With the high costs of staff training and education, forward looking companies are taking to innovative electronic solutions to improve their competitiveness and employee skills.
Centenary Bank, Uganda’s leading indigenous commercial bank is one of the few ingenious institutions that are moving to tame this challenge in innovative ways. Last month, the bank unveiled a convenient online, learning platform dubbed Click-Campus, which provides both customised and off the shelf courses to its employees at the click of a mouse.
Officiating at the launch of the platform at Mapeera House- the bank’s headquarters in Kampala, Prof. John Ddumba Ssentamu, the Centenary Bank Chairman Board of Directors also Makerere University’s Vice Chancellor said, “With the ever increasing numbers of staff, customers, products and services and other changes in the industry, there is certainly need to adapt a new way of transferring knowledge and skills among staff.”
According to Prof Ddumba, the courses on Click-Campus were chosen carefully, to give all staff a better understanding of the bank’s business and service delivery, thereby satisfying and growing the customer base as well as putting the bank ahead of competition.
In an interview, the bank’s Manager in charge of Human Capital Development, Annette Lubega, added that Click-Campus has been designed and equipped with courses in fields including; management development, credit and banking operations.
“We designed Click-Campus so that we can give an equal training opportunity to our staff bankwide and save costs. As a mother, you want all children to share equally,” Ms Lubega noted.
Speaking at the launch of the online campus, Mr. Fabian Kasi, the Managing Director Centenary Bank said that staff evaluations and promotions would also be based on scores of the courses offered on the platform.
E-learning is part of the bank’s strategy of innovation and growth whereby the goal is to use technology to expand the bank’s services both to staff and customers. “We hope to save money and time which can be dedicated to serving our clients better,” Kasi said.
The bank has over 1700 staff in 58 branches countrywide. In the past, staff had to either travel from upcountry to Kampala to undertake training or travel abroad for advanced skilling. With a fully fledged online training centre within the bank, Centenary Bank is set to cut back it’s training and operational costs.
