The UK’s second largest high street bank is claiming to have achieved a 14.5 per cent increase in the number of women in senior management positions last year.
The Lloyds TSB Group says the dramatic rise from 1998 to 1999 is the result of its strengthened commitment to equal opportunities, which included the launch of a women’s network last year.
The network encourages female Lloyds TSB employees to share best practice, and presents senior women executives as role models within the bank.
Lloyds TSB has also set up a skills and self-development programme specifically for women in junior and middle management positions. It offers mentoring for women at all levels of management, and its web site provides careers advice for female employees. Lloyds TSB has 76,000 employees worldwide, 51,000 (67 per cent) of whom are women.
The new initiatives are outlined in Lloyds TSB’s second annual community report, which now includes sections on employee policies and equal opportunities. The report has expanded from four pages to eight pages.
Launched simultaneously with its environment report, it also reveals that the bank’s newly introduced flexible working policy has attracted more than 750 applications in its first seven months. The policy, which offers staff the option of reduced hours, term-time working, flexitime, home working and teleworking, was launched last year with a commitment from senior Lloyds executives that the bank would become ‘the industry leader in promoting a work-life balance’. Nine out of ten applications from staff have been accepted.
The bank has also extended its employee policies by launching a ‘Well Being’ programme that aims to promote healthy living and prevent stress-related illness among staff. Health education information packs have been sent to all employees and a ‘confidential care’ telephone helpline has been set up.
It also held its first European Employee Forum in April 2000, bringing together staff representatives from European Union countries to look at workplace issues affecting employees.
The community report also shows that Lloyds TSB:
distributed £35million through its community programme last year
developed a banking package specifically for community credit unions
has implemented a group-wide information campaign on the rights and responsibilities of disabled employees, including a special managers briefing
provided more than 1500 work experience placements to school children during 1999.
The environment report, verified by RPS Group, includes, for the first time, a global warming impact statement that follows the reporting guidelines on greenhouse gas emissions published by the UK government last year. It says Lloyds TSB produced 172 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 1999. Most of that total (156 tonnes) was due to electricity used in its head offices and branches.