‘Future of Standard Chartered depends on talent’: CEO tells staff after ‘lower-value human capital’ comment backfires

Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered, addressed the bank’s staff on Wednesday in an attempt to mitigate the fallout from their recent comments about the potential for artificial intelligence to replace human workers. In a memo to staff, Winters admitted his comment might have been offensive to many people.

‘Disturbing’

“Many of you will have seen the media coverage following the Investor Event in Hong Kong, particularly those related to automation, artificial intelligence, and workforce changes. I know it can be disturbing when reduced to simple headlines or an out-of-context quote,” Winters wrote in a note. Bloomberg News.

What Bill Winters said

Winters, who has been Group CEO of Standard Chartered PLC since 2015, made the comments on Tuesday as he talked about plans to cut 15% of corporate function roles (about 7,000 jobs) by 2030.

“This is not cost-cutting; it’s replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and investment capital that we put in,” Winters said at a briefing, adding that affected employees would be given “good, clear notice” in advance.

However, Winters’ choice of words was not appreciated by many on social media. Even former Singaporean President Halimah Yacob disagreed with Winters, saying it was “disturbing” to describe workers that way.

Winters’ memo to employees

As the backlash grew, Winters said in a memo to employees that the bank was committed to changing its workforce.

“We have been clear that our workforce will evolve. Some roles will decrease in number, others will change, and new opportunities will arise,” he wrote.

“We will continue to invest in technology, platforms and automation to improve how we work, serve our customers and position the Bank for long-term growth,” Winters said. “I would like to make it clear that the future of Standard Chartered depends on the talent, judgement, relationships and commitment of you, our colleagues.”

Standard Chartered’s announcement on Tuesday was the first of its kind by a major global bank in which a specific headcount reduction was directly attributed to AI deployment.

What did HSBC CEO say about artificial intelligence?

While Standard Chartered may be the first, it is unlikely to be the only one as HSBC has hinted it will move in the same direction.

HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery said on Wednesday that artificial intelligence will destroy certain jobs in the financial sector and the bank will retrain its workforce to meet the challenge.

Elhedery said at the HSBC investor day event that staff should embrace AI-driven change rather than resist it and work with the bank to lead the new technology.

“We all know that generative AI will eliminate certain jobs and create new jobs,” Elhedery said. he said.

“But my first mission is that I need 200,000 colleagues to be with us on this journey. It doesn’t matter how many are left at the end of the journey. The question is how do we make sure that those 200,000 colleagues are given all the skills, training and tools that will make them future-ready, more productive versions of themselves?”

Elhedery said HSBC staff needed to make sure they were “not fighting us, not disenfranchised, anxious, overwhelmed and resistant to change”.