Bangkok--17 Sep--kasikornbank
In the fast-paced digital era, KASIKORNBANK (KBank) aims to be the number-one digital banking provider in a bid to meet customers' needs and bring them greater value. To this end, employees hold the key in creating innovations. Recently, KBank transformed the fourth floor of its head office in Rat Burana to be a learning and co-working space, the KBank Digital Academy, in order to elevate its employees' digital experience. With an area of more than 900 square meters, the Academy will serve as a digital playground and co-working space to leverage the digital skills of its staff members, so that they will be able to apply advanced technologies to their work for enhanced efficiency, along with creating innovative solutions in alignment with customers' needs. With this move, KBank has shown its intent to be at the forefront as a bank of high technology.
Ms. Kattiya Indaravijaya, KBank President, said that KBank Digital Academy aims to enhance Bank employees' capabilities in the digital era on three levels: Live Digital, wherein employees will be nurtured to embrace new technologies and learning experiences so that they can adapt to digitalization; Execute Digital, which aims to enable staff to take part in enhancing work efficiency, thus bringing about novel work concepts; and Lead Digital, wherein employees will be able to apply technology to create new solutions that better serve customer demand, thus leading KBank to a realm that is "beyond banking".
The floor plan is designed to create a working and learning space of simplicity in style to promote tech-based functionality and thus optimize productivity and benefits. The space is divided into five zones:
1) KDA Stadium, a meeting space to spark new ideas to inspire and encourage individuals to dare to think, challenge and explore new ideas. This zone features seating in a shared space to encourage people to interact with each other, creating an atmosphere of openness and mutual learning. KDA Stadium is suited to varied formats of activities, namely, group talk, workshops and simulation games.
2) Showcase Experience, a platform for KBank staff to present their new tech-based work products through hands-on learning to create well-considered innovations, and to share new experiences with other colleagues so that they can learn and build on the ideas in order to come up with the best solutions for customers.
3) Co-working Space, a common area with an open-plan space to address the new workspace style, focusing on community building and supportive teamwork to encourage everyone to work collaboratively. The space is equipped with digital workplace facilities as it is a working environment for going above and beyond.
4) Cube, a meeting space where colleagues gather to find privacy with a communication system to facilitate meetings, contributing to the discovery of the best solutions.
5) Creative Space, a space for new ideas to be presented through an oversized board and interactive screen which immediately records every idea and every work product.
KBank Digital Academy is designed based on three concepts: 1) Collaborative to promote work collaboration in the seamlessly connected floor plan; 2) Dynamic to enable the adjustment of space with flexibility to match the different needs of each activity; and 3) Innovative to create a stylish office vibe, propelled by facilities to spark new ideas with limitless possibilities. KBank Digital Academy is a self-service space, which requires staff members to put away the equipment after each use. It is also a self-directed space, which offers freedom for staff members to use any equipment and other facilities, such as vending machines equipped with a mobile banking payment system to facilitate the cashless society. In addition, we have focused on making this space a zero-waste zone, with the aim of encouraging KBank employees to take care of the environment and society.
KBank Digital Academy has begun to develop an online platform to support self-learning for all KBank employees. Under this platform, they will be free to choose any of more than 4,000 study courses, which have been developed to meet their business and lifestyle needs by our leading online course partners at home and abroad, such as SkillLane, TBAC, Coursera and edX. In addition, the KASIKORN Library offers an online service for our employees to borrow any of more than 19,000 books and gain access to Ookbee e-books and e-magazines via computer or mobile phone anywhere, anytime. KBank Digital Academy will also organize training sessions, seminars and other activities to help improve digital skills for our staff members. These include organization-level seminars with speakers and influencers being invited to share their experiences with our employees and thus foster the growth of new ideas for the organization.