Case Studies
Lessons LearnedFor a global company that operates in diverse regions, one important lesson has been about the need to tailor women's banking products to specific regional and country needs, given the vastly different cultural and legislative environments that affect women's financial situations in places in which the bank operates. This is why the company's efforts on consumer banking can vastly differ by region. While women-only branches have been appropriate for India and Pakistan where women feel safer conducting business among each other, in many African countries, where women have traditionally faced greater challenges in accessing finance than men, women-specific accounts have made more sense to attract a customer base that may have been otherwise reluctant to approach the bank.
Strong staff involvement has also been crucial to ensure internal support for initiatives on diversity and community engagement. "Senior management and staff support has been extremely important. For diversity and inclusion to work, you have to make sure it is an integral part of the company. Our Group CEO [Peter Sands] is also very committed to women's empowerment," Kari explains. Apart from the CEO, involving regular staff is just as crucial to build internal support. As part of the bank's annual volunteer leave entitlement, members of staff are encouraged to spend time in their local communities. Promoting opportunities for staff to volunteer for Goal has helped to not only provide concrete support for the program, but to also secure staff buy-in for the initiative by giving them a personal stake in it. Finally, big changes are not always necessary to see significant impact. Even small adjustments to existing initiatives can help. Kari explains, "Soon after we started this journey, we noticed that in our requirements to be classified as 'high potential,' we were expecting employees to be geographically mobile. But many women, as well as men, can't or don't want an international move. We took this requirement out from the definition and saw a resulting increase of women classified as high potential." The recession has not diminished the company's efforts to empower women and may have actually had a positive impact on the bank's approach to gender diversity. "It has made us more determined. By pursuing women as customers, we can expand the number of clients and opportunities in our markets," says Payal. Standard Chartered believes that its women's empowerment initiatives will enable long-term development and will benefit their workforce, their customers and communities. These results should be an encouraging example for others to follow. |
While strengthening its focus on women, Standard Chartered also quickly learned that the best way for an initiative to succeed and be sustainable was by ensuring it was fully aligned with the company's business interests and strategy. Initially, Goal did not have any obvious, direct links to the banking business and was met by skepticism internally. The program managers found that, in order to get internal buy-in, they needed to better link the program to the company's business interests in addition to its community strategy. To accomplish this, they added the training component. "We are adding a financial literacy component and education, teaching girls what checking and savings accounts are, and how to manage personal finances. Now that [the program] is tied to financial literacy training, it will be more sustainable in terms of ensuring internal support," says Alisha. "The closer we can tie this [program] to our core business and use our core skills, the more likely it is to succeed and be sustainable."
