EastWest banks on blended learning

Citation

(2014), "EastWest banks on blended learning", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 46 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT.03746baa.005

EastWest banks on blended learning

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 46, Issue 2

EastWest Bank has introduced a learning-management system (LMS) to develop competencies in credit, branch operations and project management among its employees in the Philippines.

The bank is growing rapidly. It more than doubled the number of its branches in the Philippines to 245 in 2012 alone.

“Most of our employees are young and tech-savvy. They want access to information and knowledge anytime and anywhere, so a flexible and easy-to-access LMS is very important to us,” explained Judy Grace Capili, vice-president for human resources and head of the EastWest academy.

Following the introduction of the LMS the EastWest academy can offer blended learning where employees can obtain fundamental knowledge through online courses in order to help them to enrich their classroom experience. In addition, EastWest academy’s learning portal supports the knowledge gained from the classroom in an on-demand learning model.

“Having an online component for our learning programs means we no longer have to fly a teacher to our local branch stores or ask our employees to travel for training,” noted Judy Grace Capili. “Moreover, we can efficiently monitor and administer all training notifications and records and can ensure that our employees are competent and trained for their jobs through assessments that are available in the LMS.”

Steve Young, general manager for NetDimensions Asia Pacific, said: “We are pleased that EastWest selected NetDimensions Learning as the learning platform for its academy. We are also very excited by the opportunity to be able to support its employees’ career development. NetDimensions Learning can help a service associate or bank teller to determine his or her career path and acquire the competencies and skills needed to become a store manager. This is the kind of partnership that we strive to have with all our clients.”

Meanwhile, EastWest Bank and the Bank Marketing Association of the Philippines recently hosted financial-education classes for seafarers at the Mariners’ Polytechnic Training Center in Malate, Manila. The free financial-literacy classes ran weekly for one month and tackled various aspects of investments and financial management.

Some 20 percent of the 1.2 million seafarers around the world are Filipinos and their remittances amount to more than US$1 billion annually.

The class was a wake-up call for 32-year-old seafarer-in-training Nick Jason Cimafranca. “I realized that the right way really is to save before spending. We are used to doing it the other way. What happens is we spend and then we only save if there is any more money left. What if there is nothing left? It will be our loss in the long run,” he explained.

EastWest continues to look for other initiatives to share its financial expertise among Filipinos.