Diversity of thought is critical to success in modern business. At Schroders we are going a step beyond simply saying that it is important.
Creating an inclusive culture and striving for greater diversity in our global workforce is championed by Peter Harrison, our Group Chief Executive.
We have built a diverse team of individually-minded people who work together to bring more insightful perspectives for our clients. In a fast moving, data-driven world we have the ingenuity and intuition to capture insights and identify the trends that will shape the prosperity of individuals, businesses and future generations.
Talented people who can understand and embrace different perspectives are crucial to our continued business success. This means attracting, retaining and developing a diverse team regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, religious beliefs or other characteristics.
We are proud of our focus since 2016 in raising awareness and working towards creating an inclusive workforce, driving change in a number of different ways:
We know we still have work to do to build a truly inclusive and diverse workforce. Our focus needs to continue on the work we have done to date but also to do more in particular to broaden our efforts to consider not just gender but also other under-represented groups in particular BAME or those with disabilities. We plan to start to do this through internships and internal mentoring programmes.
We recognise that each individual needs to be able to benefit from an environment that allows them to manage the balance in their lives and we continue to build out our flexible working policies globally so employees feel supported and included. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities and combating discrimination.
Where possible, we will continue to monitor the ethnicity, age and gender composition of our workforce and those applying for jobs. This will allow us to concentrate on the most impactful ways to improve their experiences and hope it will enable us to publish other data alongside our gender pay gap in the future.
Our 13 active Employee Resource Groups across the business include gender equality, sexual orientation, disability, mental health, religion and ethnicity groups. They are key to our identity as an inclusive place to work. Recognising the changing generational dynamics of the workplace, our newest Employee Resource Group, Millennials@Work, was set up in the Asia Pacific region this year. Members not only run events to celebrate their world. heritage but also work together to raise awareness around challenges that underrepresented groups might face.
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is also led in the business both via functional D&I groups and in-country employee-led Diversity & Inclusion Councils around the world, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and North America).