Westpac missing 'ask once' benchmarks

Ian Rogers
The stakeholder impact report from Westpac, published yesterday, serves to drum into readers the endeavours of the company to respond to what it perceives as "the slow wave of fundamental change" presented by "sustainability".

According to Westpac, "sustainability is a source of creative disruption that challenges our existing business models."

In reporting on its sustainability agenda, Westpac remains ahead of the curve, though cynics may wonder how relevant all this is to its core business.

One flourish in the stakeholder report is to rope in contributions from outsiders, which this year includes two banking unions, one of its law firms (obliged, like many suppliers, to report to Westpac in detail on its own environmental credentials), a bush accountant and a few not-for-profits, including the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership (of Noel Pearson fame), The Climate Institute and WWF (once known as the World Wildlife Fund).

Leon Carter, national secretary of the Finance Sector Union, at least takes on Westpac in his few hundred words.

Carter wrote that Westpac's initiatives on workplace flexibility, such as job sharing, part-time work and working from home, while "well intentioned," are "policy commitments that do not necessarily connect with the practical and pressured world of their business and employees."

The FSU, Carter wrote, wanted enforceable agreements on flexibility.

Westpac has steadfastly declined to renew the collective agreement negotiated with the FSU in 2001 and that expired in 2004 (though this agreement still informs minimum staff conditions).

The bank's stakeholder report provides updated data on the ratio of earnings of men and women.

Men earn eight per cent more than women in non-managerial jobs and it is the same ratio in junior management jobs. In middle management men earn four per cent more than women; it's 13 per cent more for the blokes in senior management and 22 per cent more in top management.

Staff overall might be happier and appear to be more careful. The lost time injury frequency rate is down to 3.8 claims per million hours worked and pushing half the level of three years ago.

Some measures in the report are bizarre. One is described as "business lending with a high social benefit", which Westpac defines in two ways: any lending to small or medium businesses or any business lending with outstandings of less than $5 million.

The report includes a few long-range indicators on the bank's performance against its "ask once" benchmarks, a nice principle for operating practice but tough to execute well.

The bank remains underneath its objective on the measures of "value me", "don't give me the run around", and is well below benchmark on "solve issues quickly and fairly", possibly because the bank doesn't keep shirty customers well informed on the progress of handling harder complaints.

Finally Westpac has the whole data dump in the stakeholder report audited. Banarra Sustainability Assurance and Advice undertake the task, in what sure is a growth industry.