Doing Well by Doing Good
How It Started
Standard Bank, which employs approximately 28,500
people in its South Africa offices, conducts business in
18 African countries and 21 countries on other continents. The bank’s headquarters are in Johannesburg,
Gauteng, one of the South African provinces hardest hit
by the disease. In May 2000, Standard Bank commissioned Deloitte & Touche to conduct a study examining
the effect HIV and AIDS could have on the company’s
South African revenue and employees. The report estimated about seven percent of Standard Bank’s workforce would have HIV in 2003. And as the epidemic
grew, it could also take a toll on revenue. On the retail
side, for example, the number of checking accounts and
home loans generated would probably decline.
Since then, the numbers have grown—and so has
the potential impact. “Take the world estimate that Building the Framework
between 12 to 15 percent of the human population in The program is supported by a three-part infrastructure.
South Africa is HIV positive,” says Jonathan Roper, Headed by Mr. Philip and guided by an executive
HIV and AIDS is an issue very close to my heart, and
when they asked me if I wanted to project manage this
program, I jumped at the chance. —Peter Philip, Standard Bank, Johannesburg, South Africa
appointed project manager to implement those strategies. “It’s an issue very close to my heart, and when
they asked me if I wanted to project manage this program, I jumped at the chance,” Mr. Philip says.
His original budget was approximately 200,000
rand (US$25,985), but as the project expanded, that
number has since jumped to 2. 8 million rand
(US$378,000).
The project goals included:
Educate the staff on basic facts about HIV, modes of
transmission and healthy lifestyle choices
Communicate the bank’s policy of non-discrimination
toward those with HIV and AIDS
Facilitate access to support and treatment for affected
and infected staff and their families.
account manager at Independent Counselling and
Advisory Services (ICAS), a Johannesburg, South
Africa-based agency contracted to provide services to
the bank’s employees. “That number remains about
the same in the South African workforce. It would be
a huge loss to an organization to lose that many people
in the next several years.”
Driven by that knowledge, CEO Jacko Maree and
Chairman Derek Cooper initiated an HIV and AIDS
project. The idea was to find and implement risk-mitigation strategies to protect the bank’s business, its
staff and the communities within which it operated.
Peter Philip, head of corporate health, corporate
human resources and a longtime AIDS activist, was
committee, the bank’s corporate health department
handles central management and policy creation. The
second leg comes from ICAS, which provides educational training and free confidential counseling and
advisory services. Treatment support and management
is provided by Bankmed, Standard Bank’s health care
provider, which has had an HIV and AIDS managed-care program in place since 2000.
The bank built a support framework for the program
by instituting a number of company-wide benefits:
Life-threatening disease policy, which ensures
equal treatment and protection against workplace
discrimination, as well as access to medical and
support services
