Promoting Employee Development

The Bank firmly upholds the idea that talents are the primary resource, advocates its talent concept of "uniting those men in progression, inspiring men of action and promoting men with achievement", continues to improve the talent work mechanism conducive to its strategy, development and transformation, and encourages employees to grow and excel with the clear guidance and scientific mechanism where "the capable are promoted, the excellent are rewarded, the mediocre are demoted, and the inferior are replaced".

The Bank earnestly implements the spirit of the Central Financial Work Conference, striving to build a high-caliber professional cadre of loyal, upright, and responsible talents. In accordance with the development plan of CITIC Bank and its 14th Five-Year Plan for Talent Development, the Bank strengthens the allocation and training of talents in key regions and key sectors. It continues to build six talent teams through the collaboration between Head Office and branches, and systematically advances the "Hundred Ships and Thousand Sails" talent cultivation demonstration project, aiming to train more than 1,000 business managers and technical professionals and continue to enhance the teams' purity, expertise, and effectiveness. As of the end of 2023, the bank's demonstration talent project has selected and trained nearly 7,000 people at all levels, including managers, technical professionals, management trainees, and talents in Party building, laying a solid talent foundation for the bank's high-quality development.

The Bank strives to establish a sustainable career development system and provide employees with a fair and just development platform. Based on the Position Sequence Management Measures of China CITIC Bank and other system documents, the Bank standardizes its position sequence system, broadens employees' career development channels, and strengthens the employee team building. The Bank's positions consist of management, professional and technical, and operational support roles. All the positions have clear promotion paths, and employees can also switch between different sequences and sub-sequences.

In 2023, the Bank revised the Management Measures of China CITIC Bank for Leaders, further broadening the horizons and channels of selecting and employing people, and paying more attention to discovery and cultivation of outstanding young cadres and election of cadres of all age groups. According to institutional requirements and work needs, the Bank publicly selected middle-level assistants and division-level cadres for the Head Office.

The Bank strengthens the ability- and contribution-oriented evaluation to encourage employees to continue to improve their professional abilities, promotes and demotes employees in an orderly manner, and expands the career development space of outstanding talents, as well as motivates employees to stay aggressive and work hard.

Following a compensation philosophy that centers on value creation, performance contribution, and demonstrated abilities, the Bank continuously adjusts its internal salary distribution structure to allocate more resources to front-line and grassroots employees.

The Bank continues to allocate resources in caring for employees and enhancing their well-being. It offers all regular employees' social insurance, housing provident funds, enterprise annuities, and supplementary medical insurance. The Bank provides maternity allowances for employees during their maternity leave and ensures protection for female workers' rights to maternity leave, prenatal check-up leave, breastfeeding leave, and parental leave in accordance with the Employee Attendance Management Measures of China CITIC Bank.

All cadres and employees of the Bank are subjected to an annual performance appraisal. The Bank comprehensively evaluates cadres and employees based on their political commitment, performance & contribution, professional ability, conduct, integrity & self-discipline, etc. Different offices can conduct semi-annual and quarterly appraisals based on their respective situations. The Bank constantly strengthens the management of performance appraisal processes, streamlines the feedback procedure, and urges supervisors to provide timely feedback on assessment results to employees, and assist employees in analyzing performance and gaps with peers and making progress, thus giving full play to the positive role of performance appraisal and the feedback system and continuing to deepen management of the whole process of performance appraisal.

The Bank continues to establish and improve its multi-layered training system. For employees in different position sequences and career stages, the Bank formulates targeted training plans and selects suitable contents and methods for them, striving to meet the development needs of both the Bank and employees.

The Bank sticks to the "orientation and on-the-job" training system for cadres. The former helps new cadres learn about roles and capabilities and strengthens their compliance and bottom-line awareness, and the latter improves their overall qualities and professional abilities in line with the policies and situations and the Bank's strategic priorities.

In 2023, the Bank organized 5 orientation and 1 one-the-job training sessions through the "Talent Factory" program to cultivate sub-branch managers on party building, strategies, businesses, management, and bottom-line awareness. The Bank also held special training classes for heads of secondary branches on retail business, small and medium-sized customer group management, and digital transformation. Additionally, the Bank provided division-level cadres at the Head Office with team management and leadership development programs to help them better fulfill their duties and responsibilities.

The Bank offers diversified training resources for all employees, aiming to improve their professional abilities and overall qualities. Professional training courses strengthen employees' professional and business abilities in a targeted manner. The courses cover front, middle, and back offices, as well as various business lines, and are tailored to the characteristics and requirements of different positions. Quality training courses focus on the comprehensive qualities of employees, such as work skills, efficiency improvement, thinking ability, communication and expression, and self-cultivation. Management training courses aim to develop leadership skills at all levels, enhancing cadres' strategic, business, team, and personal leadership.

The Bank organizes orientation training sessions for campus and socially recruited employees on corporate culture, customer service, compliance and anti-money laundering, etc. to help them integrate into the CITIC culture and adapt to their jobs. The Bank has launched a rookie training system, namely, the C+A+N Plan ("C" for Camping Learning, "A" for Action, and "N" for Navigation) to systematically cultivate campus recruited employees.

In line with the work priorities and the requirements of different positions, in 2023, the Bank launched 3,132 training sessions on services, products and systems, etc. for 369,400 person-times in different business lines. For hot topics such as rural revitalization and digital transformation, the Bank invited experts from inside and outside of the Bank to deliver 14 lectures through "CITIC Lecture Hall" and "Business Refueling Station" to spread policies and improve employees' professional level.

Well aware that digital transformation is an inevitable trend in economic and social development, and that digital capability plays an indispensable role in empowering employees' career development and enhancing the Bank's competitiveness, the Bank has initiated a digital capability training system with CITIC characteristics from three aspects: awareness, ability, and talent. In 2023, the Bank launched the "Digital Capability Training Program 2.0" to popularize basic knowledge of data strategy and data application, further improving employees' "Digital Intelligence". A digital skill training program was held for business personnel centering on "Digitalization ABCs + Business Application". The Bank also provided online Python training camps, and offline training programs on data visualization and project management, to help employees better master commonly used data analysis tools and enhance their digital innovation capabilities.

The Bank encourages employees to study and take external examinations on professional qualification for their positions in their spare time, and provides expense reimbursement policies corresponding to the qualification certificates obtained by employees. In 2023, in line with business development and talent cultivation, the Bank revised Management Measures of China CITIC Bank for External Examinations on Professional Qualification, and dynamically adjusted the list to cover 68 professional qualification examinations, including Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Financial Risk Manager (FRM), and Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Throughout the year, we reimbursed the professional qualification certification fees for 6,613 employees, thus encouraging employees to improve their skills and overall performance.

The Bank arranged for its employees to participate in external training on consumer rights protection, anti-money laundering, inclusive finance, rural revitalization, and other relevant topics. Additionally, external experts were invited to deliver lectures to enhance the employees' professional skills. The Bank has partnered with 26 universities. In 2023, 92 training programs for cadres and talents of the Head Offices and branches were co-organized, greatly facilitating cooperation between banks and universities.