Empowering colleagues and confronting unconscious bias: Marc's story

Fostering a culture that empowers colleagues and confronts unconscious bias is crucial in creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. As a People Leader I make it my mission to create an environment in which employees feel valued, empowered and heard. Open dialogue in encouraged, as well as active listening to allow the team to voice their ideas and concerns without fear of judgment. Building a culture of experimentation and encouraging employees to innovate, challenge the status quo and collaborate is important to me. Mistakes will happen along the way and it’s critical we support each other, learn from the outcomes and do better next time, rather than fear the consequences.

I’m a big advocate of flexible working and allow my team the freedom to manage their scheduling, work hours and location whilst ensuring productivity and output are maintained. From experience, colleagues who feel empowered at work, deliver stronger performance, get greater job satisfaction, and have a deeper commitment to the organisation.

When employee’s feel trusted and valued their confidence increases. I regularly send ‘thank you notes’ and awards to colleagues that are recognised for a job well done. Alongside this it's important to maintain strong working relationships by actively seeking input and constructive feedback on my leadership skills from my team’s on areas that can be improved and I ask for this often.

At the Bank we're provided with training courses and other educational methods which have encouraged me to develop new skills. This is something I actively take part in and also encourage my team to think about what training courses they can do.

I’m fortunate to have a diverse team where colleagues demonstrate creative thinking, have different views on things and strong engagement. Advocating for diverse hiring practices is really important to me, as well as challenging stereotypes at senior meetings and promoting fairness as overall this helps create a diverse place to work and benefits everyone involved.