Bank’s Vision
The Bank’s vision is “To be chosen and respected as an excellent provider of financial services” and to achieve this our corporate goals include ensuring that our people are skilled, authorised, equipped and engaged to differentiate our service.

Our EEO/Diversity strategy is very clearly linked to the Bank’s vision and business objectives ie "to create an inclusive environment where all staff are treated with respect and dignity, where all staff are able to contribute to their maximum potential and where the diversity of ideas, workstyles and perspectives are valued and utilised to assist help grow the business.”

Accordingly, we are committed to the provision of:

• Fair, safe, challenging and rewarding employment that attracts, motivates, retains and develops talented people;
• A discrimination and harassment free workplace for all;
• A diverse workforce, including equal opportunity in employment for women; and
• A workplace where all employment related decisions are based on merit.

As an organisation, we realise that in order to achieve our business goals we need capable and dedicated employees who can provide our customers with excellent and distinctive service. We must be able to attract and retain the best people and tap the full range and diversity of talent available throughout society. As more women enter the workforce and as the age of the workforce increases we realise that our policies must be mindful of the changing demographics around our existing and potential workforce, customer base and shareholders.

Organisational Culture
We seek to build a culture which provides a working environment which is fair, safe challenging and rewarding for all its employees. If employees experience their work as challenging and rewarding, knowing that their work environment is safe and they can expect to be treated fairly, productive relationships between team members and with our customers will flourish.

We recognise the need to continue breaking down old mythologies and entrenched attitudes around differences such as different ways of working, and continue to promote and build new mythologies around the benefits of our diversity policies, including our policies specifically aimed at attracting, recruiting and retaining women.

The Bank was very pleased to be presented with an “Employer of Choice for Women” award at the inaugural Business achievement awards last year. The EOCFW logo has been proudly incorporated into our recruitment advertisements.

Initiatives and Outcomes
The Bank has adopted a wide range of flexible and creative solutions to work arrangements that have helped us to remain an attractive employer to both women and men in a very competitive market. This effort has been particularly illustrated through the attraction and retention of women into the senior levels, the increased resumption of women from parental leave and the increased number of staff accessing flexible working arrangements. This is further illustrated below:

• The number of females recruited into managerial and executive positions continues to exceed that of existing staff proportions:
• The number of women in management has increased substantially over the last 5 years with the number of women in senior roles increasing from 6% (Senior Executive) and 7 (Executive) in 1997 to 14% (Senior Executive) and 19% (Executive) in 2002. 28% of managers are women:
• Part-time work has been in place since 1967, paid Parental Leave since 1973 and flexible working arrangements including job sharing and career breaks since 1990. During 2002, CBA had 6,590 staff working part time, 760 staff job sharing, 812 staff on career break and 1100 staff on parental leave. Many staff work from home on either a permanent or on a “when necessary” basis. There is also a gradual increase in the number of managerial staff accessing the arrangements: and
• Number of staff resuming from parental leave as at June 2002 continues to be high with 17% of those transferring to part time/job share arrangements and 21 % proceeding on to a career break upon resumption.

The above is in part due to extensive efforts given, both in terms of communication and raising awareness, to bridging the gap between the availability of policies and the application of policies.

Other initiatives include:

• Executive Women’s Forum;
• Work/Life Information Booklet and video;
• EEO Resource Kits including Elder care and Work and Family Kits;
• Better, life and work resource and referral service;
• Fair Treatment Review process;
• Annual Staff Survey, including questions around fairness;
• Breastfeeding Policy;
• Career Break and Parental Leave Keep in Touch schemes;
• Extensive communication of our sexual harassment policy; and
• A “Fair and Reasonable Hours” clause will be inserted into the EBA.

Commonwealth Bank website
www.commbank.com.au