claire tunley

Improving diversity and inclusion, or D&I, has risen up the banking industry’s agenda, but much more needs to be done.

“Diversity without inclusion becomes just a numbers game. If the diverse people we bring into the organisations cannot thrive and progress, and are not heard — if they cannot contribute and do not feel valued — then we do not achieve the change that we need.” These are the words of Georgina Philippou, senior advisor at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who spoke at the launch of the Financial Services Skills Commission’s (FSSC’s) Inclusion Measurement Guide in July 2021. And they ring true for the entire financial services sector, which is currently grappling with the major boardroom conundrum of how we really tackle the diversity and inclusion (D&I) challenge and create meaningful change.

Enhanced inclusion leads to greater diversity of thought, better employee collaboration and ultimately stronger outcomes for businesses

Enhanced inclusion leads to greater diversity of thought, better employee collaboration and ultimately stronger outcomes for businesses. A workforce culture that encourages inclusion, and attracts and retains highly skilled individuals, allowing expertise to develop and thrive throughout a business, will naturally create a positive, stable, fair and successful organisation. This is the view held by FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi, who has publicly encouraged firms to create an environment where employees can speak out and challenge the status quo to improve organisational purpose and culture.

Financial services organisations are making good progress to improve D&I, but there is still much more to be done and there needs to be greater representation and diversity of all characteristics. This includes ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background to create a more dynamic and inclusive workforce. Following 18 months of work with our members, including investment manager M&G, NatWest, Standard Chartered, First Sentier Investors and Zurich Insurance, we launched the Inclusion Measurement Guide.

Supporting tools

An industry first, the guide has been created to enable organisations to measure inclusion in three priority areas to help firms build more inclusive leadership, safe and speak-up cultures, and inclusive systems and processes. It proposes that these can be measured through assessment of employee perceptions, behaviours and actions, and company structures. We believe this guide will enable organisations to directly assess their culture and pinpoint areas where change is needed.

The guide has been developed to support businesses of all sizes and at any point in their inclusion journey — whether they are measuring inclusion for the first time or already using inclusion metrics to further develop their existing data and analysis. It contains three types of measurement tools, including questions for employee engagement and inclusion surveys, and data-tracking metrics that organisations can map over time. This will allow firms to evaluate their working culture and values at a more granular level and pinpoint specific areas for intervention.

The feedback from stakeholders so far has been very encouraging. The guide aligns with the ongoing regulatory road map, helping firms to better identify and build on existing inclusion data, measurement and analysis, as well as consider non-visible diversity characteristics including socio-economic background and disability. Collective work is underway to improve inclusion with board rooms increasingly focusing on this issue. However, the industry must increase the pace and take action now. The need for change has never been so urgent.

An industry benchmark

Building on the success of our guide, the FSSC is currently piloting an inclusion survey in partnership with the Financial Services Culture Board (formerly the Banking Standards Board) to create a standardised inclusion measurement and identify an industry benchmark on the inclusivity of the sector. The overall aim is to provide a baseline to track progress on inclusion across financial services, identify good practices, and drive forward and stimulate progress on inclusion in the sector. The survey findings are scheduled for publication in the first quarter of 2022.

Claire Tunley is CEO of the UK’s Financial Services Skills Commission.

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