Commonwealth Bank opens the door on gender diversity

Commonwealth Bank was the first of the big 4 banks to announce a gender diversity target. How did one of the largest employers in Australia embrace gender diversity so quickly?

The Commonwealth Bank Diveristy Team share the answers. 

In 2005, we started to build the Group’s Culture Change program as a key strategic priority for the Bank. It was very important to our organisational vision and values, behaviours, and people promise.

We were very clearly focused on:

• Giving employees a unified identity through a shared vision, values and core behaviours
• Strengthening accountability, with clear performance metrics aligned to organisational goals
• Developing pride and advocacy built on a strong brand
• Embedding leadership engagement and collaboration
• Strengthening our reputation as an employer of choice
• Instilling a culture of safety and wellbeing, with organisational support for diversity and flexibility
• Creating an environment in which gender diversity can flourish

These days it’s common for employees to use words like ‘proud’, ‘customer-focused’, ‘teamwork’, ‘performance’ and ‘caring’ to describe the Group’s culture.

It is this culture that formed a strong platform to enable the Commonwealth Bank to embrace and accelerate their diversity journey.

This change program yielded some valuable lessons that can be distilled into five key principles:

1. Sustainable change requires a long-term commitment

While the Commonwealth Bank’s diversity strategy has been in place for six years, it’s the outcome of many more years of preparatory work. Likewise, while the new diversity in leadership target is already producing results, the Bank acknowledges that it will take time to achieve all of our objectives.
As such, the Group’s Executive Committee make up the Diversity Council which is chaired by the CEO. They meet quarterly to track the Group-wide diversity progress.

2. A single strategy is not enough

To achieve lasting change, we believe it is essential to use a range of strategies simultaneously, including top-down strategies (such as a publicly declared target); bottom-up strategies (designed to change the organisation's culture); and a wide range of supporting programs.

3. Diversity must be clearly linked to the organisation’s strategy, vision and brand

Commonwealth Bank’s diversity strategy is interwoven with a broader culture change program that is strongly linked to our vision of being Australia's finest financial services organisation through excelling in customer service. Our diversity strategy supports the overall goals of our organisation, rather than competing with them for our people's time and attention.

4. What gets measured gets managed

By setting goals for each of the Bank’s four diversity focus areas, we have created clear objectives that everyone can focus on and contribute to. Our diversity in leadership target, where we have publically committed to increase the representation of women at Executive Manager level and above to 35% by 2014, is a lead indicator of our broader diversity. We already have more than 40% of roles from branch manager to CEO filled by women, so we’re challenging ourselves by focusing on our most senior appointments.

To ensure we achieve our target, it is closely monitored. Diversity is a standing agenda item for the CEO’s direct reports. Moreover, the senior leadership team has a diversity KPI embedded in their performance management plan. In the nine months after the public target was announced, the female representation in Executive Manager and above roles rose by two percent.

5. It’s all about culture

Since 2005 our culture has undergone a remarkable transformation. Our people are now engaged, customer-focused and confident that the organisation cares for them and their interests. This culture is essential to having an environment where the conversations that underpin gender diversity, such as the difficult conversations about unconscious bias, can happen.