Global Women partner ANZ recently won the Supreme Award at the YWCA Equal Pay Awards for the second year running.
We grabbed a few minutes with CEO David Hisco to chat about how they’ve achieved this and to find out more about ANZ’s approach to diversity and inclusion.
Global Women: You’ve been with ANZ for over 30 years. What is the biggest change you’ve seen over that time in terms of the drive to establish and retain a diverse workforce?
David Hisco: I think over the last ten years or so there has been a real recognition, plus plenty of research, to show that having a diverse workforce is not only the right thing to do, but that it’s good for business too.
GW: ANZ recently won the Supreme Award at the YWCA Equal Pay Awards. How did ANZ go about redressing pay imbalance? What strategies have you put in place to make sure that the organisation keeps to this path?
DH: One of the drivers of this statistic is time taken out of the workforce. The salaries of women who took parental leave were not adjusted to keep in line with their peers. We have addressed that now and, of course, all jobs pay the same whether it is a man or a woman applying. Also, improving our flexible work policies has enabled more women to participate in the workforce and this again has helped our statistics.
GW: As a leader, what do you think is the most effective way to get the entire team on board when introducing a new D&I initiative?
DH: We make sure we present the business opportunity and expected outcome any change will bring. That means ccommunicating the ‘why’ so our employees can truly understand why we are introducing a new way of doing something and the benefits it will bring them and the organisation.
GW: What business challenges and opportunities do you see for New Zealand as a whole in creating and establishing a truly diverse corporate workforce?
DH: Change is never as fast as you want it and you’ve got to be clear about what you’re really trying to achieve. The worst thing we could do is make superficial change and think we’ve achieved something, or put the wrong people in roles so we tick the box. Building a quality pipeline is our main focus so we can look through to the future on what our resourcing can achieve.