part-Three -HSBC BANK .......................................................................................................................... 14
3.1 Organizational Background of HSBC................................................................................................... 14
3.2 Mission, Vision and Values of HSBC .................................................................................................. 14
3.3 Human resource practices in HSBC for talent management ................................................................. 15
3.4 Human Resources practices in HSBC Bank ......................................................................................... 16
3.4.1 HR Activities ..................................................................................................................................... 16
3.4.2 Recruitment process ........................................................................................................................... 17
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3.4.3 Selection process ................................................................................................................................ 18
3.4.4 Training and development process .................................................................................................... 19
3.4.5 Training objectives............................................................................................................................. 20
3.4.6 Performance management .................................................................................................................. 20
3.4.7 Effective resourcing strategy ...................................................................................................... 22
3.4.8 Effective learning and development............................................................................................ 22
3.4.9 Competitive compensation packages .......................................................................................... 23
3.4.10 Pay for Performance ................................................................................................................... 23
3.4.11 Benefits ....................................................................................................................................... 23
3.4.12 Motivational and appraisal .......................................................................................................... 24
3.5 Competitor analysis .............................................................................................................................. 24
3.6 Competitive Advantage of HSBC ......................................................................................................... 25
Part-FOUR .................................................................................................................................................. 25
4.1 Findings................................................................................................................................................. 25
4.2 Analysis................................................................................................................................................. 27
4.2.1 SWOT analysis .................................................................................................................................. 27
4.3 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 28
4.4 Recommendation .................................................................................................................................. 28
Part- FIVE-Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 29
5.1 Questionnaires....................................................................................................................................... 29
5.2 Work plan: ............................................................................................................................................ 30
5.3 Contribution of the Group Member ...................................................................................................... 30
Part-SIX- Reference .................................................................................................................................... 31

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 Executive Summary

In this report we are trying to show how a company manages its talent for sustainable
competitive advantage. Now days it is an emerging issue and practice by most of the companies.
In this competitive world, a company must win over others to sustain which result in increasing
of competition in intense manner. Every company tries to differentiate their products, service or
strategies so that they can achieve competitive advantage. Organizations work towards the
achievement of their mission and strategic objectives. This requires a thorough understanding of
the resources required for achieving the same HSBC Group is one the world's largest financial
institutions. It has 284,000 employees and 125 million customers in 76 countries producing
earnings of $13.1 billion in the first half of 2006. Two characteristics make HSBC unique in the
financial services industry. Both drive their growth and differentiate their business from
competitors. They are HSBC brand and their 150-year old culture which is founded on core
values of Integrity, Collegiality and Diversity. HSBC strive for cultural continuity by
exemplifying the core values in their relationship with shareholders, clients, and employees. In
this report we have shown that how HSBC practices their hr strategies and how they developed
their talent to gain the competitive advantage. Talent management at HSBC TM is considered
very important at HSBC. The official, organizational website states that they have exceptional
training programmers, as well as a global talent management strategy. HSBC is one of the few
organizations in the world that has built a Talent factory. The report reflects how strongly HSBC
practices hr culture in the organization. The recruitment goals of HSBC are to attract and retain
highly qualified human resources who will perform best in respective areas. They follow well
described Recruitment and selection process to recruit their talent. This excellent recruitment
process helps them to choose best hr for the organization. HSBC bank is always keen on
performance evaluation of the staffs to deliver a better service to its clients. Performance
evaluation will help in findings the employees needs and company can collect views from the
employees and can act on to meet the necessary needs. However, managing talent for sustainable
competitive advantage is a long process which requires lots of steps to reach the top. Managers
are now very focused on this issue and Dedicated and manage the talent to use their talent
properly.

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Part-ONE-Theoretical Background

1.1 Introduction
Our people are our most important asset ‘This is the management mantra we have heard for long.
Today, this phrase is uttered in hushed and fearful tones by executives and managers
acknowledging and contemplating the challenges of delivering value within their organization
through people. In short, the rhetoric has been taken over by the reality. As business and
organizational leaders have confronted this new reality, they have looked for new ways to better
understand, measure, and manage this important asset. While they may understand intuitively the
importance of their talent strategies to organizational success, they yearn for a model that allows
them to conceptualize, measure their progress, and leverage this asset to add greater value. Based
on research, consulting assignments, and the input from preeminent contributors, In this report
we try to describe That how the organization manage its talent management for sustainable
competitive. A company must be careful about its customer’ customer’s expectations and about
rising competitions. In order to gain competitive advantage, the company must differ its product
or service. In that case human is the most important asset to get competitive advantage. For HR
to prove that talent management can be of strategic importance to organizations, the critical
relationship between the two is proven. Talent management specially needs to be projected as a
differentiating strategic capability that can offer real and substantial competitive advantage.
Unlike other non contingent capabilities that can be developed easily and contribute to a large
extent towards the development of a sustainable competitive advantage and help to differentiate
strategic capability such as strategic HR through talent management. It helps to gain the future
opportunities and also help to win over others as well as speed up its excellence.

1.2 Talent Management

Talent management refers to the anticipation of required human capital for an organization and
the planning to meet those needs. Talent management is the science of using strategic human
resource planning to improve business value and to make it possible for companies and
organizations to reach their goals. Everything done to recruit, retain, develop, reward and make
people perform forms a part of talent management as well as strategic workforce planning. A
talent-management strategy should link to business strategy to function more appropriately.
Employees typically constitute 60% of the organization’s operating costs. In a business or
organization supply sense, employees are more difficult to source, have longer lead times for
replacement, cost more than ever before and have a very high total replacement cost. Intellectual
capital loss is often not considered as a direct cost, but it will have an increasing impact on
organizations as the world’s major economies transition from the industrial age to the services
age (knowledge workers).

In most organizations however, there is little consideration for the cost of replacement, training,
induction, time taken for the employee to get up to speed (be 100% productive in their new role).
Most organizations have little or no infrastructure, systems or procedures to deal with the costs
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of employee turnover. Given that this is the single largest expense in an organization, clearly
more appropriate tools and technologies are needed to manage Human Capital.

Talent Management is a tool to assist organizations through:

1. Reducing Employee Initiated Turnover (involuntary turnover)

2. Improving Resilience by having employees cross skilled so that they can take over
Critical Roles correctly.
3. Growing Talent within as it becomes more difficult to source externally
4. Helping Mangers understand that there is a major impact of not managing their teams

Talent management is an organization's commitment to recruit, hire, retain, and develop the most
talented and superior employees available in the job market. So, talent management is a useful
term when it describes an organization's commitment to hire, manage, develop, and retain
talented employees. It comprises all of the work processes and systems that are related to
retaining and developing a superior workforce. Talent management is a business strategy that
organizations hope will enable them to retain their topmost talented and skilled employees. Just
like employee involvement or employee recognition, it is the stated business strategy that will
ensure the attraction of top talent in competition with other employers. When company tells a
prospective employee that he is dedicated to a talent management strategy that will ensure that
he or she will have the opportunity to develop professionally, company attracts the best talent.
This is because studies show consistently that the opportunity to continue to grow and develop
their professional and personal skills is a major motivator for why employees take and stay at a
job.

Talent management is a business strategy and company must fully integrate it within all of the
employee related processes of the organization. Attracting and retaining talented employees, in a
talent management system, is the job of every member of the organization, but especially
managers who have reporting staff (talent).

RETAIN RECRUIT
• Role Matching • Role & Profiles
• Special Projects & • Tatent Insights
Roles

DEVELOP SELECT
• Personal Skills • Gap Reports
• Competencies • Comparison
Reports

DEPLOY
• Role Profiles
• Job/Talent
Comparison

Figure 1: Talent Management Cycle

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An effective strategy also involves the sharing of information about talented employees and their
potential career paths across the organization. This enables various departments to identify
available talent when opportunities are made or arise. An organization that does this kind
of effective succession planning makes sure that the best talent company has is trained and ready
to assume the next position in their career path. Succession planning benefits the employees and
it benefits the organization. Managers across the organization are in touch with the employees
company is grooming for their next big role. In larger organizations, talent management requires
Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) that track the career paths of employees and
manage available opportunities for talented employees.

1.3 The seven components of talent management

Talent management includes seven components that, when implemented strategically, combine
to keep an organization on the leading edge.

Strategic Employee Planning: Developing the organizational goals and strategic plan is the first
step. Next, they must think about how to reach their goals and implement the plan. More
specifically, they must identify the key roles and personnel who will get there. They may already
have the positions and people in place, or they may need to adjust the current structure to fill the
gaps.

Talent Acquisition and Retention: Bringing new talent into the organization is important, yet
equally so is recognizing and cultivating talent the company already have in-house. Hiring from
within organization is more cost-effective, so when working at talent pooling, need to remember
to look internally as well as externally.

Performance Management: Aligning the right person with the right role is the heart of
performance management. Its ultimate goal is to ensure that roles align with business strategy to
achieve goals. It enables the company to ensure that it is aligning a talented employee with a role
that suits them, develops goals for success, supports their development, and moves the
organization forward.

Learning and Motivating: Semantics become important here, because learning is more than
training. Learning is the acquisition of information and skills, which yields knowledge and
experience. Implement learning programs that include activities and tasks that support the
organization’s culture and initiatives. When employees see how their growth impacts the
organization, they’ll see just how valuable their role is.

Compensation: Alignment remains the important concept. Aligning the strategic goals with
incentives means recognizing employees, rewarding contributions to success, and
acknowledging their value to the organization.

Career Development: This ties back to the talent retention component and the notion that
hiring from within is not only an option, but often preferable. Nurture potential leaders by
providing professional development tools that can advance their career.

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Succession Planning: Knowing the talent within the organization is a start. Knowing the key
roles essential to its success is equally vital. Which roles are critical to success? Who currently
fills those roles? What happens when those positions become available? Having a plan in place
means that the decisions are already made, and that the organization will continue to run
smoothly if a key position must be filled quickly.

Figure 2: The Seven Components of Talent Management

Strategic Talent
Performance
Employee Acquisition
Management
Planning and Retention

Learning And Career

Compensation
Motivation Developement

succession
Planning

1.4 Competitive advantage

A firm's ability to produce a good or service more efficiently than its competitors, which leads to
greater profit margins, creates a comparative advantage. Rational consumers will choose the
cheaper of any two perfect substitutes offered. For example, a car owner will buy gasoline from
a gas station that is 5 cents cheaper other stations in the area. For imperfect substitutes, like Pepsi
versus Coke, higher margins for the lowest-cost producers can eventually bring superior
returns. Economies of scale, efficient internal systems and geographic location can also create
comparative advantage..

1.5 Sustainable competitive advantage

Sustainable competitive advantage is related to the firm's efforts in establishing and

Maintaining advantages for a long-term period. Sustainable competitive advantage is affected by
three factors: the size of the target market, greater access to resources and customers, and
restrictions on the powers of the competitors. Usually a firm can create the sustainable
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competitive advantage whose managers apply its strategy based on characteristics that cannot be
easily copied.

1.6 Origin of the Report

As per course requirement, we were assigned to do our report on “Managing Talent for
Sustainable Competitive Advantage”. We have chosen HSBC to know the HRM practices of
banking sector for sustainable competitive advantage by managing their talent.

1.7 Objective of the report

Broad Objectives

 Organizational implications talent management and contingencies

10 Beside the organization’s objective, our objective is to have a clear-cut knowledge
about talent management about HSBC
 To see the HR practices of HSBC for talent management
 Discussing how to create diversified workforce with the help of talent management

Specific Objective

 To know how managing talent get the sustainable competitive advantage for an
organization
 To know how HSBC develop leaders through talent Management.
 To know how talent management work as a growth and Innovation agenda.
 To have knowledge how talent management is one of the fundamental of good human
resource practices

1.8 Research Methodology

Type of Data:

Primary Data:

 Face to face communication with HSBC Employee.

 Telephone interview.

Secondary Data:

 Website information.
 Different Text Books.
 Journals, books, articles, newspapers etc.
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Data collection process

 Questionnaire
 Secondary information
 Structure interview

1.9 Limitations of the report

 Time limitation is the main factor or limitation to complete this report.
 The unavailability of related information and data because of HSBC's confidentiality
 Unable to access to all information as being externals.
 There may have been faults/error in the report, though maximum efforts have been given
to avoid any kind of mistake.

1.10 Scope of the Study

By preparing this report based on the Managing talent for sustainable competitive advantage of
HSBC in where we got the opportunity to know about the importance of banking sectors in our
economy. While interviewing HSBC employees we had a real picture of their talent management
activities and how it helps them constraining the potential to grow and become a pillar of
strength for HSBC's long term growth and sustainable competitive advantages.

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Part-TWO-Literature Review

2.1 Introduction
This part provides information from publications on topics related to the research problem. It
shows what various scholars and authors have said about the concept of talent management
aligned with sustainable competitive advantage and its effect on organization’s competitiveness.
The part covers: concept of talent management, competitive advantage, relation between talent
management & competitive advantage, theories of talent management, critical factors of talent
management that must be considered, talent management coordinators, talent attraction, talent
retention, talent development, the role of talent management on organizational competitive
advantage.

2.2 Talent Management

Talent is a set of skill or ability that an individual has and can use to obtain a certain goal or
accomplish a task. For example, painter who can draw or create exactly same picture of someone
by only seeing his or her picture and this is the talent of that person and this is his or her ability
to accomplish his or her painting. Talent has their own value and people need to know or learn
how to manage their talent over time, how to work on it & how to maintain it and need to know
the proper use of it when and where it is needed. In the organization or company, Talent can be
maintained by giving proper training, providing opportunities, creating an open & honest work
environment. There are many authors define the Talent management in their own way. Derek
Stockley, (2011) defines talent management as, “A conscious, deliberate approach undertaken to
attract, develop and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet current and future
organizational needs.” Derek Stockley,(2011) also added-“Talent management adds up to a
number of significant human resources and management inventiveness.” Talent management is
involved with all the Human Resource Management (HRM) processes with an exact emphasis on
the attraction, development and retention of talents (Lewis and Heckman, 2006). In another
expression, it can be said that talent management encompasses almost all the elements of human
resource management (Stewart. & Harte, 2010). Some others describe talent management as an
embraced and legislated promise to employing a cohesive, technological, and strategic approach
to human resource management (Hughes & Rog, 2008). According to Iles et al. (2010a) and
Capelli (2008), talent management and HRM present a correlated theoretical base with dissimilar
analysis. They presented three points of view regarding definition of talent management as
follows: (1) Talent management is not fundamentally different from HRM: It includes all the
HRM activities and therefore it can be said that talent management is a rebranding term of HRM,
which has changed from the traditional term to a new concept. This new label of HRM has

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focused on how to manage talents strategically. (2) Talent management includes human
resource management with a specific emphasis: talent management uses the same instruments as
human resource management and organizational development, but talent management
emphasizes on talented people, accordingly, the focal point is “talent pool”, both internal and
external of the organization. (3) Talent management concentrates on proficiency development
through managing the progression of talents within the corporation. Their focus is on talent flows
instead of talent pool. The theory has originated from operational and logical theories. Talent
management programs are created to provide talent pools for supplying certain job categories
and focus on development of specific individuals who are qualified to create succession in the
organization.

2.3 Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage is a superiority gained by an organization when it can provide the same
value as its competitors but at a lower price or can charge higher prices by providing greater
value through differentiation. Competitive advantage results from matching core competencies to
the opportunities.. It is the unique ability of a company to utilize its resources effectively,
managing to improve customer value and position itself ahead of the competition. M. Porter
defines competitive advantage as the strategic advantage one business entity has over its rival
entities within its industry. The term competitive advantage is the ability gained through various
attributes and different level resources to perform at a higher level than others in the same
industry or market. A competitive advantage exists when: 1) the company is able to deliver the
same benefits as competitors but at a lower cost of goods (cost advantage); or 2) deliver benefits
that over exceed those of competing products (differentiation advantage). A competitive
advantage enables the company to create extra superior value for its customers and/ or superior
profits for the company. There are basically five forces to develop basic foundations include
competitors, threat of new entrants substitute products, bargaining power of suppliers and
bargaining power of buyers.

2.4 Critical factors of Talent Management that must be considered

Coleman (2008) suggested certain factors which can help the successful implementation of talent
management strategy. The talent management strategy should be integrated and aligned with
organizational strategy and it is also of vital importance to articulate the talent management
strategy.Talent management is linked to culture and people of the organization. People and
culture are the heart of the organization for creating the successful talent management strategy.
The biggest challenges for the managers to manage talent is not the technical one, it’s the
cultural one. Overcoming the cultural hurdles is a very difficult task especially when holding
knowledge is considered more important than sharing it with others (Cole-Gomulka, 2007). The
reason of the sentiment is that the nature of the employees is competitive and they are more
tending towards holding the knowledge than comparing because sometimes they don’t want
others to have the same competencies as they are having. Another important issue about the
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talent management is the compensation, if the right incentive is given to the people who share
talent than the sharing of knowledge become effective (The Banker, 2004). The compensation
and reward system must support the sharing of knowledge and talent. It is important to reward
those employees who contribute more in knowledge sharing in the organizations and on the same
time it should be made sure that employees understand the importance of talent management
(Cole-Gomolski, 2006).A difficulty with many compensation systems and incentives for
distribution talent is that constructive talent comes from comparatively low down in the
organization, from people who are not on incentive systems and perhaps react much more
willingly to the feeling that they belong to highly motivated, leading edge, innovative groups of
people. This perhaps means in the end that the essential role is played by culture; by an
unquestioned, even comatose, code that persuade talent sharing and co-operative behavior (The
Banker, 2004).

2.5 Talent management and competitive advantage

The major goal of every organizational strategy is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of
the operation which could lead the organization to success. Talent Management is essential when
the organizations will like to build winning teams which will be formed by talented personnel.
The organization will use these kinds of teams to solve determinate problems or weaknesses in
departments. For example, if there is a trouble in the Financial Department, the organization will
build a team to solve this problem and they are going to solve it, because they are competent and
experienced people in this field (Davis et al., 2007). The studies show that if the organizational
strategies and technology would be complex, its key success is human factor. Therefore,
managers should consider to the factors which effect on organizational success. In this regard,
Lewis & Heckman (2006) identified three key streams of analyzing the effectiveness of talent
management practices. A first stream refers to an analytical technique to tie talent management
to financial performance; a second stream emphasizes the process of analyzing and optimizing
the talent management system, and authors aligned with the third stream appear to see analytics
as a set of metrics and measures for use by different users. Considering a financial perspective,
researchers assess the relationship between competences in talent management and financial
organizational performance and demonstrate why talent management is a worthwhile investment.
Organizations that apply talent management practices demonstrate significantly higher financial
performance compared to their industry’s peers, for example regarding sales revenue and
productivity (Steinweg, 2009), Net Profit Margin and Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation,
and Amortization (EBITDA), Return on Assets and Return on Equity, or Return on
Shareholders‟ Value and Market Value. Moreover, different studies induce talent management
cost savings through long-term proactive internal succession planning and higher retention
rates.It has been cleared from the research that talent management practices has the huge role to
compete in the market and have competitive advantage on others. It is also explored that
organization can gain only short span of time competitive advantage with the help of innovations
and new technologies. It is the only talent management practice which gives the sustained

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competitive advantage in the market by organization attraction, development, motivation,
management and reward the talent (Heimen & Colleen, 2004). Like a machine, a business will
fail to operate successfully if key elements such as processes, systems, and structure are
misaligned or hindered by friction between those element and like a machine, a business must be
designed, operated, and maintained. These functions are performed by the talent – the human
capital employed by the enterprise. Indeed, talent (i.e., an organization’s employees), typically is
the single biggest lever for driving improvements in business performance. The collective skills
of the talent employed in an organization largely comprise the organization’s core capabilities.
An organization’s talent injects capabilities that are very difficult for competitors to benchmark
and replicate. More than any other asset, talent provides the potential for long-term competitive
advantage (Lawler, 2008).

2.6 Theories of talent management

A firm’s distinctive competence is based on the specialized resources, assets, the distinctive
competency of the firm is linked to the resources, assets and skills possessed by the members of
the organization and the optimum utilization of these resources help the organization to build
competitive advantage. Two basic theories are emerged firm the theory of firm: resource based
theory and talent based theory. Talent based theory states that the talent is the only resource
which may help in gaining and maintain the competitive advantage, and, therefore organizations
must put a focus on attracting and maintaining the talented work force.

2.7 Talent management coordinators

Talent management instruments are capability-building items. They are the main factors that
enable talent management processes to arrive at the desired outcome; Grant (2007).Collis (2004)
stresses the need for the organizations to have talent benchmarking in order to possess the
capability of measuring its talent assets against other organizations in order to identify level of
comparative talent performance and the talent gaps. Talent benchmarking facilitates adoption of
KM best practices, and consequently can improve talent-based capabilities for sustainable
competitive advantage in the marketplace

2.8 Talent attraction and selection

According to Armstrong (2006) organization should use various techniques and methods for
recruiting and selecting the right talent. The recruitment of talent pool is the first and important
task of the talent management process the talent pool is a group of candidates that are the
potentials executive of the organization who will steer the organization towards the competitive
performance. So to gain and maintain the performance of the organization the recruitment and
selection the talented individuals is very crucial. The creation of talent pool can be done in two
forms, one is internal and second one is external. The internal recruitment of talent pool will be
from the already exiting employees of the organization. The internal recruitment may can give

11
advantage as the employees already know the culture and way of doing work in the organization
and it also might uplift the morale of the employees if their position is uplifted (Davis et al.,
2007). However, the external sources will be the best way of gathering a talent when
organization wants to bring the cultural change and wants innovation (Ballesteros & Inmaculada,
2010). Employer branding includes development of an organization’s image, good enough to
attract employees. Without the good brand image, it is difficult to attract the right talents (Ana,
2009).

2.9 Talent retention

Talent retention is a process of retaining the talented employees with the organization for a
longer time period of time. The turn of talent from any organizations very harmful as is cause a
reduction in the productivity of the organization as well as more cost to attract the new pool of
talent (Echols, 2007).There two classification of retention the talented employees with
organization.Intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic incentive includes some non monetary rewards that
can satisfy employee’s psychological needs while the extrinsic rewards are the monetary rewards
which may help to fulfill employee’s physiological needs. The monetary reward is admitted as
an essential tool to retaining talent (Vaiman &Vance, 2008). Furthermore, organization needs to
invest more for the purpose of retaining the employees with organization, a good rewards system
important to attract, and retain the talent with organization. This can motivate the employees,
resulting in high performance of the organization (Mendez & Stander, 2011)

2.10 Talent development

In this competitive and dynamic business era, learning and development has become a backbone
of success, without continuous learning, gaining and maintain performance may become
impossible. Strategy makers and HR practitioners are moving their focus towards learning and
development of the talented employees to enhance organizational performance. Talent
development is process of upgrading the skills and attitude of the employees. As the business
continuously keep on changing the technologies business models and new strategies to cope up
with these changes organization needs to enhance and upgrade the knowledge of the employees.
While making strategies for development practitioners must keep in mind the integration and
strategic fit between the current talent and the skills of the employees.
Figure 3: How Talent Management works for Competitive advantage

Talent Attraction
Competitive
Talent
Advantage
Management
Talent Retention

Talent Development 12
2.11 Role of talent management on organization competitive advantage
Organizations work towards the achievement of their mission and strategic objectives. This
requires a thorough understanding of the resources required for achieving the objectives.
Resources here imply financial and non financial, and they are equally important and
interdependent (Stinglhamber,F. &Vandenberghe C ,2003) Technically these resources have
been divided into two, non contingent and differentiating capabilities. Whereas non contingent
capabilities are basics that enable an organization to compete and exist in the marketplace,
differentiating capabilities are those that differentiate an organization from that of the other and
offer competitive advantage. Effective marketing management, for example can be one of non
contingent capabilities. Similarly, many HR processes aspire to develop non contingent
capabilities but they often fail to align with the strategy and offer competitive advantage. Most of
these processes end up developing people in similar areas and similar capacities as their rival
firms but fail to provide any competitive advantage. Vaiman V. & Vance C.M. (2008).

 For organizations to develop competitive advantage through HR processes it is very

important to define strategic differentiating capabilities and then develop a process for
identifying and developing the same. This empowers the HR people to create an impact
on the organizational strategy and also provide a link between talent management and
strategy. (Lawler, 2008).
 For HR to prove that talent management can be of strategic importance to organizations,
the critical relationship between the two must be proven. Talent management specially needs
to be projected as a differentiating strategic capability that can offer real and substantial
competitive advantage. (Kapoor, B. , 2009)

13
Part-Three -HSBC BANK

3.1 Organizational Background of HSBC

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Corporation (HSBC) Group, one of the world’s largest
banking and financial services organizations, had its beginnings in Asia more than 130 years ago.
The Group has business operation in 81 countries round the world. This bank is divided in four
different regions. According to its geographic location these divisions are USA, Europe, Africa
and Asia Pacific. More than 8000 thousand people are working in these regions

HSBC Group is one the world's largest financial institutions. It has 284,000 employees and 125
million customers in 76 countries producing earnings of $13.1 billion in the first half of 2006.
Two characteristics make HSBC unique in the financial services industry. Both drive their
growth and differentiate their business from competitors. They are HSBC brand and their 150-
year old culture which is founded on core values of Integrity, Collegiality and Diversity. HSBC
strive for cultural continuity by exemplifying the core values in their relationship with
shareholders, clients, and employees.

It is operating in Bangladesh since 1996. It is doing its operation in Bangladesh called “Dhaka
Operation” which is known as “Asia Pacific Dhaka” all over the world. It has three main
branches in Bangladesh. They are known as Anchor Branch, Chittagong Branch and Dhanmondi
Branch. It offers a range of financial services in Bangladesh including commercial banking,
consumer banking, payments and cash management, trade services, treasury, and custody and
clearing.

3.2 Mission, Vision and Values of HSBC

Mission of HSBC Bangladesh

Through an international network linked by advance technology, including a rapidly growing e-

commerce capability, HSBC provides a comprehensive range of financial service, personal
finance service, commercial banking; corporate, investment banking and markets; private
banking; and other activities

Vision:
We aspire to be one of the world’s great specialists banking group driven by commitment to our
core philosophies and values.

Values:
HSBC values define who they are as an organization and what makes us distinctive. They
believe in acting with courage integrity.

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 Dependable
 Standing firm for what is right, delivering on commitments, being resilient
and trustworthy
 Taking personal accountability, being decisive, using judgment and
common sense, empowering others
Open to different ideas and cultures
 Communication openly, honestly and transparently, welcoming challenge,
learning from mistakes
 Listing treating people fairly, being inclusive, valuing different
perspectives
Connected to Customers communities, regulators and each other
 Building connection being aware of external issues, Collaborating across
boundaries
 Caring about individuals and their progress, showing respect, being
supportive and responsive

3.3 Human resource practices in HSBC for talent management

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) is presented. Their talent
management is considered a best practice, particularly in the following areas: HSBC has a global
talent management strategy which is linked to the local business context. They deal with this
global/local dilemma by offering the different subsidiaries a list with general talent management
practices from which the subsidiaries can choose the ones that fit their specific context best.
They ensure line management involvement and engagement. The engagement of the individual
employee is also ensured. Furthermore, HSBC gives responsibility to all stakes.

.To help accomplish this, HSBC implemented a global talent management process as one stream
of a people strategy aimed at attracting, motivating, and retaining the very best. In our view, our
global business strategy needed aligned people and talent management strategies. The first step
was to identify the Senior Business Manager talent pool, including both general managers and
world class specialists. The next steps were to expand the talent pool beyond the senior business
manager level, implement development programs for future leaders according to levels of
experience and seniority in the organization, and ensure they had a customized solution to retain
their talent through the employee value proposition.

Identifying the Talent Pools Integrity -Human Resources used robust, consistent and transparent
methods for talent identification to ensure the integrity of our process. Specifically, HSBC relied
on multiple sources of data including 360 degree feedback instruments, interviews, panel
reviews, self and manager assessment) to review capability ratings for all talent nominations
globally. The capability framework was constructed to identify behaviors at HSBC that
distinguish their outstanding performers and will drive their business strategy
15
Talent management is considered very important at HSBC. The official, organizational website
states that they have exceptional training programmers, as well as a global talent management
strategy. HSBC is one of the few organizations in the world that has built a “talent factory’. A
talent factory is an organization that has combined functionality, i.e. talent processes that support
both cultural and strategic objectives, and vitality, i.e. emotional commitment to TM processes
by management, who exhibit this in daily action. This combination allows the organization to
develop and retain key employees. HSBC’s global talent management strategy is focused on
attracting, motivating, and retaining top talent. However, at HSBC, the definition of talent is still
focused on future leadership (i.e. individuals who have the beholders involved. ability to reach
the top), yet nowadays, HSBC has put more emphasis on a diverse talent pipeline, one that runs
throughout the whole organization and does not only focus on the top of the business, but also on
specific functions.

3.4 Human Resources practices in HSBC Bank

HSBC is the bank where all the employees are monitored under an effective HR department.
This department of the organization on playing the role of implies authority of HSBC. Internal
and external all the situation considerations related to human is monitored and operated by the
HR department. Eventually this bank uses all the basic functions of HR to run the organizations.
Among those specifically:

 Recruitment
 Selection
 Training and development
 Compensation management
 HRIS
 HPWS is practiced
 HSBC also applies some strategic HR methods for selecting the most logical and
efficient candidates.

3.4.1 HR Activities
HSBC bank has strong HR culture in the organization, and it is maintained very tactically. As it
said that HSBC practices all the HR basic activities, this bank also offers strategic training
sessions for its employees for the growth career. Let’s have a glance of the functions that HSBC
applies:

 International market competitive compensations

 Personal and organizational benefits and reward
 European standard training sessions
 Performance metrics
 Organizational charts
16
  Diverse recruitment process
 Proficiency development program (PDP)
 Advance HRIS (Human Resource Information System)
 Four step selection process

HSBC is a very much future oriented banking corporation, which is highly organized and
employee oriented. HSBC has a very rigorous recruitment and selection procedure. They value
their employee first. People love to work in this organization because they know that HSBC
gives them the authority to take decisions on their own. And this authority comes to them
through the highly structured and well-designed training programs. All of these training
programs is launched and maintained by a highly efficient group of people.

3.4.2 Recruitment process

To know the future demand of human resources, the HR division of HSBC usually provides all
the other divisions and branches with a general form at the beginning of the year. From the
information collected from these forms, the HR division gets an estimate of the human resource
requirement for the year. No long term human resource forecasting is done in HSBC. The
recruitment goals of HSBC are to attract and retain highly qualified human resources who will
perform best in respective areas. The bank not only tries to attract well-qualified candidates but
also tries to identify and recruit people who are really interested to work in bank for an
acceptable period of time.

i. CV submission: Potential candidates interested in joining the bank are required to send
their complete curriculum vitae. An acknowledgement of receipt is sent for all submitted
applications to the candidate’s email.
ii. Application Evaluation: The Human Resource department evaluates all incoming
applications, against prerequisite abilities and skills set for all current openings. All
applications are kept based on strengths and specialization, for future reference.
iii. Ability Test: Potential candidates will be invited to participate in aptitude tests i.e.
numerical, verbal, English and psychometric, when deemed necessary.
iv. Capability based interviews: to ensure that their recruitment process is fair and
consistent, all candidates who are successful at the exams are invites for a capability based
interview. Interviews are based against capabilities, required for each position for which
the candidates is interviewed for. A capability or competency is an ability described in
terms of skills & behaviors that are essential to effectively perform within a job.
v. Reply Letters: At all stages of the process candidates are kept informed of th status of
their application with an email reply letter.
vi. Job offer: If a candidate successfully reaches the final stage, apposition offering is made
in conjunction with a competitive reward package.

HSBC uses some external sources for recruitment. These are:

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  Internet
 Off shoring
 College recruiting
 Referrals
 Advertising

Internal recruiting is very high in HSBC. HSBC’s training and development activities are very
high in quantity, so the recruiters emphasize to recruit internal capable candidates for the
respective post. HSBC also uses for succession planning. It also a method of the internal
recruitment of HSBC.

3.4.3 Selection process

HSBC runs final selection Centers in a number of key global locations, including London,
Chicago, Hong Kong, Mexico and Dubai. If a candidate completes the telephone interview
successfully they will invite to the location most appropriate to them. In Bangladesh face-to-face
selection is done in the head department’s office where the job is described eventually.

The final step to success:

The final step to success is a two way process. It is a candidate’s opportunity to meet a number
of current international managers and find out as much as possible about their experiences.
HSBC wants candidates to be able to make an informed decision a candidate should receive an
international manager offer.

The final step to success consists of a number of capability based exercises, including:

 Face-to-Face interview
 Group exercise
 Written case study
 Presentation
 Role play

There is nothing candidates can do to prepare in advance for the FSC, other than to relax and be
you. This is their opportunity to see how candidates perform in a number of different situations,
against clearly defined criteria. HSBC also wants to get to know candidates bet understand what
drives you towards the IM programmed.

“Head Hunting” process is very effective for HSBC. Throughout this they can easily recruit and
select top level managers, through they are offering a very attractive compensation.

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 3.4.4 Training and development process
In the ever changing financial services industry, all of must continuously upgrade their skills and
knowledge in order to maintain this competitive advantage.

HSBC’s goal is to retain, attract and motivate the very best, and to do that it supporting training,
development and business education through the following:

i. Internal Training programs

Seminars, workshops and locally tailor made training on a variety of topics are offered directly
by HSBC training and development department at our training centre located at motijheel.

ii. External Courses

Job related courses, seminars, workshops and conferences developed and presented at HSBC
offices in Asia and also at group training and management development centre at Brickwood,
UK.

iii. Distance Learning

Web-based and multimedia self-study programs available through our their Intranet and
multimedia learning centers located in HSBC offices.

iv. Resident Management Trainee Program (RMT Program)

The Resident Management Trainee program (RMT) aims to select a group of high [potential
executive trainees and provide them training and development opportunities. The RMT program
gives potential executives understanding of the commercial operations and business functions.

The RMT program ensures that successful applicants, with the right training, will have the ability
and potential to reach the highest level of management within HSBC Bangladesh, and possibly
beyond.

v. European training program

Providing a comprehensive insight into their retail and commercial banking business, it is
designed to help employees develop the skills and experience you need to embark on a
management career with HSBC in your home country different placements overseas. This
training is a part of HSBC’s performance management apprising process.

vi. The UK work Experience Program

The UK work experience program is for students looking for a work experience placement with
a leading global bank. The program provides opportunities to gain some hands-on experience
develop your knowledge of banking and financial services and explore the careers available at
HSBC in the UK.
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This program is aimed at those in the later years of full-time secondary, sixth form or college
education who are keen to get an introduction to what a career in financial services may be like.

To be considered for the program

 Be in full-time education either at secondary school, sixth form or college at the

time of the work experience commencing
 Be keen and motivated to find out more about HSBC and to be prepared to
complete the application process, which will include some online questions and
if successful, a telephone interview

3.4.5 Training objectives

Set SMART (specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-limited) objectives

 This helps keep training relevant and focused.

 For example, doing a time-management course ‘with the objective of clearing you’re in-
tray by the end of every day’ will focus you, during and after the course.

Often, the objective will be to reach a specified performance standard for a task

 Set the standard by assessing how well an experienced person completes the task.
 Try breaking the standard down into three required components: knowledge, skills and
attitude.
 For example, if you are setting up an online shop, train staff how to use the software so
they can maintain the website

3.4.6 Performance management

HSBC has strong HR culture in their organization. Being a multinational company (MNC) it has
their own way of daily evaluation. Through different formats of evaluation, they measure their
employees’ performance. Participant diary and observation these two methods are applied for
evaluation. After evaluation using some metrics comes out the performance appraisal of
employees. Then it is decided whether the employee need more training sessions or
developments. Succession is a very common performance that is being ready for the expected
post.

Performance evaluation is very important in the organization as it indicates how far the
organization has achieved its target and how it should mentor the employee to challenge more
tasks. HSBC bank is always keen on performance evaluation of the staffs to deliver a better
service to its clients. Performance evaluation will help in findings the employees needs and
company can collect views from the employees and can act on to meet the necessary needs. It

20
gives a feedback on employee’s performance There are several aspects that should be considered
while evaluating the performance. Those aspects are stated below:

 Making Specification criteria

HSBC will evaluate the performance of the employee not only with the goals achieved but by
recognizing what the employee is capable of. The company measures the employee in all aspects
and it will be specific with each employee and try to develop the skill and knowledge in what the
employee is good at. By doing so HSBC gains specialist workers for each department.

 Features of Work

The company will measure the employee’s quality and quantity of work and will evaluate his
performance accordingly. The organizations goodwill always depends on the quality work
performed by the employee. So, the company will be very keen on the way the employee does
his work.

 Consistency in the performance

Company will always consider consistency of the performance by the employee. A reliable
employee is the one who always shows consistency in his performance. Organization can’t take
decision no long term plans if it does not find its staffs consistent.

 Behavior of the employee

The company will be very keen on the organizational behavior of the employee. Company
monitor how the employees attitude towards supervisors, managers and how employee cop up
with his co-worker..

 Accepting company’s policy

Employees performance not only comprise on achieving targets but also on how the employee
work adhering the companies’ policies. The company wants their employees to upheld
companies policies in the work they do.

 Feedback from colleague

The company will check the employee’s feedback from its colleague and that process is referred
as 360-degree feedback. The organization will collect the feedback from co-workers, managers a
all those who are associated with the employee in work. These feedbacks will be considered
while evaluating the performance of the employee.

HSBC bank evaluates the performance of the staff at consistent intervals to improve the
performance of them. They also consider all these aspects while evaluating the employee. They
21
also adopt some methods for evaluating the performance of the employee. Method is stated
below:

 Challenging their employee

Always set challenges to employees and should measure how the employee is taking up the
challenge. Bank monitor the quality of work and the time consumed to do the task.

 Preparing Time Period

HSBC sets a particular time frame for all tasks and will monitor the staff. HSBC can attain high
performance and save quality time which is very important for the company. Being time oriented
the staffs knows the work and time period for finishing it.

 Employee organization making the oriented

HSBC train their employee for not only attaining individual goals but also the organizational
goals. The employee won’t be concentrating on achieving his goals but will be keen on the
organizations goal. By implementing this HSBC has tied up their employee with the company to
review the target of company in the future.

 Achieving targets

The more an employee achieve companies target more the company will lend the support.
Employee who cannot achieve the task will be considered as a burden for the company. So the
organization will monitor every employee’s performance and will rate the employee according to
target he achieves.

 Cost control

The company always looks for the employees who are cost efficient on completing their tasks.
They prefer staffs that can control the expenditure of operations to achieve the target.

3.4.7 Effective resourcing strategy

Human Resources are responsible for implementing HSBC’s people strategy. It facilitates talent
management, succession planning and employee mobility while defining and overseeing
frameworks that support employee performance management, reward, learning and development,
resourcing and engagement.

3.4.8 Effective learning and development

HSBC recognize that the talent and diversity of people is the foundation of success, so they are
committees to helping develop personal and professional skills in order to bring out strengths.
22
Manager will help you to identify potential opportunities and the capabilities will need to be
effective in employee’s role. As a part of the HSBC performance review process, they will work
with employee to set clear career development goals and provide feedback and responsibility for
driving own personal development.

From the HSBC Business School, Employees are able to access a comprehensive set of tools and
learning materials based on specific role and business area, as well as courses that help develop
communication, leadership and presentation skills. Employee are expected to complete some
learning activities based on local regulatory requirements or the nature of employee’s role ,but
employee can choose courses that are linked to your own interests or support your personal
development. Employees also have access to a mixture of formal and informal job development
opportunities, including on-the-job coaching and mentoring in addition to instructor-led
workshops and e-learning.

3.4.9 Competitive compensation packages

HSBC offers a comprehensive, market –competitive pay and benefits packages to support
employee’s professional and personal needs. This may vary according to role and
location.HSBC’s approach to remuneration consists of four main elements:

 Fixed pay
 Annual leave
 A range of benefits, which may cover areas such as work-life balance, insurance and
savings, health and personal development
 Employee share plans and discretionary pay awards based on performance

3.4.10 Pay for Performance

HSBC believe that the way people achieve their goals is essential to the long –term
sustainability of our business. As a result, annual performance reviews also take into account
employees adherence to HSBC’s values. HSBC’s approach to remuneration, including any
discretionary incentive or performance-related awards, is designed to reward success
appropriately and to ensure that what they pay employees is aligned with their business strategy.
to achieve this, we assess individual performance against our annual and long term financial
objectives

3.4.11 Benefits
HSBC offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental and vision coverage
for employees and their eligible family. Life and disability insurance options provide income
replacement in the event of serious injury or death.

23
  Medical
HSBC offers medical plans that are easy to understand and delivers valuable features to help
manage health care costs by focusing on wellness. All of our plans include the predictability of
an annual deductible, security of an out-of-pocket maximum and coverage for eligible medical
services, such as doctor’s office visits, specialist care or a hospital stay, as well as a prescription
drug plan.

 Dental

HSBC offer dental plans that provide coverage for preventive care, basic care, such as filings and
extractions, and major care, including crowns, dentures and bridges.

 Health Care accounts

Health care accounts help employees of HSBC manage out-of-pocket costs by setting money
aside pretax from their paycheck to use for eligible health care expenses. For eligible employees,
the bank may also contribute to these accounts.

3.4.12 Motivational and appraisal

As employee is the back bone of the organization the company should always make sure about
the commitment of the employee. Motivation and appraisal will decrease the gap between the
employee and the management. Reward programmes will increase the confidence of the
employee and make them more committed towards the organization. the managers can yield
more productive and creative results by motivating their employee by offering financial
enrichment, incentives the company can motivate the employee for achieving its goals ,the
managers can also motivate the employee by removing organizational barriers by giving their
employees respected loyalty. HSBC bank rewards the employee with reward points, incentives
or gift to motivate the employee to achieve more goals. The bank will give warnings and try to
improve the performance of those employees whose performance is bad to avoid quick
terminations.

3.5 Competitor analysis

We have considered two of the major foreign banks operating in Bangladesh, Standard Chartered
Bank and Citi Bank N.A., as its main competitor.

 Standard Chartered Bank

Standard Chartered Bank Bangladesh (SCB) - Standard Charted Bank is the largest international
bank in Bangladesh with 25 branches and 50 ATMs over the country. It is the only foreign bank

24
in the country which has presence in 6 cities- Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Shylet, Bogra and
Narayanganj including two offshore banking units inside Dhaka Export processing Zone
(DEPZ)and Chittagong Export processing zone (CEPZ). The bank currently is employing over
1300 employees in Bangladesh. The product and services offered by SCB are consumer banking,
priority banking, private banking, SME banking, wholesale banking and the shariah banking
named saadiq banking.

 Citi Bank N.A.

Citi Bank N.A. is another renowned foreign bank operating in Bangladesh. It is a preeminent
financial services company, with some 200 million customer accounts in more than 100
countries. It has now three branches in the two major cities of Bangladesh, Dhaka and
Chittagong and 2 offshore banking units with 82 employees serving both corporate and few
individual customers. They provide a comprehensive range of financial services including
treasury management, transaction services, foreign exchange and structured finance to corporate
clients ,governments and financial institutions.

3.6 Competitive Advantage of HSBC

Briefly, competitive advantage is a position a business occupies against its competitors. HSBC
follows some strategies for creating a competitive advantage.

1. Differentiation and sustaining the brand image-HSBC has already created a brand image in the
customers mind and that makes them different among others. It is renowned bank not only in
Bangladesh, but also throughout the world. So customer has a trust in this name and they feel
secure to bank with HSBC.Retaining this brand positions one of the key policies of HSBC to
differentiate themselves among others.

2. Quality Leadership-Quality advantage occurs with HSBC when it delivers the same services
as its competitors but at a better quality. It has an approach that focuses on providing the same
quality service to all of their customers. So even they have specific number of branches compare
to the main competitors, but they believe to ensure the quality services over there, rather than
going with lots of branches.

Part-FOUR

4.1 Findings
The organization believes in achieving high standard of job performance from it has separate
Human Resource Department to look after the employees at this employees and also believes in
recruiting the best employees in any cost. The company period. The HR Department is
responsible for the HR Planning, Recruitment & Selection, Training and Development, employee
benefits, Performance Appraisal arrangements, Grievance handling, Disciplinary matters etc.
25
  Hiring of employees from external source is very un biased and no room for nepotism
but sometimes recruitment of internal employees are biased and those employees who
are close to the supervisor get advantage of their relationship in internal recruitment
process.

 Employees of the bank care about its customer much. They always try to full fill
customers request if possible.

 Employees of the bank get much performance bonus in time. They get bonus on loan
sanctioning, collecting deposite, creating account, providing credit cards and so on.
This policy helps bank to perform its maximum and increase banks profitability.

 The bank provides very attractive salary with different essential allowance payment
that attracts new recruits as well as motivates existing employees to be in touch with
HSBC.

 HRM division of the bank always concern about the comfortable working environment
and also safety & compliance issue of its branches.

 Banks financial performance is outstanding over these years.HRM policies of the bank
exert employees perform to their full potential and helps organization to perform
maximum of its ability.

 Organization has developed a professional Human Resource department and personnel

policy manual, which are rarely seen in organizations in the country.HR resource
department is responsible to ensure proper execution of this policy manual.

 Organization has a prescribed salary structure. Employees are getting everything on

timely manner for which they are promised to be paid. Employees are extremely happy
with their salary and other benefits, though some of them thing benefits should be
reviewed and increased

The main appreciable point is that the group in successful to maintain a sound working
environment within the organization. There is very nice cooperation found among the
employees. Grievance procedure and Disciplinary procedure is use in very few occasions, which
is ignorable.

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4.2 Analysis

4.2.1 SWOT analysis

Strengths

 Management strength in depth.

 Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning
programs.HSBC is investing huge resources in training and development of its
employees resulting in a workforce that is not only high skilled but also
motivated to achieve more.
 Good motivation and morale
 Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers &
acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in
the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply
chain.
 Efficient administration

Weakness

 Failure to delegate and train successors.

 Expertise and control locked up in a few key personnel.
 High staff turnover.
 Days inventory is high compare to the competitors-making the company raise
more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of
HSBC

Opportunities:

 The opportunity to take on a key employee from a competitor

 The introduction of financial of financial backers who are keen to fund
expansion.
 The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s of competitor’s
advantage and enable HSBC to increase its competitiveness compare to the
other competitors.
 Economic uptick and increase in customer spending ,after years of recession
and slow growth rate in the industry, in an opportunity for HSBC to capture
new customers and increase its market share.

27
 Threats:

 The company can face lawsuits in various markets gicen-different laws and
continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
 No regular supply of innovative products-Over the years the company has
developed numerous products but those are often response to the development
by other players.
 Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets
as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors
 Storage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to
steady growth profits for HSBC in markets.
 Key personnel leaving, perhaps with trade secrets.

4.3 Conclusion
Talent doesn’t flourish in a vacuum. It is a valuable commodity that needs to be identified,
nurtured and optimized. Firms need to get better at operational zing talent and moving it into the
tangible world. Companies that can identify and match an applicant’s inherent talents with their
jobs and culture will enjoy a competitive recruitment advantage by building a much more solid
foundation for tomorrow. Organizations that build career paths around an employee’s special
talents cultivate loyalty and commitment in return. Balancing manager training with leadership
skills and promoting bottom-up communications gets all the oars in the water pulling in unison.
Remember that it is all too easy for management to monopolize the communication party line.
Competition is endemic. Competitors essentially produce the same products and services and
they deploy many of the same technologies to produce their products and deliver their services.
Some are able to gain a slight edge by being early technology adopters, but at the end of the day
the playing field has been pretty much leveled from a technology standpoint. The only true and
authentic business differentiator in the long run is the firm’s employees! It is their collective
talents, enthusiasm and loyalty that are the firm’s future. Firms who use talent based
technologies to help them more effectively identify, manage and grow talent in this new
millennium will most assuredly survive the uncertainty of approaching white water that may be
just around the bend.

4.4 Recommendation
 More conscious on cultural dimensions across countries and take advantages from them

HSBC need to more conscious on cultural dimensions across countries and take advantages from them.
According to the cultural dimension of HSBC different regions of countries have distances cultural
implementations. Linking those to recruitment process of each country. Organization will be able to gain

28
cultural opportunities in attracting employees this would be an advantage to attract most talented people
from pool of limited qualified bankers in Bangladesh.

 Put more attention on individual training and planning training and development program

Instead they pull employees toward training and development insisting on seniority and service period. If
organization pays attention on individual weakness, it will be much helpful in correcting their
performance drawbacks and enhancing employee performance up to the expected limit.

 Link grievance handling procedure with rewarding system:

HSBC can link grievance handling procedure with rewarding system. Any rewarding system may create
grievance for a certain extent. Hence management of HSBC can develop effecting grievance procedure
linked to reward system

 Performance management and reward system should be more improved

Current performance system is considered only the job related aspects. But it is important to evaluate all
other characteristics of employees which related with performance either directly or indirectly. In return
organization will be able to create balanced employees who can manage time and work with outstanding
personality repercussion.

Part- FIVE-Appendices

5.1 Questionnaires
The interview was conducted to know how talent management can be a source of competitive
advantage at HSBC
Interview Questioners:

1. Do you think your company integrate with business strategy to get the organization’s
excellence?
2. What are the benefits of talent management do you thing HSBC enjoying?
3. What steps has the company taken manage its talent?
4. What type of training programs HSBC provides?
5. How does training help to build talent do you think?
6. What are the most used training program in HSBC
7. What does HSBC usually do to attack talents?
8. Do you think company has performance appraisal to foster talent development?
9. Does the company develop and increase the talent and learning capabilities of of the
employee through talent acquisition and talent sharing to achieve competitive
advantages?
So do you think the overall talent management within your organization is ok for
competitive advantage.

29
5.2 Work plan:
Conducted group meeting to discuss about the report content

Conducted Interview with HSBC employee to collect informtion about HSBC Bank

Documents review to collect secondary data

Design the Report & Divide the work between group members

Detailed report review

Findings,Analysis, Conclusion & Recommendation made

Draft Final Report

Final Report

5.3 Contribution of the Group Member

Hafsa Ahsan Mowry Syeda Sohana Reza Tahsin Ara Mizan MD. Rafinul Islam
ID- 112 183 029 ID-112 183 023 ID- 112 182 010 Raju
ID-112 181 033
Introduction Literature Review Theoretical part Research
methodology
Executive Summary Theoretical part Real life example Scope
HSBC
Theoretical Part Research Objectives Research objective Limitation

Conclusion Questionnaire for Findings Origin of the report

interview
Reference Analysis Objective of the
report
Recommendation
Questionnaire for
interview

30
Part-SIX- Reference
Banker (2004), "CSFI knowledge bank", The Banker, Vol. 147 No.862, pp.15.

Barney, J. B., & Hesterly, W.S. (2008). Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage:

Concepts and Cases. Pearson Prentice Hall Inc31

Bhatnagar, J. (2007). "Talent management strategy of employee engagement in Indian ITES

employees: Key to retention", Journal Employee Relations, Vol.29 (6).pp:640–663.

Bryan, L., Joyce, L., and Weiss, C. (2006). "Making a market in talent", The McKinsey

Quarterly, Vol.2: 98– 109.

Derek Stockley,(2011) also added-“Talent management adds up to a number of significant

human resources and management inventiveness.” Vol.20. pp-33

Cole-Gomolski, B (2006), "Chase uses new apps to ID best customers", Computerworld, Vol. 31

No.35, pp.49-50.

Coleman, D (2008), "Learning to manage knowledge", Computer Reseller News, Vol. 775

pp.103-04.

Collis, D.J. (2004), "Research note: how valuable are organizational capabilities?", Strategic

Management Journal, Vol. 15 No.2, pp.143-52.

Collings, D. G., and Mellahi, K. (2009). "Strategic talent management: A review and research

agenda", Human Resource Management Review, 19(4): 304–313.

Gandz, J. (2006). "Talent development: The architecture of a talent pipeline that works", Ivey

Business Journal.

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