How Data is Helping Organizations to Improve the Employee Lifecycle

How Data is Helping Organizations to Improve the Employee Lifecycle

Key uses cases showing how data can help drive societal change

Each year, the Cloudera Data Impact Awards recognize organizations that have accomplished amazing things with innovative data solutions. 

For 2021, the awards will include a new category: People First.

Entrants in this category were asked to demonstrate how they have addressed the world’s “most difficult workplace and societal challenges” with solutions aimed at transforming work culture and society as a whole. More specifically, judges were looking for submissions related to people analytics and reporting; employee recruiting, retention and development; employee resource groups; diversity, equality and inclusion strategy; supplier diversity, and related areas.

2021 seems like a particularly auspicious time to add the People First category given that the global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in so many workplace and societal changes. Shutdowns. Quarantines. Masking. Remote work. Increase online shopping. Vaccines. Video calls. A new normal where companies faced existential threats as they attempted to adapt and remain competitive. 

From among the many submissions, two organizations stood out for the way they used data to respond to these challenges with solutions that put people first: Bank Madiri and United Overseas Bank. 

…and congratulations to the winner: Bank Mandiri

Bank Mandiri

Bank Mandiri is Indonesia’s largest financial institution. Headquartered in Jakarta, it boasts more than 2500 branch offices.

Its entry highlighted how the bank solved two separate problems related to the pandemic: delivering financial assistance to customers who needed it and tracking employee health.

On the financial assistance front, the pandemic resulted in a dramatic increase in loan applications — but it also meant an increase in the likelihood of loan defaults. Bank Mandiri’s management wanted to provide monetary help to customers as quickly as possible, all while keeping employee exposure to a minimum.

With a solution based on Cloudera Data Science Workbench (CDSW), the bank implemented a more streamlined loan approval process that reduced processing time from a week to just hours. It also introduced real-time monitoring that helped it better track its liquidity status. As a result of this innovative data solution, the company helped customers while keeping its default rate low. 

The bank also used its data lake to feed a real-time dashboard that tracked employee health which led to better support for employees. With the aggressive and unpredictable spread of the virus, the bank could monitor employee health and public interactions. With information on staff working locations and health status across all branches and regions, the Bank was able to ensure employee safety as well as business continuity.

In all, the firm estimates that these two initiatives resulted in $1 billion in savings.

United Overseas Bank

The winner of last year’s Data Impact Achievement Award, United Overseas Bank (UOB) is a multinational financial services firm headquartered in Singapore. It has more than 500 offices in 19 countries.

Its 2021 entry addressed two other impacts of the coronavirus: the need to remain competitive in a more digital world and the need to attract and retain talent.

As a result of the pandemic, everyone is doing more online. Companies need to speed up their digital transformation processes, which requires data analytics that can help obtain valuable insights to drive business performance.

But getting workers with the skills necessary to support data analytics is becoming increasingly difficult.

While the first months of the pandemic resulted in record employment decreases, in the months since, employers have struggled to find enough workers to fill open positions. Employers can’t count on being able to find new hires with necessary skills, and they also have a strong incentive to retain the valuable workers they already have.

To address these issues, UOB launched a new initiative to upskill its workforce. Its goal was to prepare its 25,000 workers for the future by providing data and analytics training. The program allows the firm to meet its needs for data workers in-house and, as a side benefit, the training encourages higher morale and increased retention rates.

So far, 70% of UOB’s workforce has completed this training. Not only did the project improve workers’ data literacy, it has already led to a key innovation in just 14 months: the launch of a digital bank for millennials. The firm is also piloting several analytics programs, including one that introduces artificial intelligence into its compliance efforts. These systems should help UOB excel as the world adjusts to a new reality.

Winner of the Data Impact Awards 2021: People First

Join us in congratulating Bank Mandiri for using real-time, data-driven solutions to tackle difficult workplace and societal challenges affecting its employees and customers.

You can become a data hero too

Join us in celebrating Cloudera data heroes from all seven categories and email us at ClouderaEngaged@cloudera.com to find out how you can apply for next year’s nominations.  

Arielle Diamond
Customer Advocacy Manager, Marketing Communications
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