Annual turnover: $21 billion
Managing director, human resources (London): Alexander Campbell
A career in investment banking nasty, brutish, lucrative, and short. Right? Think again. The Wall Street and Liars Poker images that dominated the late 80s and early 90s have been replaced, in some quarters at least, by a radical new understanding of the value of human capital and the need for professional human resource management.
UBS Warburg, the investment bank, neatly symbolises some of the changes that have taken place in the financial services sector in recent years. The firm is the product of a series of mega mergers that took place in the 1990s. SG Warburg, the distinguished merchant bank, was drawn into the greater Swiss empire of the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), which had in turn merged with the Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). Chuck in the muscular US firms of Dillon Read and OConnor and you have a truly international corporation, challenged with blending cultures and expectations among highly talented people.
HR is organised globally to match the structure of the business
This is a truly global business. Our people will be dealing with the Asian markets in the morning, Europe in the middle of the day and the US later on, says the London-based managing director for human resources, Alexander Campbell. HR is organised globally to match the structure of the business. Historically investment banking did not have very sophisticated HR, Campbell says. We have tried to replicate relevant best practice from other industries.
Senior management understands that it is the human capital that will make the difference in this business in the long run. Investment banks can raise financial capital relatively easily growing human capital is much tougher.
UBS Warburg encourages staff to make use of technology to design and build learning and development programmes. Line managers can monitor and approve training programmes from their PC. 360 appraisal is also conducted electronically. Administration of vital flexible benefits has been outsourced.
Openness and transparency is vital
The greatest HR challenge at the bank is to build peoples commitment at a difficult time for the industry. This, Campbell says, has to involve more than just excellent compensation. Of course we pay market rates but you also have to try and be a great place to work by creating an attractive culture.
UBS Warburg has avoided the more savage job cuts seen elsewhere partly because, in the wake of the big mergers, costs had already been carefully managed. But communication is managed actively too; in London a UK employee forum has been established with what Campbell calls a very healthy dialogue. It would be very difficult to pull the wool over the eyes of the sort of people we employ, he says. We prefer transparency.
That sort of openness is also vital in the wake of the 11 September attacks. UBS Warburg lost three staff in New York; but colleagues of course also knew many others who died that day. The bank made a huge effort to provide counselling and support for staff in the weeks following the attack.
I feel we have moved a long way in the past 10 years, says Campbell. Looking forwards I see no reason why HR in this sector should not exemplify best global HR practice in any industry.
