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Posts Tagged ‘Banking’

Gender diversity policy – an Australian banking industry perspective

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Source: ANZ, 2008

According with a recent article published in several high rated Australian newspapers, „ the days of the bank boardrooms being the domain solely of suits and ties could soon be at an end” (Johnston and Bibby, 2010).

This comes as a result of several banks such as Westpac and Commonwealth Bank who announced new policies to dramatically boost the number of women in management roles.

According to Westpac management, the bank had put in place a gender target to double the number of women in management positions to 40% in the next 4 years. The KPI used to monitor the results of this initiative is % Managers who are women. It can be found in the KPIs examples from the Human Resources Functional Area section of www.smartkpis.com.

The new targets come mostly as a response to the new ASX guidelines which are about to come in force in January, though as several studies and reports already proved, gender diversity can boost a company’s performance (Smith et al, 2005; Manpower, 2008), and thus should be a standard strategy to be adopted and followed by most of the companies.

Several companies like the ANZ Bank, already recognized this necessity of promoting more women in management positions. Currently, they are well on their way, running programs to boost the corporate gender diversity. According with the ANZ (2010) corporate responsibility policy:

• Organizations who are employers of choice for women have access to a larger talent pool;

• Are better positioned to represent the needs of customers and communities;

• Understand the link between a higher proportion of women in top management and increased profitability;

• „Gender diversity is an important characteristic of companies with excellent financial performance and developing women managers and leveraging that talent by giving them a seat at the decision making table is smart business.” (ANZ, 2008)

Though, a number of governmental official voices, among which Marie Steel, the acting director of the federal government’s Equal Opportunity for Women in Workplace Agency, already questioned how the 40% target will be achieved in such a short period of time, the initiatives seems to be an achievable one.

A recent survey among the Australian corporations shows that the banking sector is the best positioned to boost their gender diversity, with 13% of women employed in management position compared with just 8% for the country general.

Though the initiative is laudable, as Johnston and Bibby (2010) in their article acknowledge, there is a lot of terrain to cover, especially when comparing with high achievers like Sweden or Norway.

References

ANZ (2008), ANZ’z approach to advancing women in the workplace, Corporate Responsability – Gender, available at http://anz.com/resources/5/8/58755080402e27ca8188ab68c54970db/EOWA-booklet.pdf?CACHEID=5a9ac900402e2750b0bef72c5b851de3, (accessed 12 October, 2010)

ANZ (2010), Corporate responsability – Gender, available at http://anz.com/about-us/corporate-responsibility/employees/diversity-culture/diversity/gender/, (accessed 12 October 2010)

Jonston, E. and Bibby, P. (2010), Westpac adopts gender target, available at http://www.theage.com.au/business/westpac-adopts-gender-target-20101011-16g41.html (accessed 12 October, 2010)

Manpower (2008), 2008 Women in Management Survey, available at http://www.manpower.com.tw/pdf/2008_Women_in_Management_Survey_en.pdf , (accessed 12 October, 2010)

Smith, N.; Smith, V. And Verner, M. (2005), Do women in Top Management affect firm performance? A panel study of 2500 Danish Firms, available at http://ftp.iza.org/dp1708.pdf , (accessed 12 October 2010)

Tags: ANZ, Banking, Commonwealth Bank, Customised KPI library, Database of KPIs, KPI example, Measures, Performance Measures, Westpac
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2010 winners of the Euromoney Awards for Excellence in Banking

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

The most prestigious awards in the global banking industry – the Euromoney Awards for Excellence – have reached their 19^th edition, announcing the winners for the year 2010.

Credit Suisse was awarded the title of best global bank, considered by Euromoney the best-run bank in the world today, due to its successful execution on a new strategy and high returns on a rather low-risk business model (Euromoney 2010).

For the category best investment bank, the winner was Deutsche Bank, also appraised for its ability to produce superior results and provide value for the clients, while fundamentally renewing its core model, reducing risk and facing high staff turnover.

The title for the first banker of the year has been awarded to Vikram Pandit, the man who restructured Citigroup, restoring the bank to profitability.

As for the 2009 winner of the best global bank award, HSBC, the bank had another successful year in 2010, winning four awards (more than any other bank), among which the prestigious emerging markets bank of the year.

About Euromoney Awards for Excellence

The Awards for Excellence are released annually since 1992 by the most prestigious financial markets magazine, Euromoney.

To establish the winners for each category, banks are invited to submit their credentials which are analyzed by a committee of senior journalists from Euromoney, chaird by the editor, Clive Horwood. 25 global awards for banking and capital markets and best banks and securities houses are now incorporated (such as best global bank, best M&A house, banker of the year, regional award winners and country award winners by region).

Source: Euromoney (2010)

The methodology combines qualitative data with informed subjective judgments to award the financial institutions that bring the highest level of service and expertise to their customers.

Reference

Euromoney, Euromoney Awards for Excelence 2010, available at: http://www.euromoney.com/Article/2621461/Category/16/ChannelPage/3312/Euromoney-Awards-for-Excellence-2010.html (accessed 30 August 2010).

Tags: Banking, Best Global Bank, Best Investment Bank, Credit Suisee, Deutsche Bank, Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2010, Vilkram Pandit
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