Name: CEO Initiative 2019: Citigroup's Journey to Closing the Pay Gaps
Uploaded: 2019-12-26
Duration: 17 min 59 s
Description: Michael Corbat, Citigroup CEO, discusses the steps the company has taken to close the gap–and why other companies should follow suit.

CEO Initiative 2019: Citigroup's Journey to Closing the Pay Gaps 

Citigroup's Journey to Closing the Pay Gaps

Finance

Michael Corbat, Citigroup CEO, discusses the steps the company has taken to close the gap–and why other companies should follow suit.

thank you for finding yourself in the middle of this great conversation about gender equity. This is a wonderful development for all of us. You are actually the only company to use raw data Thio generate these numbers. That right? Not only us company don't believe that to be correct on the whole planet. So I thought we should start at the beginning with your journey two doubles and this wonderful announcement I know from reporting for for the last couple of years, gender equity is harder than it sounds in the headlines. And when I write about it, could we begin at the beginning the walk before the run? I know that our Juna played a role in encouraging this effort, but you really spearheaded an extraordinary effort of data collection, navigating privacy laws and all of that. Why don't we start the very be sure. So we started the journey by, um I think first recognizing that we were frustrated that we were not making the progress in terms of closing those gaps that you referenced, that we wanted to recognizing that we weren't alone. And there were all kinds of excuses or reasons for why those things weren't happening. And so we looked and said, We've got to change the approach. We've got to change the narrative and to back up and talk a little bit about our numbers work a company of roughly 200,000 employees. And if you actually look at our just based numbers, we actually today a year 23 ago had had and continue to have more women than men in our company, so we could have looked and said We're 51 52% women were done but actually is repealed that onion and knowing in premise what was underneath, we knew that we really had a significant representation challenge. So the first thing we actually did is to go to the core principle around equal pay for equal work. And so the first thing we tested was that premise and we picked three countries in the world. We operate in roughly ah 100 countries and we pick three of our biggest countries to do that. We looked at the U. S. We looked at the UK, we looked at Germany, we got some outside help and we looked and toward the numbers apart. Got external validation in terms of all the numbers and not surprisingly, found that were pretty close. We weren't exactly where we wanted to be, but we had a small gap we needed to fill. We went back, made those reparations very quickly. And then we went public to the rest of the firm and said, We've done this and now we're gonna go to the rest of the company. We're gonna go do the other 95 or 96 countries that we hadn't done. We did those the next year. And so premise one equal pay for equal work regardless of how you come at it. The second piece we then as we peel the onion, was really looking a CZ. You describe what we we call within our from the raw pay gap, right? And the raw pay gap. What it really illustrates is if you have the ability to look someone in the eye and say that you're getting equal pay for equal work and you have Maur females in this case than males, but your raw pay gap comes back and says that your median female in the world is getting paid 29% less than your media and mail. It says that you have a representation issue, right? So what we did in that representation was senior levels we defined with those senior levels were effectively assistant vice president through managing director managerial positions. And then we went back and said that we're going to peel this and we're gonna get granular, and we're going to set goals for ourselves and we're gonna measure ourselves against those goals and make sure that we close that gap. But before we get to your retention and development plan is a long time leadership nerd and reporter, I'm interested in the nuts and bolts. I want to talk about the global peace because it really is a very interesting component. Privacy laws are different all around the world. But you're also doing this work in countries where gender rights are not even on the agenda in this way. So I was moved to discover that 30% of your chief country officers are women, and that includes places like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, where there's all kinds of other cultural components going on. When I think of pay equity, I think of the the African American woman in the high potential pool in the Atlanta market and the ripple effects for her family and from the community or the Latina in the first leadership job in Los Angeles market. You know what that change and what that investment in her is going to mean? What does it mean on a global basis, particularly countries where this is not on the agenda? Why, I think in many cases you mentioned Turkey. You mentioned Saudi Arabia those air in many cases franchise changing, environmentally changing appointments in the rules. But I have to say in each of those cases, the business community, politicians, the government were extremely supportive of those moves. And you can sense you can feel right away when you go back into those places a palpable change in terms of energy enthusiasm. What's going on behind the scenes in those countries so you can really feel feel on the ground? The change when you when you make those kinds of moves. So before we get into that symbol to the bigger picture, what are you measuring? I know income inequality is something that's very much on your mind, but when you think about what gender equity means across the board, What are the kind of big picture social benchmarks that you're looking for? Well, I think first from a you know, we would start from a company perspective. And that is, does our do our people Does our population match the consistency were serving in this world that got so much going on. And we're getting the right perspectives. And I say, You know, I'm 36 years at our company and I sat around the table with a bunch of politely put middle aged white men and had groupthink and to get those different perspectives and whether those perspectives are gender or race or all the things that you can bring to the table and part of part of what we've talked about is this desire or this necessity to start getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. A lot of work. You know, I'm a fan in the middle aged white man. I married one so, but the constant discomfort is really the big issue. I think it's particularly hard for people in power. We were talking earlier and joking. One of the things that move me when I interview people around this work is that leaders in your position I have to say the same thing over and over and over again, and they have to say it with a freshness and vitality. The 75th time somebody that you've cherished, it's been part of your leadership team for a long time says This is nonsense. This is not a meritocracy. And then you say, Well, when it goes back to one of the books I think was Jack Welch wrote to you It's a great lesson in leadership and in particular the big company, and you travel when you say things and you get so tired of hearing yourself, Jack Welch said. You say you say it again. You say it again when you're tired of saying, say it again, you can't stand to hear yourself Say it again. You say it again and I'm always amazed on exactly that point. I'll be somewhere and somebody will say You said it and I did really resonates with me and you're like, Where were you? The other 100 times I've said it right and the power of communication and you know what we call in our company is a tone from the top. But as importantly, the echo back up right, because if the tone from the top comes down and there's no echo coming back up, it's not getting hurt, Right, Right. So you got some big goals here. You're your goal is increased representation at the assistant vice president through managing director levels to at least 40% for women globally and 8% for black employees in the U. S. By the end of 2021 which is coming at us like a freight train here. And we all know that you can't hire your way out of this. You can bring in all kinds of people. But if they're not welcome and if they can't figure out how to navigate the system, what is your plan for this? Well, art is really one that I would in many ways call a three pronged approach. So when I came into my job of being C over company six and 1/2 7 years ago around my table, we had no women. We had no us. We have one US minority around the table. Today we're five women were two to us minorities around the table and so clearly at the top, the tone from the tops got to be there and making sure that we're bringing people through, promoting running the proper slate processes and getting the right people into jobs. But really, if you're going to solve this and I think where at least our company, our industries fallen short before is the organic, sustainable piece of it, I think we've been okay at bringing women, minorities, etcetera into the firm. But I don't think we've created the environment that creates the sustainability of wanting them to be there. So the attrition has been very high, so as fast as you can bring in these talented people, you're losing them because one competitions high. But I think you've got admit we probably haven't created the right environment, that they actually want to stay an investor careers and and so we've tried to take that approach of getting the tone in the demographic from the top headed and publicly stated is going in the right direction, getting the balance, and this year we will be 50 50 men, women of our incoming classes. But the important pieces, how do we create the mentoring? How do we create the career path thing? How do we create the dynamic within the firm where people say this is the place I gotta be. This is the place to build my career, and you cannot solve those numbers that we've spoken to simply by external hiring and if you do solving to sell them temporarily because you won't have the organic pipeline that actually feeds that and create sustainability. So before I invite people to join this important conversation, I thought we could talk briefly about how retention is different now that sort of the modern way that you are making sure that people are trained and engaged, which is very different. When you started many years ago Oh so many years ago, I started at our firm 36 years ago. It was a very, very different firm and different world, and I describe that the company's engagement around me was a methodology that I called shut up and suffer that I came to work. I put my head down. You know, I worked my fingers off lots of long hours, didn't complain about anything. You kind of did what you did. But, you know, in those days, and certainly in financial service, is you were kind of on this rocket ship in terms of what these companies were becoming. And I started in a predecessor firm of ours were 2500 place and we grew to over 200,000. And so it was grabbed the rope and hang on because, you know, if you can do anything, you know you're going to get pulled up in this. And that was in some ways least part of my career trajectory today. What I describe is that career path thing is a jungle gym. Okay, Right. And in there, um, you know, I'll speak to the financial service Is industrial speak for our company? We're roughly 200,000 employees. We're gonna continue to grow and do things, but I actually don't expect that we're gonna need a lot more people. So there's not this head room that's being created around lots of new jobs and things going on. Technology and all those things will grow. But technology will continue to create some of those boundaries. And so when we talk about somebody coming in a couple premises is one millennials. If you're not engaged with them, it is highly likely they're engaged with someone else. The expectations are different in terms of, you know, engage me, move me, challenge me, Keep me steep on the lead on the learning curve be vested in me And the career conversations we often have are very different that we try and get prescriptive fair early and say you may not be right but where do you see yourself? Where do you want to go? And then we can work backwards and say, You know, that's the job you want. You're gonna need some skills and these are the skills and these are the types of jobs Some of these may feel lateral or they may not feel like big promotions, but they're essential to getting to that chair. And the great thing is, is, when we go through that, we get great engagement. And by the time we get people up to where they want to go, they are far better trained, far better trained, and certainly, But you know, I was or my generation ever was because we completely curated that career in a way that gives them all the skills they need. And so I think that managers and leaders that we're turning out today are light years better than you know in the old way. So, um, who would like to join us? Let anybody have a question looking around. Hi. It's right here. And your cattle. Um, and first of all, thanks for being a champion for this clause and for supporting catalysts as well. I know that this Royal pay gap issue is something that is you got a lot of flak for from your peers. But it's also something that, like in the UK there requiring it right? What do you think the trends are gonna be around this? And how do we get the understanding of this better, especially around the work pay gap? Because I think that the pay equity seems to be something that people understand on fairness. But the raw pay gap seems to be a more difficult concept and something that there's a lot of pushback on. You know, when you be blunt about it, when I having done the pay equity work and having a reasonable understanding of, um, our own demographic representation, I wouldn't say that there was a complete ah ha moment in the numbers. Of course we do those numbers we should roughly know what they are. But I think the important piece and the uncomfortable peace around the raw pay gap is one the magnitude of the number, right? But then it's really in my mind of a first generation or a first derivative event off the bigger problem. And so when you put it out there, the only way you solve that raw Paige rap is by getting the demographics of leadership right. And so it kind of calls out the early issue. And then you've got a lot of work to do in terms of mapping and figuring out the right way to solve it. But it just kind of puts the issue right in the middle of the table and I think forces you to deal with it. And for us it was an uncomfortable moment, but we felt it was the right thing to do to put it out there, and we'd already started the other pieces of work and we had a plan and we were implementing the plan. And so let's put it out there. Let's reinforce what we're doing and let's you know, let's make sure we're going in the right direction. With time for one more question. Welcome. I'm just wondering about the cultural changes that you see. I'm sorry. I'm ELISA Nelson, President and CEO. Vital voices. I work on women's empowerment issues, and I'm particularly interested in what you said about the government in some countries that you're working in around the world, being interested in what you were doing and supportive. But I'm just wondering about the cultural impact of what you've seen. So not just I mean, obviously, it's wonderful, The pay is great. But what I also tend to think about is how does this change the way that people value women in communities and countries that girls see themselves? Do you see more women applying for positions? Is the government looking at changing legislation are actually implementing legislation that they have just interested? If you could expand upon that So I think 11 many things, many things change. But one thing that clearly changes is when we she and where women have gone into these and earn these positions, they come in and they're they're talent magnets, but their talent magnets, we've had the ability to just attract and retain great talent around having put these people in place. It happens to be that they're phenomenal leaders, and they're really good at what they do. But the energy when you do that. And I would say again going back is, You know, I've been worried about putting people in harm's way and what the reaction of the business community, how certain constituencies. And I've got to say that I've been very, very positively surprised in terms of the global embrace that's out there, and to me, that's exciting. And I think our people see it and they see the energy. And then, by the way, you know what I talk about inside of our companies, you know, a bank is a risk organization. We take a risk whether we're providing your credit card, your mortgage or financing your company, and to have those perspectives right as we think about. And by the way, the world's pretty complicated place today. And to have those voices around the table that look ATT issues rather than in the group think I mentioned earlier, very different perspectives, creates a willingness to challenge and creates a set of perspectives that I know makes us better at what we d'oh and I and I believe the company sees that it lives it. We're going to have to leave it there. That was a perfect end. Note. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here.