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SPM Essentials Series 2021-2022

In 2021-22, in coordination with the release of the Universal Standards 3.0, Cerise+SPTF created a webinar series called "SPM Essentials". This series presents practical guidance on how to implement the Universal Standards. Each webinar features interviews with practitioners on how they are managing their social and environmental performance, including lessons learned from what has worked and what did not.

See below for recordings, presentations, and other materials from this series.

SPM Essentials #1: Use what you have. Discovering client insights in your existing data

This webinar discusses how to use your existing client data to reveal actionable insights. Specifically, in analyzing financial behavior by client segment, you can uncover trends in product uptake and use by your clients and use that information to improve performance. The speakers are Mariano Frontera, Director Ejecutivo of Fundación Dominicana de Desarrollo, and Jacobo Menjovsky, independent data analyst.

  • Watch the webinar in English

SPM Essentials #2: Practical ways to address gender-related risks at your organization

Dimension 2 of the Universal Standards focuses on leadership's role in creating a culture of commitment to SPM. This webinar shares the experiences of two FSPs who have taken steps to do this by exploring how better to meet the needs of female employees and customers. In collaboration with Grameen Foundation, CREDICAMPO of El Salvador and ODEF Financiera of Honduras participated in a training and a rapid assessment that focused on gender-related risks and opportunities and are now applying lessons learned to their policies and practices.

  • Watch the webinar in English
  • Watch the webinar in Spanish

SPM Essentials #3: Using Client Feedback to Inform Product Design

This webinar focuses on dimension 3 of the Universal Standards, Client-centric Products and Services, and in particular on using client feedback to inform product design. Representatives from Entrepreneurs du Monde and its partner Anh Chi Em (ACE), located in Vietnam, discuss a recent client satisfaction survey that ACE implemented and how they are applying survey results to future product decisions. Representatives from the Terwilliger Center of Habitat for Humanity International and from Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF), located in the Philippines, share lessons learned from their work to develop a new housing product, focusing in particular on the product design phase.

  • Watch the webinar in English

SPM Essentials #4: Responsible Use of Profits

In this webinar, speakers from AMK (Cambodia) and GM Bank (Philippines) share the specific ways in which they integrate client-centric decisions into their budget and business plans, and how they engage with socially committed investors. A representative from Dia Vikas shares how Dia promotes social performance through its investments. SPTF’s Amelia Greenberg describes how dimension 6 of the Universal Standards has been revised to strengthen and clarify the management practices connected with a responsible use of profits.

  • Watch the webinar in English

SPM Essentials #5: Listening to Employees as a Business Strategy

Employee satisfaction and feedback are an often-overlooked asset for your business. Employees know the most about your customers and can be a wealth of ideas for improving your operations and human resource development. Are you making the most of their feedback? This webinar explores these questions with speakers from Fundación Paraguaya, Crystal (Georgia), and VisionFund Mexico.

  • Watch the webinar in English

SPM Essentials #6: Developing Employee Capacity to Achieve Your Social Mission

ILO and SPTF co-hosted this webinar to discuss how financial service providers can improve social performance through the right employee recruitment, incentives, training, and ongoing communication about the organization's progress toward achieving its social goals. The featured speakers were Alia FARHAT of Al Majmoua (Lebanon), Andrija DRAGANIC of MonteCredit (Montenegro), and Sandhya SURESH of ESAF Small Finance Bank (India).

  • Watch the webinar in English

SPM Essentials #7: Help Your Employees Adapt to Digital Transformation

In this webinar jointly organized by SPTF and the ILO, speakers from Wing (Cambodia), and FINCA DRC addressed how to manage human resources responsibly during digital transformation, how to motivate and support employees for success when their job roles and responsibilities are shifting, and how HR structure and management is different in a digitalized FSP versus a traditional financial institution.

  • Watch the webinar in English

SPM Essentials #8: Barriers, Bias and Banking

This webinar discussed how some things are simply fundamental for serving women better with financial services. To begin, a financial services provider (FSP) should understand its own biases that affect female staff. Additionally, an FSP should understand the tradeoffs that female clients make when pursuing economic opportunities, and the types of negative shocks they commonly face. With this knowledge, the FSP can improve its practices and achieve better outcomes for women. During the webinar, SPTF shared recent changes to the Universal Standards that have incorporated a stronger gender lens. Grameen Foundation shared a toolkit that helps FSPs implement good practices in promoting women’s economic empowerment while avoiding unintended negative consequences such as child labor or gender-based violence. This webinar is in English with simultaneous Spanish translation.

  • Watch the webinar in English
  • Watch the webinar in Spanish