Human Resources: The Care and Feeding of Excellence

Abstract

Banks are quick to emphasise the importance of people as a key success factor. Phrases like ‘we’re no better than our people’ and ‘we’re a people business’ flow quickly from their lips and public documents. Faced with the obvious wide differential in banking performance, the outsider is hard pressed to determine whether such a phrase is a serious commitment or simply a throwaway line of the type appended as an afterthought to the chairman’s statement in Annual Reports.