Our culture and human capital are the key factors instrumental in our success.
We enjoy a mutually valuable relationship with our employees. This relationship is characterised by the investment the Company makes towards providing challenging roles and assignments, opportunities for personal growth, relevant and timely performance support, training and an enabling environment. We have strived hard and succeeded in creating a workplace which co-holds achievement orientation and care for all its stakeholders.
Our cultural ethos is built around leading change and innovation, continuous learning-unlearning and re-learning, taking end-to-end ownership and building trust. Constant innovation and challenging the status quo have been the key aspects of the Company’s culture.
We encourage our employees to act like entrepreneurs and take calculated risks. The Company is known for its nimbleness and agility in reacting to changing market dynamics.
Our cultural ethos is embodied in our DNA Anchors (Leadership Competencies). There are a total of 10 DNA anchors which detail out expectation (in terms of leadership behaviours) from all employees. These DNA Anchors also articulate a set of behaviours called DYNAMIC behaviours which stand for Digital, Young, Nurturing, Agile, Mindful, Inclusive and Connected.
These leadership competencies form the bedrock for the robust leadership potential assessment and leadership development processes followed by the Company. These processes identify and groom leaders for the future and also enable succession planning for critical positions in the Company.
Culturally, we have created an ecosystem around the DNA Anchors which employees are expected to demonstrate in all engagements. All our people policies and practices are designed around building a high performance culture right from hiring the right cultural fit, managing performance and succession planning.
We conduct regular townhalls, focus group interactions with employees to communicate the strategy, business outlook as well as address their concerns/queries. We host regular sessions for all employees through our virtual platform ‘CEO Connect’ through which our Managing Director & CEO along with other business heads, directly engage with all employees.
We believe that our success and growth in brand reputation, business performance, and market positioning is due to the professionalism and domain expertise of our senior leadership team and their long association with the ICICI Group.
Our senior management team members (Senior Vice-President, Executive Vice-President and Executive Director) have an average total work experience of around 22 years. Around 66% of our senior leadership team has a vintage of 5 years or more with the Company and 78% of them has a vintage of 5 years or more in the ICICI Group.
ICICI Securities is a caring meritocracy. We believe in nurturing talent by creating work enablers and providing employees with challenging and enriching jobs. All employees have a well-articulated goal sheet and key deliverables. In addition, distinguishing competencies which are critical for organisational success are also articulated. Performance assessment is carried out against key deliverables with linkage to rewards. Progress is regularly monitored and feedback is provided in addition to any support required in the form of functional/behavioural training.
We conduct our performance management process in a transparent and fair manner. Post the annual process, our leadership team conducts townhall to discuss the annual performance (and key highlights) of the Company for the year, and its impact on compensation and other people-related processes.
We regularly conduct various rewards and recognition programmes for our front line/customer facing teams.
We invest in building the skills and capabilities of it’s employees. Capability development is achieved through four broad formats of classroom, e-learning, on-the-job and project-based learnings. Some of the development programmes/initiatives that we use successfully to build sustained learning are:
In addition to hiring laterally, we are a large recruiter (amongst broking companies) on management and graduate campuses. A step by step assimilation programmes has been implemented for all such frontline campus hires to induct them into the ICICI Securities way of relationship management. The initiative starts with pre-joining engagements comprising introduction to essential domain knowledge, mandatory certifications and experience sharing by business leaders. It is followed with a 6-day extensive induction upon joining and a series of selling skills, behavioural and domain interventions spread over the first 100 days. In FY2020, 100% of our new hires in front line sales roles were covered under these programmes.
Blend is a product learning suite comprising a combination of classroom, e-learning and simulation-based training on core products like Equity, Mutual Funds and Insurance products distributed by the Company.
Winning Together is a perspective-sharing platform for campus hires wherein they get to engage with the entire senior leadership team on their experience and transition journey from campus to being a professional. The platform also reinforces service orientation and investment planning for self. The outstanding campus hires are felicitated by the MD & CEO and other business leaders as part of Winning Together celebration.
Leadership Mentoring Programme (LMP) and perspective-sharing workshops for senior management and mid-management teams to build ability to deal with “adaptive” leadership challenges.
We had conducted leadership engagement series in FY2020 to provide a forum to senior and mid-management teams to gain insights from industry experts. Prominent Business leaders from the Industry were invited to share their perspective and give insights on their journey to success. Some of the topics covered in the Leadership Engagement series were ‘Trading Mantra for Millennials’, ‘Success Mantra of Micro Finance business’, and ‘The power of long-term equity investing’. 95% employees amongst the mid to senior management level attended these sessions.
iLead was conducted for first-time managers in sales and advisory roles to orient them towards managing the self and team effectively. In FY2020, we covered 283 first-time managers in front line sales roles.
Reflection sessions were conducted for the Investment Banking team by internal subject matter experts as well as lawyers, and fund managers on business development, deal structuring and execution.
*Aggregate number of training hours. This does not include man hours invested on mandatory certifications done by employees.
Employees’ health and safety are of prime importance to the Company. We conduct periodic training like basic fire safety training and evacuation drills for floor marshals / ERT (Emergency Response Team) and employees across all the large offices. Periodic fire evacuation drills and electrical and fire safety audits are also conducted to sensitise employees about fire safety norms and regulations.
We also conduct comprehensive safety training for women employees, who are trained on situation reaction and self-defence, and are updated on legal provisions relevant to their safety. Educative content on Health, Safety & Environment (HSE), women’s safety, and road safety are circulated periodically on the intranet platform on employee interface.
We have a policy on Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) and a formal process for dealing with complaints of harassment or discrimination. The said policy is in line with the relevant Act passed by Parliament in 2013. The Company ensures that all such complaints are resolved within defined timelines. We conduct mandatory trainings for all employees at regular periodicity to create awareness about POSH. There is zero tolerance towards any such incidents; we aim to ensure a safe and healthy workplace for all employees irrespective of their gender, caste, religion, sexual orientation etc.
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our offices have been fumigated / disinfected regularly. Work from home (WFH) has been enabled for a large number of employees; only for critical processes, a limited staff has worked at offices following all the guidelines prescribed by the authorities. These guidelines included online declaration of health and fitness to be given on a daily basis; temperature checks at entry points, compulsory social distancing, wearing of masks, hand sanitiser stations, regular sanitisation of high-touch surfaces like table tops, mouse, keyboard, staircase railings, lift buttons etc.; re-arranging of canteen seats, assigning workstations in such a way that social distancing is observed even while working; providing pick-up and drop in sanitised vehicles, etc.
For the physical and mental wellbeing of our employees, we conduct various initiatives like Cycle On, an annual cycling tournament for employees with their families, Cricket and Table Tennis tournaments, Yoga and Zumba classes, tie-ups with various hospital networks across the country for assistance on regular health check-ups, various health check-up campaigns etc. Health-related reading material is also published regularly on our intranet.
In order to recharge themselves and keep performing optimally, employees are encouraged to take at least a minimum number of annual leave days every year, including mandatory block leaves for employees in certain functions. Apart from maternity/adoption leaves, women employees have an additional option to take a sabbatical to take care of the newborn child.
We also provide paternity leave of five calendar days to our male employees. We have empanelled crèches across the country for providing crèche facilities to our women employees. Our employee-friendly policies, including Work From Home (WFH) options, empower employees to manage their work and personal priorities.
Annual Report 2019-20
