As AI reshaped banking and employee expectations hardened, DBS India recalibrated wellbeing, skills and leadership for a new operating reality.
By 2025, India’s banking sector was no longer debating whether work had changed. The question was whether institutions were changing fast enough.
A volatile macro environment, rapid AI adoption and a recalibration of employee priorities forced banks to confront a hard truth: legacy people practices were misaligned with the realities of modern financial services. For DBS India, the year marked a decisive shift—from incremental HR interventions to a more structural rethink of wellbeing, skills and leadership.
Kishore Poduri, Managing Director and Country Head – HR at DBS India, places employee wellbeing at the centre of that transition. “In 2025, employee well-being within the Indian banking sector was in focus, because the industry has been undergoing major shifts, driven by a dynamic macro environment and rising AI adoption,” he said.
From wellness add-ons to cultural architecture
What changed, Poduri argues, was not awareness but expectation. Traditional wellness offerings were no longer sufficient. “Today’s professionals demand personalisation, and they value the power of choice. Their expectations of work-life balance have been reshaped with a distinct prioritisation of mental health initiatives and learning programs, including AI skills,” he said.
That recalibration forced banks like DBS to move wellbeing out of the margins. “Leading banks like DBS view employee well-being as a core part of the culture, rather than treating it as an additional investment,” Poduri said.
At DBS India, that cultural shift is anchored in a defined employee value proposition built around what the bank calls the ‘5 Feels’: Purposeful, Invested In, Connected, Cared For and Valued. The framework is not symbolic, Poduri insists, but operational. “Through consistent surveying, we remain updated on employee expectations and actively invest in talent up-skilling,” he said.
Learning has become a central pillar of that proposition. Programmes such as the DBS Learning Challenge cover themes ranging from GenAI and change management to empathy and critical thinking. The bank has also introduced a Prompt Engineering Challenge and sessions with industry experts to deepen AI literacy. “We aim to embed vital AI literacy and equip employees to thrive in the new paradigm,” Poduri said.
Wellbeing at DBS India, however, extends well beyond learning. The bank has deliberately dismantled uniform benefits structures in favour of customisation. “We understand that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach might not meet every expectation and that is why we go beyond a standard benefits package with a meticulously crafted wellbeing architecture,” Poduri said.
That architecture is anchored by the iHealth Wallet, a digital platform that gives employees personalised health insights and recommendations. “Our digital platform adoption is strong: over 90% of DBS India employees have been onboarded to iHealth Wallet,” he said.
Behavioural incentives reinforce that infrastructure. “More than 80% of DBS India employees use iFit incentives,” Poduri said, referring to a programme that rewards proactive health management. Flexible work arrangements, extended work-from-home for caregivers and expanded leave policies sit alongside structured wellbeing programming.
Midweek, DBS offices take on a different rhythm. Wellness Wednesdays connect employees with external experts on subjects ranging from yoga and meditation to sign language and CPR awareness. For moments of crisis, the iOK Employee Assistance Programme provides round-the-clock access to counsellors and psychologists. Peer communities such as Lean In Circles create informal spaces for employees to navigate confidence, parenting and career transitions together.
The results, Poduri says, are measurable. “DBS Bank India's progressive focus on the employee experience has yielded significant results with 96% of employees appreciating the benefits in an internal survey. We also saw an impressive 88% employee engagement score,” he said.
Building AI capability without losing the human core
If wellbeing formed one axis of change in 2025, skills—particularly AI capability—formed the other. Poduri is clear that technical expertise alone will not define the next phase of banking. “The most indispensable competencies for financial institutions to reap the benefits of AI will constitute a synergy of technical prowess and critical human-driven communication and collaboration,” he said.
DBS India’s response has been to frame AI adoption around people, not roles. “We are shaping a human-led, AI-empowered organisation, where our approach is centred, not on protecting roles, but protecting people,” Poduri said.
That philosophy is backed by scale. DBS Group, an early mover in AI, has deployed more than 1,500 AI models across over 370 use cases under its PURE framework—Purposeful, Unsurprising, Respectful and Explainable—for ethical AI development.
For employees navigating this shift, the bank relies on technology-enabled career infrastructure. “We leverage advanced platforms like our AI/ML-powered career enabler, iGrow, which is utilized by over 85% of our employees,” Poduri said. The platform maps skills, recommends learning pathways and supports internal career moves. The launch of iCoach in July 2025 extended this further with AI-driven career guidance aligned to individual aspirations. “The DBS Learning Hub provides access to over 10,000 curated courses for skill development,” he added.
Leadership, mobility and preparing for what comes next
Leadership capability, particularly across distributed teams, emerged as a parallel priority. “At DBS India, we believe strong leadership is key, especially with our diverse, distributed teams and the growing role of AI,” Poduri said.
Managerial development at DBS is structured, mandatory and continuous. Programmes such as DBS Ready, Building Great Managers and Making Great Decision have trained the entire managerial population. “Programs like ‘Building Great Managers’ & ‘Making Great Decision’ have trained 100% of our managerial population,” Poduri said. These are reinforced by Make Care Contagious, which focuses on psychological safety in hybrid environments.
Leadership development is organised through a Leadership Pipeline Curriculum spanning four levels—from leading others to leading the business—anchored in seven transformational attributes, including growth mindset, courageous conversations and empathy. Social learning formats such as T-Circles and Transformational Sprints complement formal training, while a Manager as Coaches module equips leaders to unlock autonomy and performance in diverse teams.
Career growth, meanwhile, is increasingly driven by internal mobility. “Our Structured Mobility program encourages employees to explore diverse roles across departments every two or three years,” Poduri said. In 2025, 25% of job openings were filled internally, reinforcing the bank’s emphasis on progression from within.
Experiential learning plays a key role. Through the Be My Guest programme, employees participate in short-term immersions, leadership shadowing and cross-functional projects. “Over 1,200 such opportunities were taken up last year,” Poduri said, noting that 17% of participants moved into new internal roles in 2025. The AI-powered iCoach platform, developed with executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, aims to scale high-quality career guidance across the organisation.
Looking to 2026, Poduri sees convergence rather than divergence. “The most important priorities for the banking sector will be the acceleration of upskilling in AI and digital literacy, supporting an adaptive and purpose-driven culture, and prioritising employee well-being and flexibility,” he said.
Agility, he argues, will be decisive. “Banks must prioritise agility, empower decentralised decision-making and relentlessly upskill and reskill teams for future challenges,” Poduri said, adding that wellbeing must translate into tangible personal value if productivity is to be sustainable.
For DBS India, 2025 was not about incremental improvement but recalibration. In a sector where technology is rapidly commoditised, the bank’s experience suggests that differentiation increasingly lies in how deliberately institutions invest in human capability—and how seriously they treat the changing contract between employer and employee.
As featured in People Matters
World’s Best Bank 2025, 2021, 2019, Euromoney
World’s Best Bank for Customer Experience 2025, Euromoney
World’s Best Bank for Corporate Responsibility 2025, 2023, Euromoney
Asia’s Safest Bank, 2009 – 2025, Global Finance
Best Bank in the World 2022, Global Finance
India’s Best International Bank 2021, Asiamoney
World’s Best Banks - #1 in India 2021, Forbes
World’s Safest Commercial Bank 2021, Global Finance
