Research

ING U.S. Financial Services – Beyond Diversity: Building One ING Culture (Practices)

Jan 30, 2008

ING USFS’ initiative, Beyond Diversity: Building One ING Culture, has created a unifying culture that identifies diversity and inclusion as a business imperative, increased women managers at the top-most level, and become a model for the global organization. In 2001, recognizing the need for change, the company used a transition period of rapid acquisitions and subsequent consolidation to identify the necessary levers for culture change. ING USFS then capitalized on different talents, perspectives, and ideas to increase diversity and inclusion across all of its business locations. The resulting “One ING” culture benefits all employees, with a strategic focus to include women and other diverse groups.

The components of the initiative, which overlap and leverage one another, include:

  • A strong branding effort and rewarding employee experience.
  • An “acceleration” or “deceleration” of up to 10 percent of each business unit’s bonus pool that is linked specifically to performance on diversity measures, judged quantitatively and qualitatively by the CEO. In addition, managers’ personal performance plans include human capital management (HCM) metrics.
  • HCM metrics, such as the number of women “managers of managers” and high-performer retention rates, as well as career development and overall employee satisfaction scores, are closely tracked.
  • A comprehensive project to uncover employee needs that has led to skill-building initiatives, targeted recruitment, and mentoring programs.
  • Business-focused employee affinity groups.
  • Best-practice sharing through annual events, such as a Diversity Symposium.
  • Diversity-related employee volunteer activities through the ING Foundation.

Since the initiative’s inception in 2003, ING USFS has increased women’s representation on the senior management team from 25 percent to 50 percent, and currently, two executive women in profit-and-loss roles manage 80 percent of ING USFS business. Two out of three people in the succession pipeline to CEO are women, and the percentage of women in people-manager positions has increased from 45.7 percent in 2003 to 47.9 percent in 2007.