As one of the leading private sector employers of graduate-level personnel in the country, FirstBank's manpower development policy recognises the invaluable contribution that labour has made to the growth and development of countries successfully navigating from third world to developing country status. Consequently, our human capital management initiatives during the year in review were geared towards providing necessary support to staff, departments, and the various business drivers to enable the Bank to achieve its goals and objectives. One of the key milestones in the search for more efficient workforce management included the design and implementation of a new workforce strategy. As the level of sophistication of the domestic market for financial services increased, expectations for more efficient customer service within the industry have also grown. Technological improvements have played a key role in this process, as improved data-gathering and processing have made the design of bespoke financial solutions much easier. This has also driven the need to align staff skill sets with customer service delivery expectations. Our goal in this regard is the provision of best-in-class financial services, using least-cost solutions. The remodelling of our workforce structure in the last year was intended to achieve the staff mix consistent with this goal.

In the review period, we continued to replenish the Bank's workforce, especially at strategically important levels of responsibility. As the Bank grows its footprints locally and internationally, contributing positively to our customers' value chain, we hired personnel with the unique skill set needed to fully leverage our operations. As has become traditional with the Bank, we employed entry-level graduate staff during the year.

Our staff remain the fulcrum of our diverse operations. Other staff-related initiatives implemented during the review period included a comprehensive mentoring/counselling programme and sundry career management initiatives. The Bank’s succession planning framework, and an automated people management system, were designed with this in mind. We are confident that with our current staff complement and the planned addition to it, we have the pivots and the props needed to take full advantage of opportunities in our business environment.