For continual success of an organization that serves diverse communities, it is important to have a top line that is as diverse as its customer base. 

The Royal Bank of Scotland has launched an innovative new framework today to convert their most talented female employees into business leaders of tomorrow. Called ‘Determined — Female Leaders Talent Programme’ — the framework is designed to meet the bespoke needs of women in banking using a combination of learning opportunities, mentoring, networking and specifically created development tools. These various actionables are to be further tailored to the needs of the individuals. 

The bank aims to create a sustainable pipeline of leaders, comprising of more than 30% women in the Bank’s top 3 leadership levels by 2020. This representation is to increase to 50% at all levels by 2030. Ruchika Arun, the Head of Diversity & Inclusion at RBS India and Global Financial Services Manager, explained that upon identifying the highly talented employees, both male and female, they delved deeper into how these colleagues could be steered from experts to leaders. “We noticed that while there were many women identified as ‘talent’, there was a discrepancy in how many of these moved into the most senior positions,” said Ruchika.

The aim behind the programme is a business one — to create more diverse teams that will support the RBS’s strategy and bring clear advantages to business performance. Research has time and again told us that having more women at senior levels leads to better decision making, increased employee engagement, more innovation and greater diversity of thought. 

The Programme was launched in the RBS’s Gurgaon office on Monday, 25th April. Referring to the positive energy and excitement she noticed in the office upon the launch, Dipali Sheth, Country Head of HR, RBS India said, “The key to the success of this programme is in having open and willing participants, who are able to self-reflect, share their own personal experiences and interact with the learning on offer.” 

The initiative was piloted in the Finance team of RBS India in 2015, where more than 20 women participated and finally reviewed the activities. Feedback was extremely positive with the cohort reporting increased confidence, knowledge, motivation and career satisfaction.