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By Chinwendu Obienyi
Sterling Bank, has kept up its momentum of victories with the conferment of three citations for favourable human capital management practices by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) at the Gender Leader Awards, 2023.
The bank received commendations in the Company Leadership Gender Diversity, Gender Diversity in Supply Chain, and Family-Friendly Workplace categories.
The Gender Leader Awards is part of the Nigeria2Equal programme, which spotlights participating companies for taking actions to achieve gender balance in leadership, prioritizing healthcare and family-friendly workplace policies to foster a growth environment for women in the workplace.
Receiving the awards on behalf of Sterling, Chief Human Resource Officer of the bank, Temi Dalley, commented that it was an honour for the bank to be recognised for its efforts in the mentioned categories.
Dalley said, “We are building an organisation with equitable opportunities for all; regardless of gender, faith, ethnicity or physical ability, where people can fully immerse themselves in our employee value proposition which empowers them to live their best life and do their best work.”
She continued by saying that “Sterling is intentional about ensuring equity in opportunities, and also encouraging our women to be all that they can be. This is why we have been deliberate about ensuring a gender balanced organisation, and achieving representation at the highest executive and board levels.”
Ms. Dahlia Khalifa, IFC’s Regional Director for Central Africa, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone said, “As we celebrate the accomplishments of these organisations who have shown outstanding leadership in closing the gender gaps within their own organisations, we acknowledge the power of collaboration and the transformative impact that specific, measurable, and time-bound commitments can have on achieving gender parity in Nigeria’s private sector. IFC remains resolute in our commitment to sustain the momentum and scale up our efforts for a more gender-balanced, prosperous future.”
Sterling has achieved these feats by following through on its agenda to achieve gender equity with visible evidence including, a two-hundred and eighty-five per cent increase in female employees recruited, and a further ninety-one per cent increase in the number of female employees promoted in 2022.
In recent times, the bank has consistently invested in equity within the enterprise, which has seen the bank emerge as Nigeria’s Best Company in Investments in Women as Employees And Entrepreneurs by Equileap’s Gender Gap assessment in 2021, and has been further consolidated with the percentage of women in the bank currently standing at forty-four per cent of its workforce at the end of 2022.
