BAI Announces its New Culture & Conduct Index for Financial Services Organizations

CHICAGO – December 4, 2019 – BAI, a nonprofit independent organization that delivers the financial services industry’s most actionable insights, launched the BAI Culture & Conduct Index to provide financial services leaders with the vital information they need to create a strong cultural environment by detecting elements of their organization that present regulatory, reputational and customer risk.

This new benchmarking program enables financial services leaders to identify tools, processes and practices that define an organization’s culture. It allows financial institutions to calibrate their practices against other institutions both quantitatively and qualitatively. It is unique in the industry as the only culture and conduct benchmarking research program that offers participants the opportunity to learn new ideas and approaches, refine key indicators and metrics and adopt best practices from peers.

Valued outcomes of participating in this study may include, but are not limited to: a reduction of culture-related risks by building on current organizational strengths and identifying potential gaps; identification of blind spots that could create future risk by measuring against peers and learning from their experiences; matching human resources culture and conduct programs to risk tolerance by systematically measuring current programs against industry benchmarks; and, optimization of investments in culture and conduct programs by validating that they will generate verifiable outcomes.

The BAI Culture & Conduct Index focuses on five key areas:

• Human Capital Management: The key workforce retention, performance and configuration metrics that define an organization’s approach and success at managing human capital. Establishing and monitoring specific Human Capital metrics can identify trends that may be predictive or detective in identifying risks.
• Human Resources Program Management: The standard programs that support the end-to-end employment process. These programs ensure employees are aligned with the risk culture and typically provide the guardrails associated with setting expectations for managing behavior.
• Organizational Structure: The organizational hierarchy including the escalation channels available to employees, their ease of use, the existence of checks and balances and how accountability is distributed internally.
• Organizational Culture: The overarching culture of the organization that influences sub-cultures including the risk culture. This includes how the organizational culture is communicated, its alignment with the risk culture and how it is measured and monitored to ensure that employees are aligned with the culture.
• Risk Environment: The components of the Human Resources Risk program to determine how these components address risk tolerance, risk score carding and communications processes.

“Financial services leaders are tasked with developing a culture that puts the customer’s needs first while encouraging ethical behavior,” said Karl Dahlgren, managing director for BAI. “Unfortunately, this can be easier said than done if you don’t have the right tools or understanding of the organization’s culture in its current state. Our new Culture & Conduct Index will provide leaders a comprehensive understanding of how the organization meets its overall culture and risk threshold, where there is room for improvement and how it differs from peers in the industry.”

For more information about joining the BAI Culture & Conduct Index, please contact BAI.

About BAI

As a nonprofit, independent organization, BAI has delivered the financial services industry’s most actionable insights for nearly 100 years, enabling leaders to make smart business decisions every day. We’re passionate about the trusted information and powerful tools that provide leaders with the clarity and confidence needed to drive positive change and move the financial services industry forward. That’s why we provide in-depth, proprietary research to more than 30 of the top 50 banks and numerous others ranging in size, support more than 2,000 financial services organizations for compliance and professional development training, and recognize industry trailblazers from our Emerging Leaders Network to the Global Innovation Awards. For more information, visit bai.org.