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An interview with Gurpreet Chug – Credit Suisse Modern Muse

news published date 4 August 2020
  • Our Stories
Credit Suisse

The Credit Suisse Modern Muse team’s goal is to excite, inform, inspire and motivate the next generation of female leaders and entrepreneurs from various socio-economic backgrounds. The program achieves this by providing transparency into careers in finance and technology and access to positive role models through interactive and informative in-house activities.

The team, from various areas of the organisation, collaborate to achieve this goal, sourcing 80+ volunteers to deliver stimulating content. The team has empowered over 1600 girls as they embark on their education and career journeys. The team develop networks and personal skills, which in turn improve individual careers and works tirelessly to tackle the diversity gaps, not just now but to safeguard the future, through empowerment.

They have been shortlisted for the WIBF Team Diversity Award. Gurpreet Chug, one of the co-leads of the Modern Muse programme answers our questions.

How does it feel to be shortlisted for this award?

We are delighted to have been shortlisted for this award and, in particular, for being recognised as an inclusive organisation where gender equality really matters. We very much enjoyed the opportunity to work together as one virtual team with colleagues from across Standard Life Aberdeen on this project.

What is your proudest achievement as a team?

To have developed a truly market leading progressive Parent Leave Policy in the UK, which leads the way in our industry and has such a huge impact for our people now and in the future – makes us really proud.

We want to be leaders in this field, not followers and we think that we’ve achieved this. We hear many stories from colleagues which bring to life how much our new Parent Leave policy has changed their lives. It makes us very proud that we have been able to do this.

What advice would you give to a HR leader who is looking to develop a more inclusive parent leave policy?

I would advise an HR leader who is looking to develop a more inclusive Parental Leave policy to start by developing a compelling business case for change. I think it’s is important that from the start of the project we can articulate the tangible business benefits for all stakeholders. It’s important to take time to engage stakeholders across the business as you develop a new inclusive policy as not everyone will understand how important this is and why it matters both now and for the future. It’s important to fully understand the commercials – i.e. the cost of implementing the new policy and weighing these against the business case for change. While this was a really important consideration for us, it was the broader agenda of gender equality and engagement which was our primary driver.

What particular challenges have you faced, and how were they overcome?

We developed our new HR policy agenda during 2019 as part of an ambitious HR transformation programme. The new HR policy agenda was only one part of this. As a small team we had to juggle many priorities and engage many stakeholders across our organisation in a very short time period. We achieved this by working well as an extended virtual team by having a very clear common goal. We prioritised those areas which would have the greatest impact for colleagues and the business. One of the specific challenges for us as we developed the new Parent Leave policy was balancing our ambition to have a gender equal policy and simple operating practice with the statutory regime which is organised around gender and shared leave. We had to find a way to balance these to ensure that we could meet both requirements as we progressed our policy and operating approach.

What have you learned as a team during this current working from home period?

Working from home since March 2020 as a result of COVID 19 has been a big change for many of us. We have had to adapt quickly and be resilient. As part of our policy agenda in 2019, we had developed a Smarter Working policy to encourage greater flexibility in how, where and when people worked. This has helped in approaching the challenges of working from home and managing people on outcomes, not how much time they spend at their desk. We have learnt how important it is to communicate well and often, to reset the expectations we have of ourselves and others about what is important and achievable and to be kind and supportive to one another.

What are you personally looking forward to in 2021?

Working from home was a necessity in response to a crisis. I am looking forward to us building on some of the positives experiences we have had and to use these to establish a new more inclusive way of working for 2021 and beyond.