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Our approach

Diversity of thinking and having access to the deepest talent pool possible is critical to ANZ’s super regional strategy and our future success. Our CEO and Chair of the Diversity Council, Mike Smith, has made a commitment to champion the issue of women’s participation in the workforce.  He will lead the establishment of a Melbourne chapter of the Male Champions for Change program and has opened the door to other companies to work together to tackle some of the obvious barriers, including accessibility of affordable childcare.

A key component of our diversity strategy is to enable our female employees to contribute fully, to achieve outstanding business results and to build successful careers at ANZ.

Organisations that are employers of choice for women have access to a larger talent pool,, are well positioned to represent the needs of customers and communities and understand the direct link between a higher proportion of women in top management and increased profitability.
We have invested significantly over many years to develop an organisational culture that enables and promotes the advancement of women at ANZ. As we continue to pursue our super-regional strategy, we are committed to ensuring that ANZ managers and executives appropriately reflect the diversity of our internal population and customer base, in turn enabling our business to break into new markets and maximise new business opportunities.

Some of ANZ's key initiatives include:

2011 results

ANZ was named a 2011 Employer of Choice for Women by Australia’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) and have applied for the Employer of Choice for Women citation again this year. We also received the Workplace Work and Life Award in New Zealand for our flexible work policies and an IT Export Award in India in recognition of the high percentage of women employed in our Technology business there.

We have set public targets to increase the number of women in management every year since 2005. This year our proportion of women in management remained unchanged at 38.2% against a target of 40%.

Whilst this is a strong position, more innovative approaches are now required if we are to move beyond incremental improvements. A key goal is to ensure we are creating a workplace that values the unique skills, experiences and perspectives of all our people.

To bring new momentum to our gender balance agenda in August 2011, around 800 leaders, including our top 200 executives participated in education sessions with Avivah Wittenberg Cox, a global expert in gender, leadership and business.

The key lesson from these sessions was that we need to get better at attracting, retaining, inspiring and capitalising on the unique talents of all our employees; and tapping into the market opportunities created by the ever-increasing earning, purchasing and influencing power of women in every region where we operate.

Further actions this year have included:

• Revising our recruitment policy to ensure that at least one woman is included on all shortlists for both internal and external recruitment.
• Investing significantly in development programs to continue to build the leadership skills, capabilities and management competencies of our staff. In 2011, 45% of program participants were female.
• Introducing early and activist career and succession planning to get more women into roles which give them the critical experiences required to be effective senior leaders – this is especially important if they are planning career breaks to have and care for their children.
• Encouraging and supporting our senior leaders to act as sponsors and advocates for talented women.
• Taking focussed action to achieve pay equity for similar roles across the business. We track progress and where unjustified discrepancies appear we take remedial action.
• Reviewing our performance-based compensation awarded in 2010 to ensure there is no systemic gender bias in our reward allocation. This year for example, the proportion of women achieving our two highest levels of relative performance outcome (RPO), which determines bonus levels, was slightly higher than men. 6% of females achieved RPO 1 compared to 5% of males and 21% of females achieved RPO2 compared to 20% of males.
• Enhancing our paid parental support arrangements, including introducing a $4,000 grant to help returning parents in Australia transition back to work after parental leave, and payment of superannuation on all forms of paid parental leave assistance. Over 478 employees received this grant in its first year and 94% of grant recipients remain ANZ employees today.

Additionally, we celebrated 2011 International Women’s Day on 8th March with a number of activities including:

• Our Chairman, John Morschel hosted a luncheon with 25 of our senior female leaders and Institutional clients focusing on today's most pressing business issues.
• Hosting a luncheon for 300 of our leaders and members of our Gender Action Network to celebrate the difference women make to our business and the world we live in.
• ANZ was also the Platinum sponsor of the Advance Women in Leadership Summit held at the Sydney Opera House from 7-8 March 2011 where the ‘Top 50 current and emerging female leaders across the Asia Pacific region’ were announced.

Performance data

As at 30 September 2011, the proportion of women employed globally at different levels of ANZ was as follows:

The future

For the coming year, we have set a series of targets to achieve a gender balance in our business:

• Reach at least 40% representation of women in management, including maintaining or increasing the proportion of women in management at all levels.
• Achieve gender balance and greater cultural diversity in our key recruitment, talent development and learning programs.
• Advance the role of women in society through engagement on key public policy issues, including advocacy for more accessible, affordable and flexible childcare in Australia.

2010 results

We have set public targets to increase the number of women in management every year since 2005. This year we increased the proportion of women in management from 36.8% to 38.4%.

As at 30 September 2010, the proportion of women employed globally at different levels of ANZ was as follows:

ANZ has senior women throughout the organisation including:

• Three women on our Management Board of 12 executives.
• Senior women leading some of our key businesses including our Bangalore operation in India; Private Bank in Australia and New Zealand; Retail and Wealth businesses in Asia and the Pacific; Global Capital Markets business; and our Global Shared Services function.
• Three female CEOs lead some our most important markets in Vietnam, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Policies, programs and initiatives that have driven our improvement so far include:

• setting stretching and public targets
• annual audits in pay equity and remuneration
• a commitment to close the gap on gender pay equity globally and
• research into the barriers that inhibit career advancement for women at ANZ

The future

We will also continue the review of parental leave policies outside our home markets of Australia and New Zealand, to identify if there are further opportunities to address the different issues that impact families in each location. Additionally, we will focus on improving female representation at a senior management level.

2009 results

The overall percentage of women in management positions has improved slightly to 36.8%, however we did not meet our target. The result reflects the fact that attracting and promoting more women into management roles has been challenging in a year when we restructured our business and where voluntary turnover decreased. We have made good progress at some levels such as in our executive and senior management grades. This is particularly pleasing as these are the 'feeder' grades for our Senior Executive group. In addition, at the time of this report being published ANZ now has four women on its management board, the most of any major bank in Australia. ‬

Significant developments included:

• an increase in the number of women on ANZ's Management Board from two to three, with a fourth joining in January 2010 – the highest proportion of any bank in Australia
• four out of 12 ANZ country CEOs are women in our fast growing Asia business
• for the first time detailed gender pay information has been formally factored into our review of remuneration across the group, resulting in the pay gap between men and women decreasing in favour of women at senior executive, senior manager and manager levels.

Women in management

Australia

The future

We have committed to increasing the percentage of women in management positions across all levels of our business in 2010 as part of our Corporate Responsibility goals.

A particular focus in 2010 and beyond will be identifying opportunities to create a more diverse Institutional division - the first priority being more women in management.

This will involve the development of a long-term strategy to increase representation of women in senior roles by identifying the criteria for these roles and the barriers that contribute to under-representation.

Based on these findings, women in middle management positions will be assisted in their career planning and professional development to develop a pipeline of future leaders with the competencies required to attain these roles.

2008 results

Overall the percentage of women in management positions at ANZ remains the same as last year at 37%. We exceeded our three year targets for women at Executive and Senior Manager levels in New Zealand and while we have achieved year-on-year increased in Australia, we fell short of our targets.

Significant developments included:

• the appointment of three women as direct reports to our CEO:
  • Susie Babani, Group General Manager, Human Resources
  • Margaret Payn, Group General Manager Strategy and Marketing
  • Tania Motton, Head of the Office of the CEO.
• our inaugural Women's conference was attended by nearly 200 ANZ leaders, where ANZ's global priorities to advance women in leadership positions were agreed.
• the ANZ Global Women's Network was established to help ANZ women achieve greater performance, business success and recognition for their achievements.

Women in management

Australia

New Zealand

Asia Pacific

India

Europe, Middle East and America

The future

Our focus is on accelerating female career progression, removing bias and ensuring there is a broad range of support tools and networks for women to help them build their careers at ANZ. This includes:

• an internal 'SharePoint site' offering women information about services that may help them progress their careers such as career coaching, tips from successful ANZ women, relevant global research and discussion forums
• new self-paced career development program specifically for females and career resilience training for female managers
• internal and external women's networking initiatives.

We have committed to achieving a minimum 2-3% increase in women in management positions in all major geographies in 2009 as part of our Corporate Responsibility goals.