Caliber Consulting delivers HR capability building project for leading Saudi bank
Working together with Caliber Consulting, a leading Saudi bank designed and implemented a multi‑program HR capability‑uplifting project across the group. The initiative aimed to strengthen HR’s ability to support growth, governance, and workforce readiness at scale – reflecting the institution’s commitment to investing in people capability as a driver of long‑term performance.
The project brought together HR leaders and professionals from across the bank for a series of high‑impact, senior‑level learning programs delivered in person at its headquarters in Riyadh.
A group‑wide HR capability uplift
As one of the GCC’s top five banks, the institution operates across multiple entities, markets, and regulatory environments. This scale brings both opportunity and complexity, particularly in areas such as talent acquisition, workforce planning, organizational design, and total rewards.
Recognizing the need for a more unified and future-ready HR function, the bank engaged Caliber Consulting for support.
According to the bank’s hiring leaders, the scale and complexity of the initiative required a partner with end-to-end HR capabilities, strong practitioner credibility, and the capacity to coordinate multiple senior-level programs as a single, cohesive learning journey. Caliber Consulting met all these requirements, differentiating itself from more traditional training or advisory providers.
The objective of the program was to elevate HR’s role as a strategic partner to the business, ensuring consistency, alignment, and capability across the group.
Five distinct programs
The project was structured around five distinct programs delivered during November and December 2025. Each program brought together HR teams from the parent organization and its subsidiaries, enabling cross‑entity learning and reinforcing a shared HR language across the group.
Institutionalizing evidence‑based talent selection
The first two programs focused on competency-based interviewing and were delivered by Dr. William Rothwell, an exclusive partner of Caliber Consulting and a world-renowned HR scholar and author of more than 180 books. The programs positioned interviewing not simply as a hiring technique, but as a critical decision-making capability that directly influences organizational performance, risk, and long-term talent quality.
Participants were equipped with structured, competency-based methods designed to reduce bias, improve consistency, and strengthen the quality and defensibility of hiring decisions across the organization. Through practical application tailored to a large, highly regulated banking environment, the sessions emphasized advanced probing techniques, evaluation rigor, and interviewer calibration – enabling more objective, evidence-based talent assessments for both frontline and critical roles.
Together, the programs institutionalized a consistent, scalable, and governance-aligned approach to talent selection across multiple levels of the organization.
Strengthening strategic workforce planning
The third program centered on strategic workforce planning and was delivered by a seasoned CHRO with extensive experience leading workforce planning in large, complex organizations. The sessions positioned workforce planning as a core strategic discipline directly linked to business priorities and long‑term value creation.
Participants explored advanced workforce demand forecasting, capability gap analysis, critical role identification, and scenario‑based planning, with a strong emphasis on translating data and insights into executive‑level decisions. The program strengthened HR’s ability to engage credibly with senior leadership, anticipate future workforce needs, and support organizational readiness in a fast‑evolving banking environment.
Advancing organization design capability
The fourth program focused on organization design and was delivered by Rani Salman, Managing Partner at Caliber Consulting and a globally recognized practitioner in the field. Drawing on extensive hands‑on experience and thought leadership, including work co‑authored with Naomi Stanford, the program positioned organization design as a practical, decision‑oriented capability rather than a one‑off structural exercise.
Participants explored how to design fit‑for‑purpose organizational structures aligned with strategy, with a strong focus on decision rights, spans of control, role clarity, and operating model alignment. The program equipped HR leaders and practitioners with repeatable frameworks and design principles that can be applied to future restructuring initiatives, business unit evolutions, and operating model changes.
Enhancing total rewards expertise
The final program addressed total rewards and positioned it as a strategic enabler of performance and workforce sustainability rather than a purely compensation‑driven exercise. Participants explored rewards strategy, job architecture, grading, and pay alignment, with a strong focus on internal equity, market competitiveness, and consistency across a large Group structure.
The program equipped HR leaders with practical frameworks and decision tools to review, refine, and evolve reward structures over time – supporting informed pay decisions, talent retention, and fairness across entities.
A more strategic and future‑ready HR function
All programs were highly interactive and application‑driven, with content carefully tailored to the Saudi banking context. The sessions fostered meaningful dialogue among HR professionals from across the group, supporting alignment, knowledge sharing, and consistency in HR practices across entities.
The impact of the project was both broad and substantive. HR capability was strengthened across multiple critical domains simultaneously, cross‑entity alignment was enhanced, and HR was further positioned as a confident, strategic partner to the business. The programs also reinforced the institution’s commitment to investing in its people and embedding HR as a core enabler of long‑term organizational performance.
