Equity Group is counting on its in-house mentorship programme to build a pipeline of new employees as exits outweigh new hiring amid intensifying talent war in the banking industry.
The lender says in the latest sustainability report that delivering a sustainable talent strategy in an environment of escalating talent will require nurturing workers from its in-house programmes and mixing with mid-career workers hired from elsewhere.
“To deliver a long-term sustainable talent strategy, we believe that we need to manage a delicate balance of interventions to deliver decent stakeholder-value creation today and future-proof our business against the escalating war for talent as well as the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Vuca) headwinds,” said Equity.
“We are leveraging market talent maps, our Young Bankers, and Equity Leadership Programme to build the talent pipeline bottom-up while hiring world-class mid-career recruits to deliver against our ambitious growth plans.”
The focus on its in-house programmes comes at a time many banks are reinforcing their talent force with new skills, especially in the area of technology to match the shifts in how customers want to consume financial services.
In the last four years to December 2023, Equity Group has hired 7,767 new staff, with 2,161 joining last year. However, the headcount has grown by 3,813 in the same four-year period to close at 12,120, suggesting that there have been around 3,954 exits in the same period.
Equity Bank Kenya, the group’s largest subsidiary, last year hired 1,123 employees.
However, the headcount compared with the prior year was a reduction of 415 to 7,763, showing that the exits outnumbered new hiring.
Many banks have been running internship and management trainee programmes but this has not stopped the talent war that has seen them lose key staff to their competitors or forced them to pay a premium.
Equity hopes that by reinforcing its focus on building talent pools, succession planning and career development for its key talent, it will keep its top employees within the organisation.
The lender started the ELP programme in 1998 and has been scaling it up, tapping top-performing Kenyan students and educating them in local and international universities while also offering them internships. For instance, Equity’s chief operating officer Samwel Kirubi began as one of the pioneering interns in the ELP.
The model has also been successful for Equity Afia, the medical franchise of the Equity Group foundation (EGF) that is backed by Equity Group.
Equity Afia operates a network of 98 medical outpatient centres, which Equity says, are staffed by doctors who are alumni of ELP. In 2023, four Equity subsidiaries participated in the ELP, with Kenya contributing 498 while DRC, Uganda and Rwanda units had 126, 94 and 34 participants respectively.
