When I called Citi Group’s Head of Diversity (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Carolanne Minashi, on her direct office line at the agreed time only to be met with a voicemail message telling me she was unavailable, I was disappointed but not altogether surprised. Things move at pace in the world of finance and I imagined she’d been whisked into an important conference call and hadn’t been able to drop me a line to reschedule.

As it was, two minutes later she’d pinged me a note to ask me to call her on her mobile as she was working from home. And therein lies the secret of the success of women at Citi: flexible, flexible working – impromptu working at home or in fact working anywhere to get the job done.

At Citi there’s a high degree of trust and autonomy where it’s more about the work you do than where you do it and flexible working is far more embedded than most organisations where it’s can have a whiff of ‘she’s not committed now she’s had kids’ about it.

It’s clear that Minashi enjoys talking about the strides forward Citi have made in terms of recruiting and retaining women - particularly during the childbearing years – and rightly so. She is thoughtful, bright and fully aware of the issues that drive the gender and ‘family’ gaps in women’s attainment in the workplace. She is a mother of four herself so knows precisely the issues that play on the minds of professional women who are weighing up the overall sense and economics of returning to work after children. I imagine she handles it beautifully.

I ask her what the impetus was for Citi doing all that they’re doing to support women returners and the answer is simple: there’s an excellent business case for doing so. And indeed there is. As the American consulting firm McKinsey highlighted some years ago there is a ‘war on talent’ and we need women more than ever before.

Citi started seriously managing the maternity transition four years ago when they led the way on full pay for the first six months of maternity leave and including IVF in their employees’ healthcare plans. Minashi reflects that policy was just the start of it and that it’s people not policy that really makes the difference which leads into her describing the workshops they began to run for line managers of pregnant team members.

From there they’ve broadened the workshops they do to encompass women themselves. She describes a programme of workshops for maternity leavers akin to what we offer here at The Thinking Woman’s Coach so it’s no wonder my face lights up and every other word I utter is “yes” or “absolutely.” Before we get too self-congratulatory about what we’re both doing in the maternity management arena, I ask Carolanne to tell me about the impact all of this ‘good business sense’ stuff is having on retention and engagement.

Without almost a moment’s thought she is able to confidently reel off the stats: retention of maternity leavers ran at an impressive 84% before they started to seriously manage maternity transition and after three years later it’s at 97%. I dig a little deeper to find out if it’s still as high a couple of years down the line and it seems it’s still pretty good. For most women the shakiest time is the first three months and if they get through that they are likely to stick at it.

What impressed me most of all about Citi and Carolanne Minashi was the sense that they’re genuinely keen to provide maternity leavers and returners with whatever it takes to keep some semblance of parity between male and female employees (which is tricky given that graduate entrants are heavily gender-biased towards men in the first place – something like 70%+ male). “It’s not rocket science, it’s business sense” she quipped and she’s absolutely right.

Do you know an organisation who’s doing something worth talking about in the gender diversity arena? Do contact us or leave a post on this blog as we like to blow trumpets where it’s due. The Thinking Woman’s Coach team runs corporate comeback workshops and talks that might be just what your maternity leavers and returners need. Jessica also works privately with women who want to manage their maternity transition discreetly and on an individual basis.

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