RBS 2011 Annual Report Download - page 33

RBS Group 2011 31
Our five key themes
We focus our actions across five key themes
within our business.
Fair banking
We are working to provide a simple,
accessible and innovative service for our
customers in response to their requirements.
Banking is central to the daily lives of almost
everyone, and it’s important that we
understand their needs.
We met 23 out of the 25 goals in our UK
customer charter and made good progress
with our Ulster Bank and Citizens commitments.
We have also taken steps to proactively identify
people who may get into financial difficulty so
we can work with customers to improve their
situation. We have reviewed and simplified our
charging structure and extended our
mortgage offers as we aim to place customers
at the heart of our business decisions.
Supporting enterprise
Giving support to enterprise in the economies
in which we operate is a cornerstone of our
customer offering. The health of RBS is directly
influenced by the health and success of the
businesses it supports. Whether it’s continuing
to serve our existing clients in the best way
possible or working to give start ups the help
they need to become successful – we are here
to support the growth of viable businesses. We
provide advice and guidance to businesses
through our relationship managers and in the
form of business planning tools and online
courses. We know it is a difficult time for some
organisations and that’s why we created a
specialist team to provide support. In 2011,
our Specialised Relationship Management
teams supported over 5,000 businesses
back to health.
Employee engagement
Being a good employer is fundamental to our
success as a business. Our employees are a
diverse and talented group which we support
and encourage through internal networks and
training. We were included in The Times Top
50 Employers for Women in 2011 and received
a Gold rating from Opportunity Now, an
external gender network. Our new Board has
a range of skills and experience. Three of our
board members are women, compared with
one in 2010.
It has been another challenging year for some
of our people as we continue to restructure the
Group. We highly value our employees and
seek to support them through this process with
a range of tools and services to help them find
other roles, either inside or outside of RBS. We
also offer help with the emotional and practical
challenges that they may experience.
Safety and security
Managing the safety and security of our
employees and customers is one of our
fundamental responsibilities. We use
intelligence to keep up with the challenging
and changeable environment that we operate
in, and continually review and innovate the way
we work to respond to changes in the threats
we face. In 2011, we invested around £3.5
million in branch security in the UK, Ireland
and the US. We also invested in a new fraud
profiling system to help us detect fraud more
easily to minimise the losses for our customers.
Internally, we also developed our global safety
and health modules in 2011 and improved our
internal service, Lifematters, which helps
employees access the resource and support
they need when they are experiencing
difficulties at work or at home.
Citizenship and environmental
sustainability
As a large organisation we have a responsibility
to manage our internal and external impacts.
A core part of this is the way we govern our
environmental, social and ethical risks, not only
within our own operations, but also in relation
to companies we lend to. In 2011, we
implemented sector policies which clearly
define our lending criteria in certain sensitive
industries. 2012 will also see the launch of
revised and more stretching targets to reduce
our environmental footprint across our travel
and energy, waste, water and paper use.
These targets will drive forward the
management of our own footprint, and allow
our stakeholders to track our progress.
RBS in the community
Being a good corporate citizen is also about
supporting the communities in which we
operate. Our Group community programmes
are mainly focused around supporting
enterprise, financial education and employee
engagement.
We have worked with The Prince’s Trust (PT)
for over ten years to support the UK’s next
generation of entrepreneurs. Our partnership
with PT won a number of awards last year,
recognising the strength and depth of our
relationship. In Scotland, we are strong
supporters of The Prince’s Scottish Youth
Business Trust, where our sponsorship
focuses on grants for small businesses
and investment in entrepreneurs from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
Our financial education programme
MoneySense continues to be a success in the
UK and Ireland. Our research into the habits of
40,000 young people in the UK told us that
MoneySense is making children more aware of
their financial responsibilities. Through our
MoneySense programme we have a suite of
products which help school children as well as
adults and small businesses.
Helping our employees to support the causes
that matter to them is a big part of what we do.
We support the charitable contributions of our
people, which meant in 2011 £6.6 million was
given to 3,000 charities across the globe. As
well as matching employee donations and
fundraising, we also support employees to get
involved. In 2011, over 50,000 employees
volunteered a total of 236,600 hours to try and
make a difference in this way.
There are also a number of programmes led
by our business divisions. In total, in 2011,
we invested £72 million in our communities
through both cash and in-kind donations, as
well as employee time.
For more information on sustainability
and community initiatives, please visit
www.rbs.com/sustainability.html