As noted in the above subsection, the challenge faced by the BankSeta is the allocation of resources for the different programmes that target “different layers”
and levels of the banks and the transformation impact sought therein. That is,
“funding” (Past-M-BSeta) the mandate and the actual “demand” (Past-M-BSeta) for developmental programmes generally and the IEDP specifically. The resource allocation to, and scale of impact of, the BankSeta IEDP is a question that
“always” (Past-M-BSeta) arises from stakeholders such as the banks, and similarly with the Heads of the Leadership Development Centres that participated in the research. Below the previous programme manager of the IEDP relates the
“challenges” of “cost” and “negative perceptions” of being “expensive”:
“The other thing that I think has been a big challenge for me was the cost element [of the IEDP]. It’s viewed as very expensive and there’s always questions around what are we getting out of this [..] So for me those are the kind of challenges that I’ve had. It’s funding and it’s, the demand for it [from individuals wanting to attend from the banks], but also some of the negative perceptions around it.”
“I think the biggest challenge right now is that it has become popular. You see success breeds challenges. In that it has become very popular and we only have so many limited spaces.” (bold and italics added)
“Even from government’s side how many young unemployed people could have been trained with this money [spent on the IEDP]?”
Below is an example of a Heads of Leadership Development Centre (HoLDC) in one of the banks who states that the BankSeta IEDP is a “prestigious programme”, but “expensive” as well. The HoLDC asks if the resources could be allocated to
“design something different” and not within the confines of the “bureaucracy” of the skills development architecture and ecology discussed before:
“Ah, you know that IEDP it’s quite a prestigious programme, it’s like a 350,000 Rands per person programme, it’s very expensive. I haven’t been on it. I know some people who’ve been on it and they got quite a bit out of it, but I think for 350,000 we could design something different, awesome [..]I mean these legislative bodies [related to the Skills Development Act]
for me are just a hindrance more than anything else, the SAQA43 and all of that they’re -- it’s very difficult interacting with them they don’t facilitate an outcome, they just come with a big heavy bureaucracy that they impose and we’ve got to try and contort ourselves to align with this thing so they not really adding value.”
The BankSeta CEO acknowledges that the programme is “expensive”, but argues that in comparison to the individual banks the BankSeta is able to achieve
“economy of scale” and access for “corporate visits” that the individual banks cannot:
“Of the IEDP. Just at the top of it it’s very expensive. I think per unit it’s about 400,000 per person on the programme but if you take what we are able to offer, well Investec is running a parallel programme, going into the States as well, they’re doing that I think with Wharton. The Nedbank group is doing that one with INSEAD in France and they’re paying a lot
43 SAQA refers to the South African Qualifications Authority, which is part of the post-Apartheid skills architecture and ecology and is enacted by the National Qualifications Framework Act 67 of 2008 (SAQA, 2016). SAQA sets the standards for qualifications. Its mandate states that it “must develop and implement policy and criteria [..]for the development, registration and publication of qualifications and part-qualifications” (ibid).
more money than we’re paying because we’ve got economy of scale but the real benefit of our involvement is that we are able to get into international banks for corporate visits because we are not competitor with any bank.” (bold and italics added)
The banks also appear to face similar challenges regarding the demand, cost and prioritisation of funding for their leadership development as part of the career progression of individual employees within the respective organisations and the organisation’s broader “talent management” (HOLDC-A, C2, D1 and D2) process which includes “succession” (HOLDC-B, HOLDC-D2, Del-3, Del-5, Del-10, Del-12, Past-M-BSeta and M-Bseta) “planning” (HOLDC-B) and management and the “accelerated development programmes” (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-B, HOLDC-C2, HOLDC-D1, HOLDC-D2, Del-1, and Del-2) for identified “high potential” (HOLDC-A, C2, D1 and D2) individuals. It is a challenge of funding, prioritising and allocating a budget and “resources” (HOLDC-A) for “talent development” (HOLDC-C2) more broadly. It raises the question of “access”
(HOLDC-A) to leadership development, the scale of impact, and how
“leadership” is framed within the individual organisations. In chapter five and seven the theme of access and democratising leadership development is explored in more detail. The evolving “mandate[s]” (HOLDC-A) of the banks’ Leadership Development Centres are explored in the present chapter and chapter five.
“developing [based on “talent management” means] there is a budget that’s available right and sometimes these programmes are costly and the business unit can only take certain -- so few people into such a small number of programmes and the others don’t get an opportunity of doing that so that’s a downside of talent development.” (HOLDC-C2)
“We’re a large organisation – 30,000 people. We acknowledge that everybody’s a leader in their own right so you also don’t want to only put expensive programmes in place that cost you an excess of 300,000 per person and only the selected few can get access to it. So you really want to make development accessible to everybody especially if you say that
everybody is a leader in the organisation. How do you equip them, how do you get them in tuned with themselves. [..] And you’ve got to figure out where you can put resources.” (HOLDC-A)
“So there’s formal programmes that we run. Some people want to do formal qualifications, so degrees and learnerships. So including the [BankSeta] IEDP. We also have the accelerated development programme, which is mostly for middle managers. Very expensive, it’s very expensive.” (HOLDC-D2)
“[..] even without a budget what are you building that’s going to help that division be successful because you never always have all the resources available. So it puts a lot of pressure on you in the way you design [leadership development interventions].” (HOLDC-B)
“Well I don’t think we have a very strong leadership development programme at the moment [within the bank], I think we’ve gone through so much of change [within the bank] in the last two years, that the focus has kind of been lost. I think you know aside from putting people on BankSeta IEDP [..] So I think there’s room for improvement definitely, even coaching which was kicked off two years ago is now kind of fizzling out due to the cost. I think there’s such a lot of cost pressure that there isn’t really significant emphasis and drive now on leadership and executive development, so we used to have lovely programmes where we sent people off to INSEAD and all of those things have come to a halt now as we, apparently they’re going to roll out a whole new set of leadership development and executive development things that is common across the [banking] group.” (Del-2) (bold and italics added)
HOLDC-B points out that it is the range of resources from funding to the capacity and expertise of the Leadership Development Centre that one needs to consider:
“[..] so we have a constraint that we can only customise to the level of our
resource capability and we want to keep that internal”. The previous programme manager of the BankSeta IEDP at the Delta Business School reflects on the fiscal and design ‘space’ they are afforded by the IEDP:
“We’re lucky to be able to work with BankSeta, because it allows us to develop a very creative programme, and so, a fairly costly programme, but we are able to go to three different international destinations, which I think is great. As you know they added the African destination at the start of the programme, and I think they’ve got that right, as they’ve got a nice mix of different places. [The] coaching model [as in the IEDP] is very, very expensive.” (italics added)
“[..] we have the luxury of doing it our way.”
4.3 LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE RETAIL BANKING