OREANDA-NEWS. National Australia Bank has been recognised for fostering an innovative and diverse technology workforce at the Australian Human Resource Institute’s annual awards earlier this week.

The Cross Cultural Management award comes after years of work building a culturally inclusive workplace across NAB’s transformation & technology team and with partners including Oracle, Accenture and Infosys.

AHRI praised NAB for the way it leveraged cultural differences to bring new ways of thinking and problem solving into the team.

NAB’s transformation & technology team has become a group of highly skilled workers from diverse backgrounds and locations across the globe that works on NAB’s core technology projects.

Steve Collier, NAB Group Executive Core Banking Centre of Excellence, was particularly proud of NAB’s achievements and said he was passionate about creating an inclusive workplace.

“This award really highlights the human side of our technology projects and clearly demonstrates how an inclusive mindset drives innovation and delivers results,” he said.

“Fostering curiosity and cultural sensitivity for our employees and our partners ensures that every employee feels included and respected no matter where they work or who they work for.

“I’m proud NAB has been recognised for the progress we have made in creating a workplace where everyone can be themselves at work every day, but we’ve still got work to do.

“In my career I have been fortunate to work with very diverse teams and experience the difference an inclusive workplace makes. I still remember an experience when I was running NAB’s contact centres and we hired a young woman who was wheelchair-bound,” Mr Collier said.

“A couple of months after she started I caught up with her to see how she was going. She burst in to tears and told me she had lost her mobility in an accident and had to move back home with her family. She had spent many months trying to find a role and, in her words, we hadn’t just given her a job but had actually enabled her to get her life back.

“That was a defining moment for me. It made me realise how important maintaining an inclusive workplace is. It’s more than just the expertise and experience that different people bring.”