A Comparative Analysis of Equality and Diversity in UK Banking Sector

This report examines equality and diversity practices within the UK banking sector, focusing on HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and Standard Chartered Bank. It begins with an introduction to the concepts of equality and diversity, emphasizing their importance for organizational sustainability, innovation, and employee management. The report then analyzes HSBC's approach to diversity, including its strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, such as its CSR initiatives and global presence, while also noting the significant gender pay gap and staffing imbalances. It further aligns HSBC's policies with government regulations and its overall business strategy. A comparative analysis of the gender pay gaps and diversity practices of HSBC, Standard Chartered, and RBS highlights key issues, such as pay disparities and internal structural imbalances. The report concludes with recommendations for HSBC to address its gender pay gap, including establishing clear criteria for awarding employees, re-examining promotion policies, and ensuring equal opportunities for all minority groups. The report emphasizes the need for evaluating the benefits of equality and diversity practices to foster an inclusive workplace environment.

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EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
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EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
Introduction
The terms of equality as well as diversity practices are essential to the sustenance of the
institution. It represents the specification that is being used by the Company to maintain its
suppliers and employees. Also, to sustain a diverse organization means to retain and manage
people from different ethnicity, background, religion, education, sexual orientation, and gender.
The more diverse and equality a workforce is the more chances of excellence, innovation as well
as new ideas of the firm being conducted (Song, Wee and Newman 2017 p.85). Therefore, this
report makes a study of equality and diversity practices prevalent in other banks that are located
in the UK. Also, comparison, analysis, and contrast are conducted. The report will compare
HSBC with other banks such as Standard Chartered Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Equality and diversity practices
Diversity is about building a culture which values individual variety and differences for
the benefit of individuals, society, and organizations. Diversity and equality exist in an
organization to bring about inclusivity in the workplace (Ali and Konrad 2017 p.37). In the
United State, procedures and practices are in place to ensure that employees are given the same
opportunities and are treated equally regardless of their race, age, gender, sexuality, culture or
disability. Equality is about fostering and promoting everybody. It is about giving everyone an
equal chance in the organization (Kelan and Wratil 2018 p.104).
Today Companies have realized the power and need for diversity. Different researchers
conducted suggest that valuing diversity improved the performance of the business. It is also true

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that despite some crucial and significant obstacles and issues the organizations have to maintain
their diversity programs to improve business productivity and growth (Civitillo et al. 2017 p.24).
HSBC
HSBC is a well-known British bank that believes that inclusion and diversity mean
strength. The goal of the bank is to be the leading international bank in the world. The diverse
workforce increases the competitive advantage as well as the secure future of the business. The
contribution of each supplier, employer and customer are considered essential by the
organization (Vomberg, Homburg and Bornemann 2015 p.122). The components of the inclusion
and diversity strategy include the values of being open to new cultures and ideas, connection
with community regulator, customers and so on. The culture of HSBC describes Diversity as the
heart of the organization. The company also has a strong belief in ethical business principles,
entrepreneurial spirit, and professionalism as a guide. The core values of the organization are the
inclusion of diverse culture and ideas (Biasio and Murray 2017 p.60). The success of HSBC lies
within the association between communities and clients. Thus, the organization has established a
module for e-learning diversity training to assist the employees in understanding the diverse
knowledge and information. Also, voluntary training program and internal network groups form
an inclusive environment to allow for gender balance workforce. Finally, with its branches in
different countries, the organization employs from around the nation to sustain and train a
diverse workforce (Cox and Soobiah 2018 p.129).
Therefore, the organization has embedded Diversity Councils and Employee Resource
Groups to carry out the activities. HSBC aims at promoting the talents of an individual to gain
distinctive and unique insights into the outward growth (Trudeau and McLarney 2017 p.45).
Strength and weaknesses of HSBC

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Strengths
Firstly, the company uses Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy to support
environmental and social, for example, BGCI and HSBC aim at protecting twenty thousand
plants from extinction.
Secondly, the organization is one of the biggest financial and banking services
throughout the world.
Thirdly, HSBC has many customers around the world
Fourthly, the bank has a lot of professional staff that deal with the inquiry from the
customers.
Weaknesses
The main weakness of HSBC is that most of the customers confuse their brand in the
market. This is because the organization had set up many banks worldwide under different
names, for example, the Hong Kong Bank of Canada. Changing of the brand name has hurt the
bank in brand recognition.
Equality and diversity policies in HSBC regarding gender pay gap and staffing
percentage of female to male
At HSBC men are being paid two and half times more per hour than the amount being
paid to Women. This represents the largest gender pay gap. The gender pay report also revealed
that of all the senior staffs less than a quarter are female and more than 2/3 of those in junior
roles are women (Khan and Sultana 2017 p.92). There are fewer women in a senior management
position. In HSBC, the mean average measure of the pay gap is approximately 59%. This
calculation is done by taking the wages of all female and male and then dividing the total amount
by the number of employees (workers) in the organization (Holst and Wrohlich 2018 p.71). This

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year 2018, the group provides a provisional mean pay gap of sixty percent (60%). The
organization also has sixty-one percent bonus payments between its female and male employees.
The gender pay gap is the differences in hourly earnings between women and men
working for the company regardless of the roles which they perform in the organization.
Under the new scheme of the government of UK, all organizations with 250 or more
employees must report to the public and the government their pay gap. This enables the
government to establish suitable action for changes on issues of gender inequalities at the
workplace (Amis, Munir and Mair 2017 p.54).
How the HSBC organisation policies align with government regulation on diversity
and equality.
The government of UK requires that all Companies should promote equality in
everything that they do. It also states that all companies should meet their legal duties of
promoting equality in the workplace (Manokaran et al. 2018 p.102). HSBC follows the
government rules and regulation by offering similar opportunities to all people regardless of their
sex. HSBC believes in providing equal opportunities and fair treatment to those who applied for
the job. The workforce of HSBC is highly diverse. The organization promotes the diversity of its
workers and is committed in the creation of an inclusive working environment (Ng and Rumens
2017 P.26). The equality law legally offers protection of individuals from discrimination in their
place of work. HSBC is in line with government regulation because it discourages discrimination
of people in the workplace. The organization discourages the following: sex discrimination, Race
discrimination, and Disability discrimination. HSBC strategic policy relied on a diverse culture.
Different cultural background enables the organization to get access to broader consumer insight.
The strategic priorities of HSBC are entrenching and the inclusion of diverse cultural practices

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and values and supporting diversity among the customers and employees. The company only
lack enough number of Woman bankers in the organization (Yang, Basile and Letourneau 2018
p.78).
How the HSBC organisation diversity and equality aligned with its overall
organisation business strategy
The main strategy of HSBC is to connect their customers to different opportunities for
more than one hundred and fifty years (150 years). HSBC uses many strategies for example
SWOT Analysis, Marketing mix, Porters 5 Forces Analysis and PESTLE Analysis. The
strategies focus on four groups of customers includes Commercial Banking, Personal Financial
Services, Private Banking and Corporate Banking. Diversity and equality will enable the
organization to grow, innovate as well as outperform the competition (Rowley, Wei and Warner
2018 p.95). Diversity and equality allow the organization to provide equal opportunities thereby
creating a fair balance between women and men. This enables HSBC to be ahead of their
competitors. HSBC also use diversity as a holistic strategy that values its employee’s customers
and suppliers. Diversity practices allow the organization to understand their customers thereby
increasing the profitability of the business (Kumar, Pande and Afreen 2018 p.76). Organization
can only achieve the issues relating to diversity practices only when the workforce is in line with
the organization strategy and policies. Therefore, it is essential to develop and train the
employees according to the strategy of the Corporation. Also, it is hard to retain diverse
employees when there are many conflicts and issues of interest in the organization.
Benchmark of HSBC with Standard chartered bank and Royal bank of Scotland
a) Gender pay gaps: Standard chartered bank

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The gender pay gaps of standard chartered bank as compared to HSBC reveal that there is
a large gap between men and women in terms of the salaries paid per hour. The bank announced
its commitment towards gender parity. The organization has pledge to recruit 30% female in
senior positions by 2020. The organization will achieve this by developing fair processes and
policies including the reasonable pay charter. The organization pay charter will reward the
employees in a free and fair manner. The bank also incorporated Diversity at the management
level of the organizations to allow managers to understand the requirements and needs of the
organizations. The essential function of the Company is to conduct a proper inclusive and
diverse program to recruit the best talents. Standard charted bank is more focused on employing
Women and disabled into their team. The company promoted gender equality. There are some
negative impacts on the diversity practices at the standard chartered bank such as disrespect of
the opposite sex (Johannes Dedy and Muksin 2018 p.50).
Gender pay gaps: Royal bank of Scotland
Women who are working at the bank earn an average of 37.2% less than their male
counterparts. The bank manager admitted that strategies are to be put in place to allow more
females in senior positions in the organization. The figures reported also shows that women
received 64.4% less bonus than those earned by their men counterparts. These suggest that more
effort need to be put by the management to close gender pay disparity. Royal Bank of Scotland
should engage in training individuals in a diverse work culture. RBS should give their customers
the priority.
Issues identified

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After a brief analysis and study so conducted on gender pay gaps and diversity practices
undertaken by RBS, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank, the issues faced by the customers and
by the organization are identified. They include:
 The three banks have different gender pay gaps
 Both the banks show larger gender pay gaps
 There is no balance in the internal structure of the company
 There is also a marked difference in the three companies, regarding the objectives
of the organization that are to be fulfilled by the diversity program.
Recommendation
HSBC has the largest differences in female and male staff salaries as compared to other
largest bank in Europe. In order to close the Bank’s gender pay gap, the following should be
done:
 The organization should establish clear criteria for awarding employees and
senior male executives. The organization should use suitable ration in a warding the male and
female employees.
 HSBC should also set out suitable procedures on how it will prevent gender pay
gap as well as supporting the progression of women. The organization should put it focus in
changing the myths behind gender pay gaps.
 HSBC should establish suitable strategies for finishing gender pay gaps
 Subsidiary and partners companies should also report their gender pay gap.
 HSBC should re-examine promotion and recruitment policies to eradicate
unconscious bias.

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 A proper plan and rules are to be defined by all the organization so that all the
minority groups can obtain equal opportunities.
 The organizations should formulate the evaluation plan to provide scope for
evaluating the benefit of equality and diversity practices and to assess the extent to which the
employees have accepted it.
 All the organizations must ensure that their programs are designed in such a way
that it provides ample opportunities for all the people despite the race, ethnicity or gender. Also,
the three organizations must provide a suitable environment for all the employees.
Conclusion
Diversity refers to the differences in ethnicity, demographic and ethnicity among the
people that are in the workplace. Equality is the process of giving everyone an equal chance in
the organization (Nie, Lämsä and Pučėtaitė 2018 p.64). The concept of equality and inclusion are
the essential factors as they improve the performance of the organizations. Special attention
should be given to equality and diversity practices in the organization. The management should
also consider the well-fair of the LGBT community as well as the disabled. These issues together
with gender equality can make an organization to run at a loss (Dhanani and Jones 2017 p.72).
The organization should also offer similar training to all the employees to boost their talents.
This paper makes a study of 3 major Corporations in the UK. The three organizations
include Standard Chartered Bank, HSB and Royal Bank of Scotland. The three organizations are
completely different regarding their structures, goals, and objectives. The paper compared,
contrasted and then analyses their diversity practices. Finally, the paper provides different
recommendations that can improve the performance of the three organization.

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