Valuing Difference #Choosetochallenge

As many of you know International Women’s Day (IWD) is quickly approaching.  I was thinking about my daughter as she finishes up her studies shortly and prepares to join the workforce. Like any parent, I wonder if my wife and I have prepared her well enough to go out into the world. One questions if she will feel empowered and be strong enough to embrace the many challenges and even opportunities she will face as she looks for a full-time role.  Will she face gender stereotypes in her chosen career path or in the workplace? The world needs to be much more diverse, inclusive, and open, so she and other women/girls can realise their aspirations and make their dreams come true.

At HSBC, we value difference and we were founded on the strength of different people, experiences, and voices. An inclusive culture creates opportunities, innovation, and growth.

Recently, we shared our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) highlights in our 2020 Annual Report and Accounts. We met our target of 30 per cent women in senior leadership roles and set a new aim of 35 per cent by 2025.  We are investing in learning, upskilling and development to ensure everyone has access to opportunities. This includes our Accelerating Female Leaders and Accelerating Into Leadership programmes and Future Skills curriculum. We just added a Gender Smart Guide to allow our colleagues to learn more about gender inclusion.

Our hiring process, refreshed in February 2021, helps ensure we hire and promote in a fair, transparent and inclusive way.

We’re making progress on improving female representation in our senior leadership, but there is more to do.

As HR professionals, we need to lead and deliver against our inclusion strategy and increase representation and close gaps in employee engagement in under-represented groups. We need to accelerate inclusion by listening to and supporting more diverse voices and making commitments and taking action.

As individuals, we need to show the women in our lives (including our daughters, nieces, aunts, and mothers), that we care and we can make an effort to create opportunities for dialogue to influence policies which will benefit women in our workplace and in the communities we live in. We need to make more progress to make the world more equal.

As I mentioned in a previous post had my mother not decided to #choosetochallenge my life and opportunities as her son would have been very different.

I encourage you to get involved (or more involved) and demonstrate your enthusiasm and determination to help drive meaningful change.

We all need to help build more open, inclusive, and sustainable organisations and hopefully a future that is free of stigma, discrimination and stereotypes with equal rights and opportunities for all.

Would be interested to hear from you on which females you think chose to challenge and influenced your lives as we celebrate IWD this year?