Engagement

Our approach

Respecting and ‘valuing every voice’ is one of our core values and essential to the growth and success of our business. We believe that motivated, engaged and knowledgeable employees will provide the best service for our customers and contribute to the long term success of our company.

Our aim is to create a values and performance driven culture, inspiring leaders and a vibrant and engaged workforce where people can grow and develop their careers with us.  

We measure our success by listening and acting on employee feedback and constantly finding new ways to improve our culture and environment so that ANZ is a truly great place to work.

Measuring engagement and monitoring performance

We are committed to valuing every voice and giving all of our people the opportunity to have their say on what it's like to work at ANZ through an annual employee survey – My Voice.

My Voice also tracks our people’s perceptions of our leaders, quality focus and customer orientation. This helps us understand how well our culture enables product and service advocacy and a positive customer experience - a leading indicators of business performance. The results identify specific areas where we can take action to lift performance and bring our values to life.

The survey measures four key components of employee engagement:

  • Whether employees are satisfied with ANZ as a place to work (satisfaction);
  • Whether employees consider or actively seek a new job with another company (commitment);
  • Whether employees would gladly refer a good friend or family member to ANZ for employment (advocacy); and
  • Whether employees are proud to say they work for ANZ (pride).

Following the survey each year, actions plans are developed at both a Group/Divisional level and a local level to address survey feedback and progress is reported regularly to ANZ’s Management Board. An online tool enables line managers to develop action plans with their team’s input, using focused listening questions to further delve into the survey results, and drawing on sample actions to develop their plan.

It is also important that we provide our people with the opportunity to share their views and opinions directly with our senior leaders. In this context, in 2007 we introduced our CEO face-to-face employee forum program whereby our CEO can meet directly with our employees to discuss the Group’s strategy and performance, and to understand employee perspectives on issues and challenges facing ANZ and the wider banking industry.

2011 results

We set a target to increase overall Employee Engagement from 64% in 2010 to 68% in 2011, and we exceeded that target reaching 70%. 

We encouraged high participation in the My Voice survey and some 40,000 employees globally completed it in May 2011.

This year’s survey results have shown that our employee’s experience working for ANZ has improved across almost every measure. Importantly, the survey showed our people's assessment of our commitment to customer excellence, measured through the Performance Excellence Index, is up from 68% to 73%.

We act on employee feedback. Through our 2010 My Voice survey, our people told us they wanted to better understand their role in achieving our super regional goals and how they can further develop their career at ANZ. In response we:

  • Held our first Super Regional Week in April to help employees understand how to make connections and share information to help realise the full potential of our strategy, this was complemented by an ongoing speaker series and a "sister branch" program connecting our branch employees in Australia and New Zealand with their colleagues throughout Asia and the Pacific
  • Introduced the ANZ Leadership Pathway in December 2010, which is a series of training programs to help our people at all levels develop their leadership capabilities and careers with us.
  • Launched the new competency framework in February 2011 describing the capabilities we need to further develop our people and to assist employees and their managers shape career development plans and deliver on our super regional strategy.
  • Made improvements to our parental leave and flexibility policies which were launched last October in response to feedback that balancing work and life commitments is an important priority for many of our people.

A new People Strategy was also developed and introduced in 2011 to ensure we are building the employee foundations necessary for the long term success of our business and brand strategy.

The People Strategy describes the skills, capabilities and culture we need to deliver our super regional aspiration.  The engagement survey (and specific questions within it) are among the metrics that will be used to monitor and measure progress in building a customer-centric and super regional culture; inspiring leaders; and a vibrant, diverse and inclusive workforce.

The future

While we’ve made real progress to improve employee engagement, we still have more to do. Our goal is to continue to improve both these measures to meet global ‘best in class’ standards. We will do this by focusing on the most important issues for our employees. These include:

  • Doing more to help our people progress their careers with us, building a vibrant and diverse workforce and a strong pipeline of future leaders. This will include increasing access to roles across divisions and geographies through formal, group-wide and consistent “People Planning” processes and improved employee mobility policies and practices.
  • Strengthening integration of our values into everything we do, including our performance assessments of our leaders.  
  • Supporting more of our people to complete Leadership Pathway programs, to enhance collaboration and teamwork and improve leadership ability to inspire and energise our teams.

2010 results

More than 29,000 employees globally participated in the 2010 My Voice employee survey. Employee engagement (how employees feel about working at ANZ) is 64% favourable a slight decline on our employee engagement score of 66% in 2009.  For the first time in 2010 we measured 'performance excellence’ (our level of commitment to product and service quality) and recorded a 68% favourable score.  

The future

Recognising the strong links between employee engagement, customer satisfaction and business performance, our focus in 2011 is to improve our group-wide employee engagement performance from 64% to 68%. Senior leaders and line managers are responsible for owning and actioning their My Voice survey results. This means actions will be tailored to address local issues so they can really make a difference.

2009 results

More than 23,000 employees globally participated in the 2009 My Voice employee survey (or 52% of all staff) which revealed employee engagement at 66%. While we cannot directly compare our results with those from the previous survey, due to a change in the service provider and new survey format, we are able to compare our results to the industry average.

At 66% employee engagement, our result comes in slightly below the average score  for other global financial services companies (71%) and below the benchmark for the sector’s high performers (75%).

The survey measured the four key components of employee engagement and found that 64% of staff are satisfied with ANZ as a place to work (satisfaction); 54% rarely think about looking for a new job with another company (commitment), 71% would gladly refer a good friend or family member to ANZ for employment (advocacy) and 75% are proud to say they work for ANZ (pride).

The survey also took a measure of staff opinion about how well we are performing as an organisation (performance excellence). 63% of ANZ staff strongly agreed or agreed with the statement, "As a customer of ANZ, I would be extremely satisfied with the quality of the products and services I receive."

The future 

ANZ's My Voice engagement survey will be conducted for the second time in its new format in 2010, allowing a year-on-year comparison of results, and an expansion of the issues surveyed. The results will help identify specific actions that can be taken both at an organisation-wide and local level to address opportunities and issues. Progress reports on these actions will be reported quarterly to ANZ's Management Board.

2008 results

Almost 32,000 employees globally participated in the 2008 Engagement and Culture Census which revealed employee engagement at 62%. While this was a slight decrease from 64% in 2007, our score compares favourably with the average engagement score for global financial services companies at 60%.

Employee Engagement chart 2008

The results demonstrate our strong customer focus right across the organisation. Our top four values were identified as profit, customer focus, community involvement and results orientation.

Here are some of the key results:

Percentage of people who agree or strongly agree with the following statements 2008 2007 2006
This organisation takes its societal responsibilities seriously 74% 75% -
This organisation takes its environmental responsibilities seriously 69% 65% -
We are making a positive difference in the community 8% 70% -
I value the opportunity this organisation provides for me to make a personal contribution to my community 72% 71% 68%
People in this organisation take corrective action if standards of behaviour fall below the levels set by our business principles and values 63% 62% -
People in this organisation maintain high standards of ethics and integrity 67% 69% 73%
Workplace safety and security is considered important here 80% 80% 81%
I am empowered to make decisions to help my customers 66% 65% 72%
My manager implements our people practices and policies to good effect in my area 68% 66% 50%

The future

The Engagement and Culture Census results help to identify specific actions that can be taken both at an organisation-wide and local level to address opportunities and issues that are impacting ANZ's engagement and culture, and subsequently, employees' experience at work. Progress reports on these actions are reported quarterly to ANZ's Management Board.