TIAA Wins i4cp's 2016 Next Practice Award

Leading financial services provider honored for its cutting-edge people practices

Leading financial services provider TIAA is the winner of i4cp's 2016 Next Practice Award in recognition of its implementation of outstanding innovations and achievement in the advancement of people practices.

i4cp's Next Practice Award celebrates and highlights leading-edge people practices and the organizations that are implementing them to positively impact the bottom-line. The finalists and winner were announced today at the i4cp 2016 Conference: Next Practices Now, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

TIAA was selected from among four finalists—Flex, Amway, and Sears being the other three—and ten semi-finalists for its revitalization of its employee resource groups (ERG) to improve the experience of participants and increase long-term business impact.

Recent research by i4cp and the American Management Association (AMA) found that participation in ERGs by global leadership candidates is indeed a next practice—a little-used and cost-effective development experience that is strongly correlated to market performance. High-performance organizations use them 4.5x more than lower performers.

TIAA's Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Office built an improvement strategy around five major gaps, ranging from lack of engagement to lack of support or awareness among line managers. Over the course of just one year, ERG participation increased from 12.5% to 31.8%, ERG event attendance rose 500%, and TIAA successfully launched a new ERG focused on people living with disabilities and caregivers of loved ones with disabilities, among many other achievements.

“Employee Resource Groups are not only a positive way for our employees at TIAA to engage, they also directly benefit the millions of customers that we serve,” said Natasha Radden, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. “These important groups allow our employees to learn, grow, network and help the organization better serve clients. This engagement is something that we take seriously and are proud of."

TIAA has also made strides to transform HR and redesign its career development programs.

The discovery of next practices—human capital tactics and/or strategies that few companies are employing but that are highly correlated with market performance—is one of the Institute for Corporate Productivity’s (i4cp) primary focuses. To that end, i4cp looks to its network of member organizations to uncover world class examples of next practices in action. The Next Practice Award showcases the design, implementation, and measurement of innovative people practices that effectively address current business challenges.

Organizations ranging from established Fortune 500 firms to fast-growing brands represented 2016's ten semi-finalists and included Abbott, Amtrak, Campbell Soup Company, HSBC, LinkedIn, and McDonald's.

TIAA's submission, as well as those of other semi-finalists, are featured on the i4cp website at http://www.i4cp.com/nextpractices (available exclusively to i4cp member organizations).

About the Institute for Corporate Productivity

i4cp is a human capital research firm that discovers the people practices that drive high performance. Ranked among the fastest-growing companies on the Inc. 500|5000 list for four consecutive years, i4cp provides its extensive member network of leading global employers and government institutions with the research, peer collaboration, tools, and data essential to developing and executing workforce strategies and practices that deliver higher market performance.

About TIAA

TIAA (www.tiaa.org) is a unique financial partner. With an award-winning track record for consistent investment performance, TIAA is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, medical, cultural and government fields. TIAA has $854 billion in assets under management (as of 12/31/2015) and offers a wide range of financial solutions, including investing, banking, advice and guidance, and retirement services.