DEIB initiatives are often thought of in the abstract, placing an organization’s beliefs and values at the forefront. But remember: These efforts can, and ultimately should, have meaningful, tangible impacts on real people—your employees.
In organizations like Standard Chartered Bank with global footprints, ensuring that all employees have access to opportunities can be challenging. Watson Stewart, Head of Talent Solutions at SCB, credits the talent marketplace for not just enabling that access—but facilitating employee growth around the world.
“We have over 85,000 employees in more than 60 markets, many of them in some of the emerging economies of the world,” Stewart said. “ Diversity doesn’t matter unless you find a way to include them in the opportunities that are available. And the beauty of the marketplace is that it’s transparent, it’s available, you don’t have to seek permission to join; it’s a nontraditional way of access and that was important to us.”
One of those employees is Dagun. Her career at Standard Chartered Bank started in 2010 in their core banking segment. From there she transferred to their Learning and Development space and eventually found herself in her current role, which oversees the implementation of the company’s workforce agility platform. Through Standard Chartered Bank’s commitment to democratizing opportunities for all of its employees, Dagun was able to show her full capabilities.
“This is the one thing that as an HR partner people always ask you: How can I get involved in more stuff? How can I become more visible? How can I move my career forward? And for me, I saw the opportunity to be a part of this as golden, and that led to me leaving my home country in Nigeria and moving to the UK a year ago.”
Dagun continued, “It’s been very exciting, very interesting for me. From a personal standpoint, I see the platform as the opportunity for really democratizing access to career development.”
By providing these opportunities to Dagun and the rest of the workforce—seeing her for her talent and capabilities—SCB was able to make tangible impacts on their business. The company saw a record-setting increase in employee satisfaction with career and development opportunities after implementing a talent marketplace.