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Business Leaders have an important role to play in making workplaces truly inclusive for all.

“Everyone is welcome in the mortgage industry, and everyone should be able to be their true selves every day. 
Our future depends on this.”

Andrew Montlake
Founder of Coreco and Chairman of the AMI Board

Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Hub

Putting Principles into Practice

The business case for making Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) a core strand of your business strategy is clear: companies with stronger gender and ethnic diversity outperform their competitors (McKinsey, 2017), and when employees ‘think their organisation is committed to and supportive of diversity, and they feel included’, their ability to innovate increases dramatically (Deloitte, 2013). 

But what steps can modern business leaders take to build inclusive work environments, and reap the benefits of a truly diverse workforce? Our journey at AMI began with our D&I Viewpoint Report, which led to a broad range of actionable recommendations for business leaders and industry professionals alike to consider. But we knew our work couldn’t stop there. So to follow on from this, we have created a D&I Leadership hub, to gather together the latest thought leadership and actionable ideas to embed D&I principles into your business strategy.

Building Better Workplaces

business leaders

AMI Viewpoint on diversity, inclusion and equity in the mortgage industry 2021

The report shares the results of the extensive survey, conducted in July 2021, of people’s perceptions and lived experiences of diversity, inclusion and equity in the mortgage industry. It will give you an insight into how inclusive our sector is currently and highlights simple actions that we can all take to make a change individually, as well as more structural changes required at firm level.

Our work doesn’t stop with the publication of this report: We will continue to listen, share and work with the industry to drive positive change: to ensure that everyone within the industry feels that they belong, that bad behaviour is banished and that the mortgage sector is a fair and enjoyable place to work.

Getting Started Cheat Sheet: What Can I Do...?

Knowing where to start when considering how to improve D&I outcomes and practices within your business can be a daunting prospect. To help you get started, we have extracted the key questions and action points from the AMI Viewpoint report to gather everything in one place. 

This ‘cheat sheet’ represents a wide-reaching set of practical steps you can take in key areas such as complaints reporting, recruitment and retention, supporting those with caring responsibilities, data gathering and responding to issues, and much more.

Tools & Resources

As a business leader we know how much you value your people, from recruitment through to training, development, progression, and retention. Below we have collated a range of tools and resources from across the industry to support you. Here you will find policies, guides, research and external links that you can share with your employees and colleagues. Many of these resources are currently in use by leading names in the industry, whose commitment to improving D&I across the sector led them to share their policies and procedures as examples of best practice.

Policies

See how Quilter are tackling the issues and how they plan to shape things up for the future. Use these prinicples and ideas to help form your own action plan.

Quilter Equality & Diversity Principles

Quilter Inclusion & Diversity Action Plan

Take a look at how TSB are approaching Diversity in their business, and what measure they are putting in place to ensure a better workplace for the future.

Read the TSB Diversity Document.

Read the TSB Inclusion Policy.

Accord Mortgages have produced their own version of an Inclusion & Diversity Charter. Click here to read the Charter.

Guides

A guide from Progress Together

"UK financial services employers are not progressing talent from all backgrounds. There is a lack of socio-economic diversity at the top in UK financial services, despite lots of work on diversifying the junior pipeline"

In this senior-level guide, find out:

  • Why you should focus on senior level socio-economic diversity;
  • What the barriers to profession are;
  • What 'good' looks like;
  • How we can influence change in our sector.

A guide from Accord Mortgages

People from all backgrounds can face prejudice, inequality and discrimination, so it’s incumbent on all of us to create a more inclusive world where everyone is treated with respect, dignity and equality.

The mortgage industry has made great strides forward with regard to equality, diversity and inclusion in recent years. But there is always more that can be done, such as making sure a more diverse range of people are occupying senior positions, and that brokerages reflect their local areas and the communities they serve.

So what practical steps can your brokerage take to embrace equality, diversity and inclusion more widely, and what benefits could it bring for your company, your clients and society in general?

In this section of the Growth Series, we’ll look closely at this issue, exploring topics such as:

  • Why focusing on equality, diversity and inclusion matters to your clients
  • How it can be good for business
  • What practical steps your brokerage can take, such as providing remote support to people with mobility issues and reflecting people’s pronoun or title preferences
  • How you can make sure you’re making a meaningful difference to people’s lives, rather than paying mere lip service to this issue
  • Tackling discrimination and harassment.

Download the guide here.

Versiti have produced a handy guide to approaching diversity through using appropriate language.

"In businesses large and small, leadership teams are quickly learning that
diversity is one of the most important issues affecting their business.
For many, however, it’s also one of the hardest conversations to have as
it’s loaded with fear – of getting it wrong, and making costly mistakes.

In response, we decided to start a glossary of terms
that we feel will help those unsure of the appropriate
language to use, and of its impact. We see this as
a living, breathing document to which we will be
adding over time, so be sure to bookmark it and
check back later."

Find out what the common workplace issues are when it comes to promoting diversity and inclusion - and how to overcome them.

Read our Guide to Inclusion at Work.

Research

The Financial Services Culture Board (FSCB), in conjunction with the Financial Services Skills Commission (FSSC) has produced an indepth and insightful report into inclusion across the financial services sector, and how it can be improved. Read more about Inclusion across financial services.

"In recent years efforts to understand and improve diversity have become core to a business’s purpose and function. Reflecting the diversity of the wider population and customer base within a workforce leads to better business outcomes.

However, diversity is not the full story. Inclusion – a key facet of an organisation’s culture – is central to realising the benefits of diversity, and an important element in a firm’s ability to attract, retain and develop people with the skills it needs."

An in-depth exploration of the challenges facing women of colour from entry to employment to senior leadership, showing that the cumulative negative impact on women of colour at work is common across all sectors and in all types of organisations. Read Broken Ladders here.

"Broken Ladders is the first report of its kind to focus explicitly on the experiences and perspectives of women of colour in the workplace – their voices on the challenges they face are now being heard.

Right now, in workplaces across the UK, women of colour are missing in positions of power. In top roles, such as Supreme Court Justices, Metro Mayors and FTSE 100 CEOs and in boardrooms and leadership teams across the UK, there is an unacceptable lack of women of colour⁷. But it’s not just a lack of representation, there are significant pay and progression gaps for women of colour, who continue to earn less than white employees.

This must change."

"Menopause is beginning to move out of the shadows of stigma, but there are gaps in the evidence
base. We believe this is the largest survey of menopausal women conducted in the UK.

Much of the literature and, due to methodological constraints, our survey, focusses on women’s experiences, but
we recognise that findings will be relevant to many trans men and non-binary people. Our research has
uncovered significant challenges in the workplace with detrimental impacts for menopausal women:

  • One in ten who have worked during the menopause have left a job due to their symptoms;
  • Eight out of ten women say their employer hasn’t shared information, trained staff, or put in place a
    menopause absence policy;
  • Almost half of women haven't approached their GPs about the menopause and three in ten of
    those who have experienced delays in diagnosis.
  • Only four in ten women who have talked to their GP about the menopause say they were
    immediately offered HRT.


Reform is needed, urgently."

Read the full report from The Fawcett Society.

Read our blog post from Accord Mortgages.

Useful Links

The Growth Library is our collection of educational resources, focused on key topic areas relevant to both brokers and customers alike. From this page you will be able to access a selection of blogs, guides, and videos on a variety of subjects that will help ensure your knowledge is as relevant, far-reaching, and beneficial to you and your clients as can be.