Standard Chartered champions for equality, study shows

Dar es Salaam. A new study that focused on Standard Chartered Tanzania (SBC) as a case study found the bank’s policies championing equal opportunity for all working parents. Done in partnership between the bank and the International Financial Corporation (IFC), the case study based on Standard Chartered Tanzania’s family friendly workplace policies and practices.

The study found that of the bank’s approximately 250 employees, 50 percent are women with women representing 31 percent of senior managers and 59 percent of the Bank’s entry-level staff, according to a statement issued yesterday. Standard Chartered CEO Sanjay Rughani said: “Internal studies show that staff feel more motivated at work when they receive better support in the integration of their professional and personal lives.”

These policies, he said, were part of the bank’s effort to create and sustain an environment that enables its employees and their families to succeed.

In implementing policies and creating an accommodative culture that supports gender equality, in 2016, Standard Chartered Group signed the Women in Finance Charter and pledged to increase the number of women in senior leadership roles globally to 30 percent by 2020, and subsequently updated that target to achieve 35 percent by 2024.

Standard Chartered Tanzania outperformed the Group in senior leadership targets and, in 2020, one third of board members and executive committee members were women.“Standard Chartered Tanzania is also outperforming its African peers in financial services and is considerably ahead of the Africa average, which stands at 19 percent according to Boardroom Africa,” said Mr Rughani.

IFC’s regional gender lead for Africa Anne Kabugi commented: “This case study makes recommendations for companies that seek to unlock the benefits of a gender equal workplace by supporting working parents.”

This, she said, includes pursuing a holistic strategy that addresses a wide range of childcare needs such as extended parental leave policies, ensuring that performance appraisal processes and rewards do not penalise women for time spent away on maternity leave, and then men also benefit from parental leave policies to encourage all employees to utilise flexible work solutions.

The case study is a result of the partnership formed in April 2019 between IFC and Standard Chartered under the Finance2Equal Tanzania programme that focuses on increasing women’s participation as leaders, employees, customers, and entrepreneurs in the financial services sector.