Stakeholders
RBC's major stakeholders include clients,
employees, current and prospective
investors, suppliers,
governments, regulators, nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and community partners. This section
reviews the manner in which RBC engages our stakeholders.
Clients
RBC encourages clients to tell us what they think, so we
can evaluate how well we are earning the right to be their
first choice and we use information gained through public
opinion surveys to develop product and client strategies.
Each RBC business tracks client satisfaction as a key measure
of performance and uses feedback to make improvements. We
record problems noted by clients in a central database, and
we interview a sampling directly to find out how well their
issues were resolved.
We obtain client feedback in a number of formal and informal
ways to support the development of high-calibre client, marketing
and channel strategies. We conduct customer satisfaction and
loyalty surveys and report results quarterly. We use feedback/input
from our Client Care Centre and Office of the Ombudsman to
improve our products and services, and we track all issues
to ensure that systemic problems are corrected. We generally
use third-party suppliers to administer both our external
market benchmarking surveys as well as our internally designed
surveys to our customers.
Employees
RBC has conducted comprehensive employee opinion surveys
since the late 1980s, covering the following areas:
- Reward and recognition
- Leadership
- Supportive/collaborative team environment
- Personal development possibilities
- Job satisfaction/opportunity to make a difference
- Working environment (health and safety, social climate,
etc.)
- Identification with corporate values and strategy
We conduct a comprehensive survey across all of RBC every
two years, resulting in organizational and local priorities
and action plans. A targeted, sample-based survey is conducted
in the following year to follow up on action plans.
The survey is based on a comprehensive engagement model,
which we have subsequently linked to client loyalty and financial
performance to demonstrate the value chain relative to employee
engagement. On an annual basis we look at our engagement scores
and the drivers of engagement (across approximately 100 items),
including trend analysis and external benchmarking and develop
action plans to address any gaps or emerging issues identified.
Results are presented to senior executive management, to the
Board of Directors and to individual unit managers, but are
not disclosed outside of RBC.
Investors/Shareholders
Investor Relations sets the overall investor strategy and
manages all relationships and communications with the investment
community, which includes investors, financial services analysts
and rating agencies. The investors consist of all classes
(common, preferred and fixed income) and types (institutional
and retail) spanning all geographies. This group also oversees
rating agency strategy, relationships and communications in
order to achieve high debt ratings for RBC.
Investor Relations communicates the views, concerns and perceptions
of investors, analysts and rating agencies to the Group Executive
Committee and the Board of Directors. We meet with shareholders
regularly on both an individual and group basis as well as
in person at our Annual Meeting of Common Shareholders. Feedback
from analysts and investors is taken into consideration as
we formulate our strategy and priorities. We interact with
the investment community in a variety of ways including our
quarterly and annual reports to shareholders, our quarterly
earnings statements, analyst calls, various external websites
and our annual Corporate Responsibility Report and Public
Accountability Statement.
We regularly provide information to Canadian and international
sustainability reporting investments (SRI) research firms
for the creation of their indices, ratings and rankings for
analysts and SRI investors. RBC is included in a number of
SRI indices such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and
the Jantzi Social Index.
Suppliers
Our relations with major suppliers are governed by Service
Level Agreements, with quarterly reports providing information
on customer service and service delivery standards.
Governments
RBC has ongoing relationships with local, provincial and
federal governments. Regional public relations managers and
representatives engage with local elected officials at the
community level. At present, we advocate on a broad range
of issues from taxation, agriculture, consumer issues, employment
and training, environment, financial institutions, industry,
internal trade, small business, securities regulation, financial
sector policy and competition policy.
Environmental Organizations (NGOs)
We are actively involved in stakeholder engagement on the
environmental front. We liaise with a number of stakeholder
groups to discuss environmental issues related to policy development,
transaction review, portfolio management, operational impacts
and business development opportunities. These groups include
the Canadian Boreal Initiative, Durrell Wildlife Preservation
Trust, ForestEthics, Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Rainforest
Action Network. We encourage clients and the public to contact
us with inquiries or concerns. Learn
more.
