How Financial Institutions Can Promote Diversity & Inclusion

Consumers today care more than ever about the social values of the companies that they do business with. This is especially true in financial services, where customers increasingly want to work with institutions that help to promote the social good.

This means financial marketers and communicators need to be able to effectively express how their business is promoting diversity and equality. But how do financial firms truly embrace this in a genuine manner?

According to Palomena Tejada, head of Talent and Culture, Agile and Communications, at Client Solutions, BBVA the key is to make diversity goals a strategic business priority

“We believe that diversity has an impact on our business results, because our customer base is diverse, so embracing diversity allows us to better adapt to this diverse group of customers and put more competitive services in their hands” Palomena says in a blog post. “We have a total of 15 BRGs (Business Resource Groups) throughout BBVA with whom we work not only on gender diversity but also on LGTBIQ + diversity, racial diversity, and this is helping us to open up the dialogue that is essential for all organizations, because the key to diversity is having open channels of conversation, to listen to people, look at things from different points of view and try to understand all sensibilities.”

Ultimately, Tejada says, financial services firms need a diverse workforce to help drive innovation and “who help you think and change, people who challenge you.”