HRD talks to the chief people experience officer at Suncorp about the importance of focusing on diversity and inclusion
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Suncorp’s focus on building an inclusive culture is all about supporting a diverse workforce, according to the company’s chief people experience officer Amanda Revis.
“We see a diverse workforce as being able to generate more innovation through diversity of thought,” Revis told HRD.
“The result of that is that everyone really benefits from that diversity of thought, no matter who the stakeholders are.
“So when we talk about inclusion this involves building an environment where everyone can be themselves – they feel valued, they feel involved and they feel respected for their perspective and contribution.”
Revis added that the more Suncorp encourages an inclusive culture the more their diverse workforce is able to feel comfortable about sharing their thoughts, and hence they benefit from a wider diversity of thought which drives innovation.
“So really our employees benefit from an inclusive culture because they feel like they can really be themselves and be their best every day,” said Revis.
“And being their best every day means the customers benefit, the communities which we operate benefit and our shareholders benefit as well.”
So how does the financial services company ensure their diversity and inclusion program actually achieves results?
Revis said that Suncorp tackles this in a number of ways.
“We focus on policies and the practice of those policies. So making sure that our policies around recruitment, talent management, pay, performance management, etc, are inclusive and that there is nothing exclusive about them - and then checking to make sure those policies are actually put in practice in a constructive way.”
Revis added that this is where their partnership with the Diversity Council of Australia has really been beneficial because they have been able to launch the Inclusion@Work Index.
“The Inclusion@Work Index findings support what we have known for some time, that gender equality benefits men and women,” said Revis.
“Through that survey, we were able to identify our strengths but we also identified some areas where we can do better and what we will do is include those areas in our planning and thinking around our next annual diversity and inclusion plan.”
Revis also told HRD that gender balance is a major part of their diversity and inclusion planning and strategy.
“We involve men and women equally in our focus on diversity and inclusion, so we have a Diversity Council which has been in place for just over seven years now,” said Revis.
“That is chaired by our CEO Michael Cameron and on the Council we have a number of senior leaders with equal representation between males and females.
“We have a number of male champions who we actively encourage and our CEO is an active advocate of gender equality who is also a WGEA gender pay equity ambassador.”
Moreover, Suncorp also believes it’s important to celebrate both International Women’s Day and International Men’s Day.
For example, earlier in the year Suncorp had 600 people attend International Women’s Day celebrations and there was a very strong representation from both males and females.
“We really encourage in everything we do for both males and females to be equally involved,” Revis added.
