Gao Jianping: Insist on “Four Combinations” and Focus on Talent Team Construction

Introduction: the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that we should insist on the principle of talent management by the Party and involve best talents in the undertakings of the Party and the nation. According to the Opinion on Deepening the Reform of Talent Development System and Mechanism, the Party shall improve the way of talent management, strengthen the unified leadership of the Party Committee, organize all departments to control the general methodology. All relevant departments shall play their respective role and cooperate with each other while exerting social forces to create a new form of talent development.

On May 10, Gao Jianping, the secretary of party committee and the chairman of the board of Industrial Bank (IB) issued an article on Fujian Daily, titled Insist on 'Four Combinations' and Focus on Talent Team Construction. The article states that IB insists on the talent principle of 'four combinations' as well as the basic principle of talent management by the Party, strictly selects talents and explores the market-oriented talent management system. Believing in 'reward based on performance and talent tested by the market', IB has attracted and trained a team of high-caliber and skillful talents, which allows IB to stand out in the fierce market competition and grow from a local bank into a global mainstream financial institution.

Insist on 'Four Combinations' and Focus on Talent Team Construction

□By Gao Jianping, the secretary of the party committee and chairman of the board of IB

In the past 29 years of development, IB has achieved several milestones such as a local bank, a national bank, a listed public bank and a comprehensive financial service group. Now, as one of the top 30 global banks and one of the top 200 global enterprises, it has become a remarkable 'name card' of Fujian. Performance is based on talents and growth is driven by talents. The reason of IB's success lies on its insistence on 'Four Combinations' which has help attract and train a team of high caliber and skillful talents. By now, the group has nearly 60000 employees with the average age of 33. 97% employees have an educational degree of junior college or above and 25% are CPC members.

The first is to combine the management of talents by the Party with market operation. The Party mainly manages the policies, coordination and services of talents, which sets the direction and provides backup for the marketization of talent management in enterprises instead of contradicting it. They are harmonious and unified and form an important advantage in state-owned enterprises. In practice, all levels of party committees in IB shall strictly select and use talents, recommend morally and competently qualified talents, provide support for those who are selfless and aggressive, and make sure every talent is properly used and assigned. Also, the discretion on talent selection shall be implemented. All employees other than senior management shall be recruited in the market and the governor of the head office shall also be selected through market-based competition. We should insist on rewarding talents based on their performance and testing them by the market, determinedly eliminate 'secure job' or 'secure title'. Qualified talents shall replace disqualified ones and poorly performing employees shall always be weeded out. Only in this way can the company stay energetic.

The second is to combine business strategy with talent strategy. The standards and way of management of talents shall fit different development strategies. The talent strategy shall be customized accordingly to match talent team construction with business development. In the period of nation-wide expansion, IB faced a problem that is how to rapidly fill the talent gap while maintaining the talent quality. For this reason, IB has implemented the market-based reform and recruitment and appointed employees and managers with employment contracts, which not only attracted more talents, but also motivated the entire team. In the period of deepened transformation, IB set up a specialized position sequence system and implemented a differentiated talent management system based on the characteristics of different business types; set up subsidiaries of economy research and financial technology; design some long-term incentive mechanism including shareholding by employees. In this way IB has gathered a great deal of professional talents and facilitated the transformation and development.

The third is to combine career development with employee growth. Career development creates conditions for employees to grow and employee growth further promotes their career development. Both are connected. On one hand, IB attracts talents with benefits and gives them salaries and remuneration in line with their value. On the other hand, IB impresses people with morality, retains talents with career and comprehensively strengthens its cohesion. Since 2015, the senior managers of IB have fully executed the provisions on salary limitation, but they are still grateful and devoted to work, giving a really good example to all employees. In 2015, IB's input in training per capital ranked No. 1 among all listed banks and IB was titled 'The Greatest Employer', which reflects the high recognition of employees on IB.

The fourth is to combine strict management with cultural construction. Talent construction and management needs not only strict management but also positive incentives. Both rigid systematic regulations and humanistic cultural supports are required. On one hand, IB insists on 'internal control and system first'. By applying fully covered systems, IB educates, manages, supervises and investigates senior managerial employees in a strict way so as to maintain purity. As a result, no legal case has happened on senior managers for many years. On the other hand, IB strives to create a simple, harmonious, unified and friendly corporate culture and relieve any concern of employees, so as to facilitate one mind for development.

IB: Creative Talent Mechanism Promotes Transformation and Development

Over the past ten years, in the context of stable progressing of interest marketization, increasingly fierce market competition and emerging new modes of financial services, IB was the first in the industry to put forward the strategic goal of 'transforming both the business mode and profit mode'; aggressively promote the comprehensive, global and digital operation; and form powerful market strength in new sectors such as financial market, investment bank, asset management, green finance, interbank competition, private banking, financial technologies and economic research, so as to achieve a frog-leap development from a traditional commercial bank to a modern comprehensive financial service group. By improving its connotation rather than simple size expansion, IB is more and more good at serving the entity economy. The operation transformation requires support from different talent management systems. So IB has designed and created a new management mode in an innovative and unconventional way.

1. In terms of talent selection, the provisions of 'case by case discussion' and 'one salary for one position' shall apply to key and important positions. For example, because of the great scale of marketized business that is highly sensitive to market changes, IB requires a leading strategy analyst. So IB invited a leading strategy analyst from a well-known domestic securities broker who is subject to negotiable salary and a specially designed performance evaluation scheme. There are more than ten similar cases of high-end talent recruitment in newly setup business departments.

2. In terms of talent development, IB has set up a specialized position sequence system. The sequence of a number of professionals has been established, including account manager, product manager, risk reviewer, trader and IT manager. The level rating of specialized sequence is directly linked to the remuneration. Now there are about 23000 people listed into specialized sequence. The specialized sequence effectively solves the disadvantages of the previous narrow channel of administrative promotion, expands the way of growth and development and greatly enhances the attraction to professional talents.

3. In terms of ability development, IB fosters compound and high-end talents through position rotation and external training. The 'Overseas Talent Development Program' has been launched to cultivate global talents. IB intensifies talent exchanges among the subsidiary companies with different financial licenses. Now there are 21 senior officers who have taken positions in the bank, trust, fund, securities companies under IB group. They are the backbone force for comprehensive operation. IB recommends high-end talents to have further study in overseas universities and broaden their vision. 510 people have been to the University of Cambridge in totally 24 phases and 64 people been to Wharton School in 2 phases.

4. In terms of talent management, IB completes the company talent management scheme and designs new incentive and stringent mechanism. The party committee of the head office vertically manages party committees of lower level, studies and makes arrangement for important HR affairs of subsidiaries, and generally controls and evaluates the performance of employees in subsidiaries. Without applying detailed management, the party committee fully respects subsidiaries as independent legal entities and guarantees that these companies can aggregate professional talents that meet their demands. In 2015, IB established Industrial Research Company and IB Digital Finance Information Service Company, both of which use new systems and mechanisms to enhance the attraction to talents in economic research and financial technology. Both company have recruited 42 and 142 talents respectively from external sources. Meanwhile, IB Trust and IB Digital Finance Information Service Company are exploring the employee shareholding program so as to lay a solid foundation for establishing a more extensive long-term incentive and stringent system.

5. In terms of talent care, IB increases benefits for talents in all kinds of legal ways. IB has fully exerted the preferential individual income tax policies implemented by Fuzhou, where the head office is located, to encourage the headquarters economy. Since 2012, the salaries of senior managers and talents have been distributed by the head office, which have both increased personal income and contributed more individual income taxes. By following the idea of absorbing talents from any source, IB keeps enrolling morally and technically qualified talents. Since 2015, about 3500 unofficial employees have been re-enrolled as official employees. Although this act will add some human cost, it actually promotes business development and drives the performance of corporate social responsibility.

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