Banking giant Citibank, has taken a slew of initiatives to exclusively cater to its women employees.
The bank, which has seen an increase in intake of women graduates from premium management institutes from 30 per cent in 2009 to 46 per cent in 2012, believes in ‘female-friendly’ policies.
“Diversity is a crucial aspect for Citi. Through our efforts towards gender diversity, we have been able to create a sense of deeper involvement and engagement where opportunities to develop and innovate are widely available to all,” said Anuranjita Kumar, country human resources officer, Citi India.
It has launched a programme called ‘Women Leading Citi’ targeting senior women at the executive level. The 18-month sponsorship programme is designed to foster the advancement of Citi’s highest performing senior executive women.
Unlike several other organisations that offer standard coaching to senior level employees, Citi has targeted coaching only for emerging female talent. The programme titled, ‘coaching for success, leadership training for emerging female talent’ is for female employee in the mid-level. The programme is delivered through a series of workshops and engages senior management as coaches.
One of its goals is to improve retention and increase promotion and opportunities for internal mobility among participants. Citi has a group of alma mater from these programme in India who are now mentors for other women who come on board at the company. This, according to the company, helps in sustaining the momentum and culture of diversity in India.Kumar said the executive coaching and development practices are leveraged to provide support to employees, focusing on women high potentials to develop and groom them for senior roles, eventually to be a part of the core leadership team at Citi.
Since women sometimes get dissuaded from continuing with their jobs post maternity, Citi has also introduced a concierge service to provide support for domestic chores as also ensure managers rate women employees during the maternity period, for their performance only during the days that they have worked.
Citi, according to Kumar, also offered the option of splitting maternity leave and taking the last two months of the total six months, in a staggered manner. “Engaged employees in an inclusive society is diversity for us. Our retention rates amongst women employees have also gone up over the last few years due to this,” Kumar said.