What are the material issues the company has identified?  

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Emirates NBD identified a range of material issues, such as governance, compliance and ethics, human rights and labour conditions, privacy and security, responsible finance, product and service responsibility. Among these, promoting employee development stands out as a key material issue for Emirates NBD.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Emirates NBD engages with:

To identify and prioritise material topics Emirates NBD engaged with its stakeholders through the following channels:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Employees	·      Bank’s intranet ·      Employee’s engagement
Board of Directors	·      Board of Directors meetings (around 6 times a year)
Investors	·      Investors Relations Team and website section
Customers	·      Voice of Customer satisfaction surveys
Suppliers	·      Tenders & RFPs
Local Community	·      Partnerships with community organisations
Government	·      Compliance with, among other things, the UAE Central Bank directives and the Dubai Financial Services Authority directive
Environment	·      Partnerships with environmental organisations, both locally and globally
Media	·      Radio/TV interviews ·      Daily market commentary ·      Weekly and monthly newsletters

What actions were taken by Emirates NBD to promote employee development?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Emirates NBD reports that it took the following actions for promoting employee development:

• Blending classroom and digital learning
• The year 2019 witnessed, for Emirates NBD, a shift towards investing in digital content, which has increased to represent 45% of Emirates NBD’s learning material versus 29% in 2018. This strategic focus resulted in an increased number of learners (10,300 in 2019, compared to 8,820 in 2018), courses and reach in 2019. Emirates NBD’s learning platforms include:
  • MYQUEST Mobile App by Emirates Islamic: A gamified learning platform which enables employees to embark on a learning journey broken into four progression levels and eleven learning ‘missions’.
  • Virtual Reality Academy by Emirates NBD Bank: A Virtual Reality (VR) Academy that enables the Bank to provide a more intuitive and engaging learning experience for all employees.

• Implementing a Leadership & Management Development model
• Emirates NBD’s Leadership & Management Development (L&MD) training courses offer world-class competency-based learning programmes that are targeted at building Emirates NBD Group specific competencies of associates, officers and managers. They include three methods to build knowledge:
  • In-person workshops: A fully immersive learning experience where participants interact with the instructor and engage in team collaboration activities
  • Case studies: Participants acquire negotiation skills, learn to consider different aspects of business cases and take a deep dive into strategic thinking
  • Role playing: Participants consider different points of views by participating in simulations of real-life situations
• Emirates NBD’s L&MD model ensures the integration of Community Development as a key learning outcome in each of the programmes offered, with an introduction to sustainability and community development as a vital component to each course.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 404-1 Average hours of training per year per employee

2) Disclosure 404-2 Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs

 

Disclosure 404-1 Average hours of training per year per employee corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4: Quality Education
• Targets: 4.3, 4.4, 4.5
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.1
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.2, 8.5
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10: Reduced Inequalities
• Targets: 10.3

Disclosure 404-2 Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.2, 8.5

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Emirates NBD, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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