HNB strengthens employee value with attractive benefits to staff from the Collective Agreement 2018-21

October, 22, 2018

Sri Lanka’s premier private sector commercial bank, HNB PLC, held a formal ceremony to mark its entering into a new Collective Agreement with the Ceylon Bank Employees Union and the HNB PLC Officers’ Union for the period 2018/21.

Collective agreements covering Bank Associates grade and Junior Executive grade were entered into with the Ceylon Bank Employees Union while a concurrent collective agreement was entered into with the HNB PLC Officers’ Union with regard to the Junior Executive grade at the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, on 12th October 2018.

Commenting on the significance of the new agreements, HNB Chief Human Resources Officer/ Deputy General Manager - Human Resources, Chiranthi Cooray stated: “Our rewards philosophy positions the Bank as a market leader in creating value for employees. The new collective agreements signed today further improved the already strong remuneration structure of HNB, while bringing all employees of the Bank in to performance based rewards at the same time.”

“By effectively incentivizing our employees, we ensure the continuing refinement of HNB’s performance driven culture, combined with extensive support, training and other benefits, we are able to ensure that our team of employees continues to serve as a key driver of our continuing success in our trailblazing journey. We have strengthened the relationship with our unions. We abide by the principles of ILO in our interactions with employee representatives. We are committed to nurturing this relationship and working together as partners in progress for the betterment of our Hatna family.”

A specific feature of this year’s collective agreement has been the inclusion of Bank Associate grade employees under the performance based reward system for the first time, which in effect expands performance-based rewards to all employees from 2018 onwards.

Hatton National Bank has a long history of over 35 years in collective negotiations with trade unions regarding the salaries of their employees and presently around 80% of the employees are covered by collective agreements.

The Bank stands as a pioneer in the field of HR setting new industry benchmarks. In house developed succession planning programmes, novel engagement initiatives, a 3-tier leadership programme and a leadership development track for high potential young managers and mid- career professionals with a view to strengthening the leadership Top 100 for the future are some of these.

Photo captions: (Top) HNB Chief Human Resources Officer/ Deputy General Manager - Human Resources, Chiranthi Cooray, Head of Human Capital Management, Indrajith Senadhira and members of the HNB HR team exchanging agreements with Ceylon Bank Employees Union President, Channa Dissanayake and members of the CBEU, and (bottom) HNB PLC Officers’ Union President, Suranga Peiris and office bearers of the union