A moment of recognition can go a long way. It is, in the workplace, a powerful tool that drives value, brings people together and fosters respect, and creates the kind of culture that makes people, talent and HR a true strategic advantage. Just ask Beth Hoerle, Chief HR Officer at global financial institution MUFG. It’s exactly this kind of culture and working environment that has kept her with the business for two decades.
“The work environment and the way we treat people are critical to our success,” she says of the deep-rooted culture and values at MUFG. The company is a Tokyo-headquartered banking group with 150,000 employees in 40 countries and more than 360 years of heritage.
“We’ve always maintained our Japanese roots and, culturally, a lot of that ethos shows up in our work environment,” Beth explains. "Respect, harmony, collaboration, both internally and with our clients are key to the way we do business. From an HR perspective, it makes my job really rewarding and – increasingly – a very strategic asset for the company.
"Our purpose is focused on being committed to empowering a brighter future, and our vision is to be the world's most trusted financial group,” she says. “It means that trust, community, purpose, authenticity – all of those things are so important to how we do business, and that starts with our people."
Beth has considerable experience in HR and talent management, and remains a passionate advocate for the power people bring to an organisation. She began her career at JPMorgan, before joining MUFG in 2006, spending time in the business partner space before stepping into the CHRO role in 2022.
"Coming from the business partner side, means I really understand that business enablement and supporting strategic ambitions is first and foremost," she says, discussing her route to the C-suite. "While other CHROs may have different backgrounds, for me it's always been business first. That means understanding the organisation and stakeholders you work for, what they do every day, how they generate revenue, why we're all here and what we’re working to achieve – that's the foundation for HR.
The evolving talent function
When Beth began her career, the role of HR in the corporate environment looked very different. The function, she says, was largely transactional and operational, the advice it offered concerned mostly with day-to-day people management rather than genuine strategic partnership.
"The strategic element has become much greater over time," she reflects. "And honestly, that's the best part – having the oversight and ability to focus on business partnership, knowing where we’re going and how the HR and people strategies we develop sit alongside every step of that. It’s really rewarding to be part of a business's growth and progression."
Over the last decade, MUFG’s operations in the US have expanded from a New York-headquartered branch of MUFG Bank, Ltd. primarily banking Japanese companies into a global corporate and investment banking powerhouse. Today, MUFG is one of the 10 largest banks in the world, with nearly US$3tn in assets. A key turning point came in 2022 when the bank sold its US retail division, Union Bank, shifting focus to its wholesale corporate banking business, providing specialised financing and advisory services to large institutions.
HR has had to keep pace with that evolution and the Global HR division is currently three years into a five-year journey centred around a move from regional HR strategies operating in relative independence to a genuinely global, interdependent model.
“It takes a long time and considerable work to move towards that global approach, particularly the organisational change management around it,” says Beth, “but for the people in the global HR organisation as well as our clients, it’s really important."
The benefits of the transition, she says, are considerable. “It helps us be more effective as an overall HR organisation. We can rely on both global and regional expertise while executing locally. We’re seeing improvements in consistency across our talent and recruiting programmes, and facilitating shared knowledge through a single global HRBP with a view across all three regions MUFG operates in. It's been really interesting for me to see this evolution as part of my career journey.”
Recognition, culture and trust
Regardless of global location, one consistent theme underpins MUFG’s approach to people and high-performing culture: recognition. To the company, recognition extends far beyond one-off nods to performance and extends to a multilayered, purposeful approach that ties employee appreciation directly to business strategy.
"Recognition builds a strong culture and feeds right into retention and engagement," Beth says. “If people feel seen, heard and valued, they know they’re respected and trusted. All of that feeds into inclusion, contributing to a place where people want to work, want to interact and want to develop their talents. It’s not a ‘nice to have’. It’s part of the equation that leads to a strong workplace."
MUFG’s approach operates across two key areas. The first is Moments That Matter, a platform open to everyone across the Americas where colleagues can recognise and support each other in real time. Recognition carries rewards, with silver, gold and bronze awards tied to point levels redeemable from a catalogue of items.
The second pillar is the annual MUFG Excellence Awards, a programme that has evolved considerably across the six or so years it has been running. Previously focused primarily on rewarding revenue production, the awards have become more holistic, says Beth, recognising that when it comes to talent it takes more than just numbers to drive a business forward.
Across the organisation, colleagues nominate peers who are both advancing the firm's strategic objectives and demonstrating its culture principles, with 100 winners selected by peers as well as senior leaders.
The event itself rotates between US cities, with winners getting a private session with the CEO and the full executive committee present in the room. "Everybody, a hundred people, whatever you want to ask me, I'm here for you," is how Beth describes the tone he sets. The town hall that follows is streamed live to the rest of the Americas workforce.
"What the criteria is really about is nominating those moving the company objectives forward from a business perspective and also demonstrating our culture principles," she says. "So you've got high revenue producers, you've got people in the functions that have created new and more effective systems and processes, and you have people that are really great culture carriers. It's a great mix."
A key aspect of the engagement at MUFG is top-down visibility from the company’s leadership. "I consider it a responsibility," says Beth of her own participation. "Anything I'm asked to do, I do it. I love being at receptions and celebrations, to be able to talk to people, to be out and about and give people a chance to ask questions and give feedback. As leaders, you can get a little out of touch if you don't make a purposeful effort to stay connected, which is why our CEO models this behavior. He’s very approachable, and that type of energy inspires both the executive team and business leaders.
Psychological safety and belonging
With visibility comes authenticity and trust – key aspects for creating the kind of psychologically safe environment Beth is passionate about. At MUFG, she oversees Employee Resource Networks and community engagement and serves as executive sponsor for the Pride Alliance Employee Resource Network.
“Through my work with the Pride Alliance I heard a powerful story,” says Beth. “Someone described how difficult it was to be themselves in their small hometown but said that, when they come to work they feel the complete opposite – accepted, safe, able to be themselves and respected for who they are. It really hit me and I still get emotional thinking about it; it was complete validation of the work we’re trying to do here.”
This people-focused approach also influences training and development at the business. Here, the ongoing HR transformation has delivered real results, with distinct leadership programmes now in place at every career stage, each building on the last, with clear competencies and opportunities for both learning and networking woven through each level.
Beth is particularly passionate about creating early career opportunities in the business, in part influenced by her own early days as a graduate hire. She frequently returns to her college to be involved with recruiting and is currently mentoring a high school student through a nonprofit, helping her prepare to step into her college years and beyond.
The same drive influences her approach to internal progression. "I was just reviewing the new Managing Director list," she says, "and there's nothing better than seeing one of the former entry level trainees get to that position. It's so exciting to see.
"I always talk about leadership with a big L and leadership with a small L," Beth adds. "Everyone can be a leader every day. I think it's our role in HR to provide an environment that allows for that, allows for people to talk about their ideas, to feel respected, to feel that they have a voice in the room."
Partnerships and the power of data
Running an HR function at this scale means knowing where to rely on others, and Beth is as exacting about the partners she works with as she is about her own team. Robert Walters, brought in recently to support the recruiting function, and KPMG, a longer-standing partner managing mobility and expat relocations, are both key partners on the journey and held to exactly the same standards and ambition that Beth sets internally.
"It's an HR outcome," she says. "I take accountability for it, my team takes accountability for it, and so we all have to work together to make sure that the end user is getting the best product. Our external partners have to be able to work at the same level of quality, the same speed and delivery as my own internal team – we’re not working in silos, we’re all One MUFG.”
Underpinning the success of MUFG's HR is a genuine commitment to listening and acting. The company’s Global Employee Survey runs annually, sent to employees worldwide, and sits alongside quarterly regional pulse surveys that offer a more granular read on what managers and teams are experiencing closer to the ground.
“It’s really important,” Beth says, “and what I’ve learned over the last couple of years is that, in terms of actions, I'm a big believer in doing a few things really well. Choose a few themes, start at the top of the house, drive them down through every business and do them really well. And when we either complete an action or add a programme, we frame it as: you said it, we did it. We've taken our survey and been able to use it as a very effective tool. It’s not just a data dump that you put in the drawer."
Serving future talent
Looking ahead, Beth sees economic and geopolitical volatility as one of the core challenges facing HR leaders, with the rapid pace of change calling for flexibility and greater anticipation of future trends.
"Beyond that, the big elephant in the room for all of us is AI," she says. "We’re considering how it will change the workforce of the future, the way we do work, the way we think about work, the way we hire, train, develop and more. It's literally a game changer for everything."
MUFG has already begun adopting AI solutions, with capabilities being embedded through vendors. Microsoft Copilot is being rolled out across the workforce and the team is now looking at enterprise-wide processes that can be simplified and made more effective. Beth is equally focused on AI’s impact on her role including the skills the future workforce will need, the development that will have to evolve alongside them, and the questions about talent that don't yet have clear answers.
"There's a lot of immediate stuff happening," she says, "and then there's much more future-based predictions and setting ourselves up for changes that we have to pay attention to. I'm trying to stay very close to the business strategy around AI, and our global as well as regional HR support has to be right in line with that. More broadly, we’ll stay business aligned, focused on people and fostering a great culture for everyone. MUFG is an amazing place to work and, despite the changes outside our environment, I want us to provide the stability and opportunities that people need to truly thrive.”
