Corporate social responsibility
How we support women in finance
We strive to ensure that all of our customers and staff feel valued and included. Accordingly, we closely monitor our staff gender balance and focus on ways in which we can adapt our recruitment, training, benefits and employee support mechanisms to help us achieve our aim of increasing female representation at senior management level.
Women in Finance Charter
In June 2017, we became a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter, a government-led initiative designed to encourage gender balance across the financial services sector.
By signing up to the Charter, firms:
- indicate their commitment to support the progression of women into senior roles;
- set targets and implement the right strategy for their organisations to achieve those targets; and
- publicly report on progress to deliver against their targets to support the transparency and accountability needed to drive change.
What we have done so far
Senior Management
At the end of 2020, 37.1% of our senior managers are female, this is a huge improvement from when we signed the Charter in June 2017, when this was only 28%.
Maternity & Paternity
We have enhanced our maternity, paternity and shared parental leave pay policies, and refined our maternity buddy scheme.
30% club
In 2019 we joined the 30% Club’s mentoring programme and much has been gained by the 24 members of our senior management who took part, either as mentors or mentees.
Leadership development
Our annual leadership development programme continues to offer our pipeline of female senior managers the opportunity to develop.
Recruitment
Working with the Investment Association and its IA20/20 programme, we spread the word about the range of careers available to all in financial services.
Training
We have been training managers in interview techniques designed to reduce the likelihood of unconscious bias by managers who recruit ‘in their own image’.
Gender Pay Gap
The aim of gender pay gap reporting helps organisations understand the size and causes of their pay difference between men and women in their organisation and identify any issues that may need to be addressed
Key initiatives from our 2020 report
- Working with diversity-orientated recruitment firms, including those that support a return to work women and senior female hires
- Facilitating a company-wide shift towards a more flexible way of working• Participating in the 30% Club, a global campaign to increase gender diversity at the senior management level
- An in-house Leadership & Development programme to support career progression
- Offering in-house mentoring and buddies