case study

How Diversity & inclusion gained a foothold
at Danske Bank

Danske Bank
industry 2
industry

Banking

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Headquarters

Denmark

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number of employees

22.000+ employees

Danske Bank

About Danske Bank

Danske Bank is a company with a long history in the financial sector. Founded in 1871, at the time a bank for people in Copenhagen, today it is one of the biggest banks in the nordics and is present in 8 countries.

 

Ole Bech-Petersen

“Our experience is that more inclusive job postings attract more and better candidates of both genders. The software has also been a great discussion opener to increase awareness of diversity and inclusion among HR professionals as well as managers.”

Danske Bank

Ole Bech-Petersen
Head of Talent Acquisition

Why Danske Bank came to Develop Diverse

Recruitment is one of the key areas of creating greater diversity in an organisation. 

This is why Danske Bank partnered with Develop Diverse whose software automatically scans the bank’s job adverts for biases that could attract or discourage different groups of applicants, such as a certain gender, age, ethnicity, disability and neurodiversity.

“The financial sector remains a relatively male-dominated industry, so the self-awareness that the bank has, and the willingness to do something about it, is really commendable” – Jenifer Clausell Tormos, Founder and CEO at Develop Diverse.

Become an attractive workplace for all

We really want to be an attractive workplace for both men and women

Get more women in Leadership

We want to increase the share of women in management positions.

Become a a role model for the finance sector

The starting point is that Danske Bank should “reflect the societies around us."

What Danske Bank solved with Develop Diverse

“We have a really good foundation,” explains Betina Dam Hansen. “There is still a long way to go, but we have made a good start on the work, which has a great deal of attention from the Executive Leadership Team. The most important thing here and now is the great commitment we are experiencing every day from our managers and employees, with a common goal and a solid plan. The next step is to train both management and employees in D&I.”

In a pilot project with Danske Bank covering 40 job adverts, the number of qualified applicants from women grew by 81% and applications from men by 39% when bias was removed from the job adverts.

Using Develop Diverse’s tool we raised the inclusion score from 71 to 100. For example, “masculine” words as these were changed: 

STRONG was changed to FOCUSED 

DRIVE was changed to PROMOTE

Danske Bank case study