The winners of this year’s Deloitte Top200 Awards were announced on 1 December at a glittering awards ceremony at Auckland’s Sky City.
It was a big night for Global Women, with members and investment partners heavily represented. They included ASB, named the winner of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Diversity Award. The award was established by Global Women in 2014, and previous winners have included BNZ and Westpac.
The business benefits of diversity
In a post-awards interview with NZ Herald, ASB Chief Executive Barbara Chapman talks about the impact an inclusive workforce can have, both inside and outside the organisation. She notes that building a culture that prioritises staff inclusion leads to greater staff engagement, which in turn leads to improved staff engagement with customers.
“We’ve found by having a culture that focuses on inclusion, we’re getting great team engagement scores, which shows when we’re out with our customers—it ladders up into engagement and then out in to customer satisfaction.”
A broad approach
When it comes to establishing diversity initiatives, ASB diversifies. By investing resources in a number of different strategies, they’re helping to foster a sense of belonging for everyone within their organisation.
Barbara says “For us diversity has grown across a whole range of things, not just focusing on one thing. I think it’s the breadth of what we do that is being noticed. This approach to diversity is having great benefits, internally and externally.”
This broad spread of initiatives include:
- becoming certified as an LGBTI-friendly workplace with the Rainbow Tick
- introducing the salutation Mx as an option for customers
- creating a faith-room at ASB Head Office
- introducing a corporate hijab for frontline staff
- establishing a network group to advocate for families
- launching Whakaterehia, a programme aimed to accelerate the development of Māori people managers within the business
- strong commitment to gender balance that has seen a 50/50 gender split on the board and women making up 29% of senior executive positions, including the CEO.
And they’re constantly looking for new ways to foster inclusion within the organisation.
“We always have to be talking about inclusion and it has to be one of the values we care about, so keeping it alive as a topic inside the business is really critical.”
What gets measured gets done
ASB was commended by the judges for their data collection of diversity statistics, with their monthly D&A Report widely viewed and discussed across the business.
The bank is not afraid to set ambitious targets for their diversity initiatives and is transparent about their progress in meeting them. For example, their Women in Leadership metric is set at 30% by the end of June 2017. Currently, the proportion sits at 28.5%.
In addition, their People and Culture survey creates a “Diversity Index” that measures: the level of comfort speaking up; treating others with respect; leadership commitment to diversity; and promotion perceptions. This currently sits at 89%, with the target at 90% and above.
The Deloitte Top200 Award Winners
Other winning Global Women partners and members were:
- Massey University Business School Chief Financial Officer of the Year Award – Jolie Hodson, Spark
- QBE Insurance Chairperson of the Year Award – Christopher Moller, Skycity
- Minter Ellison Rudd Watts Excellence in Governance Award – ACC
- Visionary Leader Award – Ranjna Patel
(L-R) Faye Langdon, Antonia Watson, Ranjna Patel, Jolie Hodson
Photos of the event from the Deloitte Top200 website.