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Diversity at NAG UK

Diversity at NAG UK

We respect the communities we serve and recognise that we will serve them better if they are represented in our employees, not just at the front line but at senior levels. We ask new recruits to complete equal opportunities questionnaires providing us with a means to track the make up of our employee population, thus ensuring that we are not overlooking or rejecting minority groups. In addition we carry out periodic diversity censi to determine not only the make up of our employee base but also its aspirations around flexible working and retirement, and its requirements for services such as elder and child care. This all helps us make our business a more attractive place for people form all backgrounds to work in.

We aim to provide a working environment where everyone can fulfil their potential and no one feels excluded.

Ethnic Minorities

In the last 12 months 7% of our recruits have come form ethnic minorities against an average population in Scotland of 8% and in the UK of 9%. In London, where ethnic minorities make up 40% of the population and a similar percentage of small and medium businesses, we have established a business banking centre run and staffed in part by British Asians to cater for this market. 

Women

Women make up nearly half of the working population, the majority of the people who visit our branches, the majority of our branch employees and about half our branch managers. They are also well represented at higher leadership levels such as district and regional manager. Lucinda Scott, Retail Regional Manager, says, “My experience of working for the bank is exceptional, I feel part of a community and genuinely feel I have a voice.  The environment I work in is one of high support and high challenge, with the onus on making a difference for our stakeholders every day.  Being a woman has had no negative impact on my career, the bank is constantly looking for people with talent, energy and passion these are the qualities which have driven my career and the people I see around me.”

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gender people

We recognise that we have more work to do to ensure equality for all. In our quest to achieve this we have become diversity champion for Stonewall, which represents the interests of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-gender people. We continue to work with Job Centre Plus in the field of disability and with our recruitment agencies to ensure we get a diverse pool of candidates for all roles.

Our diversity programme
Our diversity programme concentrates on actions which will benefit the majority of our employees and also remove factors that can indirectly result in disadvantage for women and others in the work place. Some examples are:

  1. Making flexible working work. This helps all employees achieve better work/life balance and has obvious benefits for working mothers.
  2. Mentoring for high potential employees to help them increase their confidence in undertaking their current role and progress their career aspirations
  3. Improving the recruitment and promotion process with a focus on creating a more diverse field of candidates from our recruitment agencies and ensuring our recruiting managers are aware of the business benefits of having diversity of thought and background in their teams.
  4. Internal communication – a broad range of initiatives including sharing success stories and fostering diverse thinking with our own version of the TV programme Dragon’s Den, encouraging innovative ideas in the business and discussions with leadership teams throughout the business, networking events, dinners for women and master classes.
  5. A commercial business case for diversity - signed off by our finance function pointing out the bottom line value of a diverse leadership team and ensuring that creating that diversity remains a business priority, not just a nice to have.


Measuring progress

We believe that setting targets for the numbers of female appointees in roles can be counter productive – no one wants to be seen as the “quota “or “token” woman? Instead we ensure equality of opportunity by requiring diverse interview shortlists and interview panels.

To gauge our progress we measure the extent to which our employees believe the organisation values diversity of thought background and style – this score has gone up by 12% points since 2005. We also measure pay and promotion rates across the genders and the percentage of women in management and see these increasing steadily.
 

Providing opportunities

There is no point in attracting diverse talent unless we provide opportunities for its voice and ideas to be heard, considered and acted on. So we are interested in talent wherever it comes from and whatever it sounds like, and we strive to provide opportunities for everyone to be heard and valued. If we all think the same way we will reach the same conclusions and are likely to miss opportunities that more diverse perspectives would identify.

We don’t just have great policies – we continually act to make them real.

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