CorpComms Magazine

Diversity may be the buzzword du jour in the organisational lexicon, but Fiona Cannon, the diversity and inclusion director at Lloyds Banking Group, has lived and breathed the philosophy since she first started work at the Pepperell Unit at the Industrial Society, now known as the Work Foundation.

Her first bosses were inspirational women so passionate about the cause that they, like Cannon, have spent their lives fighting to improve the lives (and rights) of others. Joanna Foster later became the chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission; Liz Bargh established Opportunity 2000, now Opportunity Now, to promote women in business while Julia Cleverdon became chief executive of Business in the Community.

Cannon, who was awarded an OBE for services to equality and diversity in this year's New Year Honours' list, has also played a significant role on public committees, such as the Government Equalities Office Board and Employers for Work-Life Balance, but she has spent the majority of her in-house career working to improve the opportunities and working practices within one organisation.

She started at the Trustees Savings Bank, which was taken over by Lloyds Bank in 1995 to form the country's second biggest bank. It is hard to imagine that the then bureaucratic and male dominated Lloyds Bank would have shared Cannon's passion. It seems that the bank's chief executive, the late Sir Brian Pitman, recognised the import of Cannon's convictions after witnessing the performance of female golf players on the green. They were so good that, he jokingly told Cannon, 'he finally got it'.

Four years later Lloyds TSB became the first private sector company to introduce flexible working for all staff. And in 2009 it became the first company to be rated number one in every external diversity benchmark. That was also the year that Lloyds TSB got the go ahead for its merger with HBOS, a banking giant that was less advanced on its inclusive journey.

Back to basics

'In effect, we had to start from scratch. All the stuff we had done before was helpful but irrelevant,' says Cannon. 'The business had a different perspective. We had to re look at the business case and assess the new fundamentals. I have always been clear that the first question must always be Does it help the bottom line? And it was clear that it did.'

Cannon's passion for her role is obvious, but when she starts to lay out the statistics that underpin the case for inclusion and diversity, it appears compelling. In three quarters of the couples who have children aged under five years old, both partners are working. The population is getting older; we are living longer which means that the mid-point of an employee's working career is getting later. The population is increasingly diverse, but diversity is not just about ethnicity. Seven per cent of the population are gay. More than half are women. Three million are disabled. The Asian population contributes six per cent of Britain's gross domestic product, but makes up just four per cent of the population.

These are not just facts affecting Lloyds Banking Group's 140,000 employees, but also its 30 million customers, which are categorised as either retail, corporate or small businesses. 'Diversity is not about separate groups,' says Cannon. 'It is about colleagues and customers with differing needs and satisfying those. They are different but equal.'

Similarly, the bank needs to foster support in different communities. It needs to demonstrate that it has a part to play in helping local businesses, offering employment or simply just supporting local activities or respecting religions and traditions. For example, in predominantly Asian communities, the local branch may celebrate Diwali rather than Christmas. Or a branch may offer a specific range of services that suits the needs of its local community, such as the ability to transfer money to families overseas, or, as in the case of Crouch End's branch in North London, better access facilities for mothers and their bulky pushchairs. Volunteering within local community groups also serves at least two purposes: it assists the branch in its quest to be a responsible local citizen and part satisfies the needs of baby boomers to give back.

Flexibility brings benefits

Flexible working practices has an important role to play within diverse communities. For religious reasons, for example, some employees may be unable to work on certain days, which are compensated by another group with entirely different religious beliefs. 'Flexible working offers us huge advantages,' says Cannon. 'Someone may want every Friday off but be willing to work Saturdays, while another person within the branch, say, may be keen to take every Saturday off.' It is not just about religion, though.

'We may have an employee who referees at rugby games,' she adds. He has the experience that Lloyds Banking Group, as an organisation, needs; it is therefore mutually beneficial to accommodate his working life around his away-from-work life. 'In a way, it is not about the individual,' says Cannon. 'It is about the team. It is about talking to your team and coming up with a proposal that works for everyone.' The danger point undoubtedly is when everybody wants the same time off - the middle two weeks in August, for example - and then it comes down to the team working out a compromise. (Christmas is less of an issue; non-Christian employees are willing to work over the festive period.)

Not only has society undoubtedly changed, but so too has its expectations. 'The baby boomers are the first generation who expect flexibility in their working lives,' says Cannon. 'Technology is more efficient. They work differently. They want the opportunity to do volunteering, for example, to give something back. That's very important to them.' Then there is the so-called Generation X. 'They are the squeezed middle class, who have put off having babies until later in life when their careers are just taking off. Their motivation is more likely to be pay.' This means, according to Cannon, 'that there can't be a One size fits all strategy. To be a successful organisation, we have to take differing approaches in order to be able to respond to these different needs.' But in order to do so effectively, it is vital that there is support for such an approach 'from the very top'.

Education plays a role

Yet Cannon is pragmatic enough to concede that, in an organisation that employs 140,000 people, not everybody can be passionate about diversity or inclusivity. Surely racism, or ignorance, must sometimes rear its head? 'We have standards of behaviour that we explicitly expect staff and their line managers to meet,' says Cannon. 'We are very clear about what is expected of them. I don't care what somebody's personal views are as long as they do not behave inappropriately at work.'

Education has a role to play here, as well as openness. 'We tell our staff to be themselves and we will support them,' says Cannon. Sometimes staff appear ignorant because they don't know how to approach certain subjects; for example, can they mention a colleague is gay? Can they refer to a colleague as black? 'Employees can sometimes be suspicious of colleagues because they don't understand, for example, their religion. We encourage them to talk to their line managers about these things and find out what is appropriate in each case,' says Cannon.

'We are trying to create an inclusive environment. Our jobs as line managers is to create an environment in which people have the confidence to be themselves, in which they are listened to,' she adds. 'But employees must also have the security that we have created policies and networks that will support them and provide them with the skills to contribute to our business.'

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