MGMT20132: Assessment 1 - CommBank Sustainability Report

This report examines the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (CommBank) sustainability initiatives, with a specific focus on its novel value proposition concerning gender equality. The report begins with an introduction to CommBank, its operations, and its commitment to sustainability, particularly in addressing gender inequality within the workplace. It discusses the importance of gender equality in achieving sustainable development goals, emphasizing the need to empower women and eliminate workplace discrimination. The report then analyzes CommBank's approach, including the challenges of implementing gender equality policies, the rationale behind these efforts, and the application of business tools like Porter's five forces, core capabilities, value chain analysis, and SWOT analysis to assess the bank's strategies. The conclusion provides recommendations for promoting women in leadership, eliminating violence against women, and addressing workplace discrimination to foster a more sustainable and equitable environment. The report highlights the importance of CommBank's commitment to sustainability and gender equality within the financial sector.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY
SUSTAINABILITY
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the first and ability initiative taken by one of the most
important and reputed organisation in Australia that is mainly operating in the banking sector it
is the Commonwealth Bank that has been operating in the Australian market for more than
centuries. This report will be discussing about novel value proposition which allows the
company to follow certain innovative processes to understand the demand of the situation and
then initiate changes. This report is focused upon the sustainability issue of gender inequality in
all the small or large organisations in the world. Gender inequality in terms of empowerment of
women and allowing women in Getting higher position and exploring their talents are
mentioned. The gender in equality issue is also related to the harassment in the workplace and
gendered arrangement of work. These issues create problem in developing the employee base in
an organisation and ultimately reduce the productivity. the companies which do not take care of
this type of issues seriously the deputation and dependability of the employees to their workplace
get reduced in one hand. Similarly the skill and talents the employees for human workforce
possess are not properly contributed to enhance success in operation on the other.
Body/ Discussion:
CommBank (banking):
Common wealth Bank of Australia is a multinational bank with business across Asia United
States and New Zealand. The most importantly this organisation has its most of the operation
with United Kingdom. This particular organisation provides a variety of Economic Services
which includes retail fund Management Business institutional banking superannuation
investment broking service insurance and many more (Commbank.com.au. 2020). It is the

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largest Australian company in in the Australian securities exchange. established in 1911, this
bank was initially working under the Government of Australia later it was privatised completely
and became one of the most important banks in Australia. There are various initiatives that this
particular organisation takes to meet the goals of sustainability among which the gender equality
is one.
gender equality:
Gender equality and empowerment of women is one of the many goals of sustainable
development goals fund. It is the process of empowering women and promoting gender equality
in every segment of business. It is capable to accelerate sustainable development that enables the
companies to meet basic human right and multiply in other development areas. In 2000, UNDP
had partnered with the United Nations and the rest of the Global community to bring gender
equality into the focus of business (United Nations 2015). In this respect mention can be made
about the process in which men and women are not equal in terms of their work. Gender
inequality acknowledges that gender can affect the living experience of an individual (see
Appendix 3). these diversity can arise from the difference in Biology culture and psychological
norms. Many of these types of differences are grounded empirically whereas the others are
socially developed. For example in a workplace the women employees may be provided with
Low wage then the male employees (Falk & Hermle, 2018). they can face the physical as well as
psychological harassment in their workplaces. Overall it is the women who wear all the birth of
violence poverty inequality in the workforce and keep themselves adapting with the situation
without protesting.
This is the reason why the UNDP along with the other partners have developed sustainable
development goals to build the achievement of the women and ensure that there will be no

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discrimination against women and girls everywhere (see Appendix 1). The report has stated that
they are gross inequalities across the business organisation specially paid employment in some of
the regions. Here significant gap are present between men and women in the human workforce
market. in addition to this various sexual violence as well as harassment and exploitation can be
seen. In many cases discrimination in the workplace have led women to leave their job or take
more severe decisions. the sustainable development goals have a need to ensure the women who
have access the sexual as well as reproductive health universally and they will have equal rights
to the economic resources like property and land so that they can be empowered and lead others
(Rubery, 2017). The number of women employees have increased in the workplaces but this
needs to be more promoting in nature and the women leaders at to be e present in in the
workplace for strengthening policies to attain greater gender equality (Stoet & Geary, 2018).
In order to make the organisation more sustainable Commonwealth Bank aims to follow most of
the sustainable goals. Among all the goals achieving gender equality in the workplace is the most
difficult one because of the cultural and social norms where people tend to avoid understanding
the importance of having gender equality in the workplace and work under the women leaders
(see Appendix 2). This is quite different to be implemented very quickly in the organisation
especially operative in the financial sector in Australia and other parts of world (Cole, 2017). this
is due to the fact that there are certain policies and cultural norms in the organisation which may
not support the gender equality and ensuring that there will be no cases of sexual harassment to
the women employees. Now in the case of Commonwealth Bank, the issue of gender inequality
can be mitigated only if the organisation follows certain steps.
Rationale: why, what and how:

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The reason why the gender equality is an important part of perfect decision making and
operation of this organisation it is representative of the financial sector of the country in which
the skills and contributions of the employees of both the genders needs to be put. In this regard
what the company must do is to follow the sustainability goals of UNDP so that the incidence of
inequality and sexual harassment in the workplace can be mitigated. In order to answer how the
organisation can solve this particular issue is related to follow certain steps like promoting
women in the leadership positions changing perceptions and solving the problem of family
violence in the workplace.
Porter's five forces:
According to this particular tool there 5 forces of the organizational environment in which the
various types of stakeholders participate in in the operation of the company. first of all it is the
customers who in nowadays focus upon the fact that the companies with which they are doing
the business are following sustainability norms. In case Commonwealth Bank fails to create the
reputation that in their workplace no discrimination based on gender take place then their
customer base will be reduced (Van der Vleuten, 2016). According to this particular tool the
buying power of the customers get changed whenever the behaviour of the clients get affected.
Their reputation which does not allow the organisation to operate successfully in the internal
environment it immediately loses the trust and brand image in the minds of the customers. In that
case, the customer change their companies as the substitution process is easy (Razavi, 2017).
Secondly death rate of substitution due to ill reputation can affect the business of the
organisation. Whenever the customers get any scope to understand that sustainability goals are
not being followed by the organisation that into depend upon the substitute companies as the
financial organisations are quite common in the Australian market. thirdly the supplier power is

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another pressing problem for this organisation. In the supply process the company needs to
ensure that the women employees or suppliers get proper chance to explore themselves and
prove their skills to the organisation. it is the bargaining power of the suppliers as they have the
capability to end doing business if the reputation of this organisation is lost (Haider et al., 2017).
Finally the rivalry among the competitors can reveal that whenever II the organisation will be e
failing to meet the sustainability goals in terms of bringing gender inequality they will be
grabbing the market as early as possible (Bezbaruah, 2016). the competitors wait for or taking
the competitive advantage over the company and the ill repute station or in capability of meeting
sustainability goals can be a scope for the competitors to replace this organisation in the market.
Core capabilities:
In the core capabilities segment it can be stated that this company uses all its critical elements for
meeting the goals in terms of the operation of the organisation. It has certain mission areas like
prevention and mitigation protection response and recovery. In the case of Commonwealth Bank,
the core capabilities referred to its reminders performance. It has established strategic
cooperation agreements with various International banks and become one of the major financial
service provider in the market of UK and Australia. Now if there is an issue regarding women
employee harassment in the workplace or discrimination in terms of wages or position they will
not be proving good for the reputation of the company (Berik, 2017). the core elements of this
organisation that is to provide financial services in an unique and innovative manner will be
losing ground immediately.
Value chain analysis:

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In the tool of value chain analysis the farm infrastructure human resources technology
development and procurement play important role. the firm infrastructure cannot be supported
without the help of the human resource. Now if the human resource of this company is
dissatisfied with the operation or any policy then it will not support activities of the firm for
growth. In the company like Commonwealth Bank it is essential that the company employees are
made with every type of need depending upon the hierarchy need model of Maslow (Young,
2016). In this regard the need for security in the minds of women employees can be a demand
(United Nations 2015). in which type of company psychological satisfaction and security is must
because this deals with the financial operations mainly. Now if the human resource does not
support activities then the company cannot make ethical decisions or motivate for engagement.
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
According to the swot analysis of Commonwealth Bank it is necessary for the company to
understand the need for skills of women employees. the research steps that women are more
capable in handling analytical issues than male employees. In addition to this they are capable to
handle leadership position without executing power and politics associated with this. The
company already feels threatened due to various and ethical decision making and incidents
related to the human resource. These are capable to reduce its business effectively (Kleven,
Landais & Søgaard, 2019). this is the reason why all of these previously mentioned tools are to
be used in a proper way.
Conclusion/Recommendations:

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The company needs to promote the women leaders more actively because this change can
increase motivation among the women employees already working with this organisation. they
will understand the gender balance and access there flexible work as fundamental right. It is the
high profile qualification of men in terms of power and politics associated with leadership that
can only be broken when there is a presence of women leaders in the organisation.
Secondly in order to achieve the goal of gender equality the company needs to eliminate violence
against women. The family violence and discrimination in terms of reducing the position of
women can be reflected in the workplace. they are also dragged to the organizational sphere.
Many of the male employees cannot accept women as their colleagues or leader. this is the
reason why the discrimination against women and physical or mental harassment can be seen.
Commonwealth Bank therefore needs to change this perception so that the discrimination issues
in the workplace can be overcome.
Finally bringing the harassment survivor activists in the workplace scenario can improve the
understanding of the employees about this issue. When they will find out how effective the
harassment can be in in destroying lives then they will feel motivated to overcome this issue. in
the workplace scenario the women employees will feel empowered and protest against any type
of Miss behaviour from their male counterparts.

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References:
Berik, G. (2017). Beyond the rhetoric of gender equality at the World Bank and the
IMF. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du
développement, 38(4), 564-569.
Bezbaruah, S. (2016). Gender Equality and Women’s Employment in the Banking Sector in
India1. Women Workers in Urban India, 15, 291.
Cole, M. (Ed.). (2017). Education, equality and human rights: issues of gender,'race', sexuality,
disability and social class. Routledge.
Commbank.com.au. (2020). The three levers to gender equality - Women in Focus - CommBank.
Retrieved 19 April 2020, from https://www.commbank.com.au/guidance/women-in-
focus/the-three-levers-to-gender-equality-201802.html
Falk, A., & Hermle, J. (2018). Relationship of gender differences in preferences to economic
development and gender equality. Science, 362(6412), eaas9899.
Haider, A. H., Schneider, E. B., Kodadek, L. M., Adler, R. R., Ranjit, A., Torain, M., ... &
German, D. (2017). Emergency department query for patient-centered approaches to
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Kleven, H., Landais, C., & Søgaard, J. E. (2019). Children and gender inequality: Evidence from
Denmark. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(4), 181-209.

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Razavi, S. (2017). Revisiting equity and efficiency arguments for gender equality: a principled
but pragmatic approach. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne
d'études du développement, 38(4), 558-563.
Rubery, J. (2017). The triumph of instrumental over equality policy in European employment
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développement, 38(4), 576-581.
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development. Retrieved
from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld/publication
United Nations. (2019). Sustainable development goals. Retrieved
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Appendices:
Appendix 1.

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Appendix 2.