Diversification and inclusion are important drivers of performance in the organization (Spark Team, 2020). One of the major indicators of diversity and inclusion is gender balance in the workplace. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) as a leading global financial institution with a market capitalization of CA$ 40 billion and 44, 000 employees, is used as a case study to highlight the difficulties of gender balance strategies in light of diversification and inclusivity.
CIBC’s vision is to be a leader in client relationship through client focus, innovation for future sustainability, and simplicity of CIBC as an institution. CIBC as an institution was already boasting of 60% women representation in the workforce and 49% representation in people management. Despite the representation, there still exists a problem in their gender balance strategy. Evident by their main problem: the top executive management had a poor representation of gender balance.
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Some of the issues brought up after an analysis exercise revealed that CIBC's strategy was lacking representation from top management, the rest of the workforce, and clientele. There was also a general lacking of gender intelligence in management, men not championing diversity, and inclusivity in the strategy formulation stage. Therefore, even if their numbers represent 60% women, it was just a statistic and not maximized due to lack of understanding and better strategy implementation. However, the major concern is that there was a delink between middle management and top executives in terms of gender balance.
So, the concern is what causes the delink in gender balance between normal management and top executives? Conclusively, the weak link is the gender balance but in what aspects? CIBC had fewer women representation in middle management causing an inhibitor in the transition of women leaders from middle management into the executive. Gender intelligence was insufficient at different levels of the organization. Leaders in the organization also need the knowledge to learn how to value and leverage difference to foster inclusivity in the organization. The issues are correlative especially towards achieving a better gender balance strategy and ultimately promoting diversification and inclusivity.
Solving the limitations is paramount to achieving a better gender balance strategy and promoting diversity and inclusion. Improvement of middle management women representation is critical but before it, gender intelligence should precede it. Therefore, leadership accountability, sponsorship from top management and talent management are the best ways to understand gender intelligence. Equipping top management with this skill will enable them to choose better middle management women representation. Such a strategy should be implemented with the inclusiveness and sponsorship of top management as well as the lower levels of management; also, not forgetting to include the clientele who are also stakeholders in the organization.
If involved in the process I would carry out the same procedure but like to increase representation from the client sector. Have women representatives as well as men in a management level taskforce to better channel their insights to strategy.
Reference
Spark Team. (2020, January 16). 3 Reasons Why Diversity and Inclusion are Essential to the Workplace. https://www.adp.com/spark/articles/2018/11/3-reasons-why-diversity-and-inclusion-are-essential-to-the-workplace.aspx
