Hatton National Bank the largest private commercial bank in Sri Lanka launched an innovative
employee engagement and development initiative – the HNB Learning Premier League – on Thursday.
The HNB Learning Premier League would be a first, connecting virtual learning with cricket.
Modelled on the popular cricket format, the HNB Learning Premier League would connect with staff
on a virtual gaming platform to promote learning and development of its staff.
The HNB Learning Premier League aims to gamify learning, enhance knowledge, enhance cross
functional collaboration, increase digital adoption and encourage senior leadership involvement in
creating a progressive learning culture within the organization.
The HNB Learning Premier League will be a series of matches among registered teams. All teams
will be sponsored by a member of the senior management. The matches will be in the form of digital
quizzes and challenges promoting mastery of technical knowledge in the area of products,
operations, compliance, information security, credit, international trade and general banking. The
structure of the tournament will be in the form of a cricket match with teams comprising of 11
players each and include batting and bowling options. The matches will be held in stages namely
knockout rounds, league round and finals, spread over few months.
On the launch L Chiranthi Cooray, DGM/Chief Transformation Officer of HNB said the following:
“As a talent-led organization, we are always inventing ways and means for people to learn and grow
professionally in their careers. Through initiatives such as these, we clearly demonstrate our
commitment towards developing employees – to make sure they get the support they need to be
star-performers and exceed our customers’ expectations. Engaging and relevant learning content
delivered in an agile manner using digitally smart mediums is the future of corporate training. As a
talent-led organization, we are always inventing ways and means for people to learn and grow
professionally in their careers”.
Commenting on the initiative; Eomal Munasinha, Chief Learning Officer of HNB said; “We believe in
making learning enjoyable and continue to innovate ways in which we deliver learning and
development. In a pandemic environment where traditional learning methods were not feasible, the
HNB Talent Centre has developed new ways of learning, creating an eco-system that inspires people
to learn, improve and grow. HNB Learning Premier League is yet another innovative concept that
we are proud to launch today.”
The game platform was custom built for HNB by Layup – Creative eLearning (Pvt) Ltd, the eLearning
partner for HNB. Mr Dino Corera, Chief Executive Officer of Layup had this to say: “The passion to
innovate on the part of HNB’s learning and development team in making training more exciting and
engaging has been par excellence. Despite the impact of the pandemic, the continued drive to push
boundaries in introducing ground-breaking initiatives like the Learning Premiere League stand
testament to the resilience of the team and bank at large. Layup is proud to be the Learning
Management System supporting HNB’s transformative learning journey as well as the Learning
Premier League , especially given it’s synergies with the ethos of our platform – gamified, socially
driven learning”.
