Inclusion at HSBC Asset Management

We want every employee in HSBC Asset Management to feel included and connected and be able to contribute and develop within the business. We also want to encourage people to come forward as allies and strengthen our efforts in making our workplace inclusive.

We organise internal events as well as take part in sessions organised by our external partners.

We believe in the benefits of gender diversity across our business. Over the past year, we launched three pilots for the accelerating women leaders programme in our key markets, and plan to expand the programme in the coming year based on the feedback and inputs we receive.

We continue to take part in Diversity Project UK’s DP Pathway initiative as well as Young Women Opportunity programme in India.

In Hong Kong, we continued our partnership with Inspiring Girls charity with an aim to raise the aspirations of school-aged girls (15-17 years of age) and paving the way for future generations of women to take their place in the asset management and finance sectors. We also supported their new programme – ‘EmpowerHer Future’ – an innovative career and financial literacy program that supports disadvantaged female students aged 16-18.

We want our workforce to represent the communities we serve. We also seek to better understand the lived experiences, feelings of belonging, and barriers to career progression of employees from ethnic minorities.

We conducted listening sessions for our global employee base and have used the feedback from these sessions to build an action-plan for our initiatives encompassing:

• Psychological safety and inclusion
• Career development opportunities
• Fair progression of talent, and
• Fair and inclusive recruiting

Over the past year, we also celebrated our diversity through cultural events.

The LGBTQi+ workstream works on:

• Visibility: Active promotion of role models and allies
• Awareness: Promotion of trainings, hosting of internal events, and co-organization of external events with partners such as LGBT Great and OutLeadership
• Allyship: We have fostered a growing network of allies and are actively nurturing the importance of being ‘Out’
• Engagement of leadership: Active engagement of our senior leaders as sponsors and allies

We have achieved ‘Gold Standard’ in the LGBT Great Inclusion Index Benchmarking Tool (iiBT).

We seek to highlight the importance of mainstreaming disability issues and encourage open dialogue about what it is to be different and how colleagues can support each other’s needs.

Our Ability initiatives

To improve the inclusion index of colleagues with disabilities, we conducted listening sessions, the findings of which are being used in an Ability Action Plan with three pillars:

1. Reframe the Ability conversation
2. Drive sustainable Change
3. Support our colleagues and managers

‘Accessibility Showcase’, at our London office last year allowed our colleagues to learn about the technology, adjustments, and processes on offer to allow colleagues regardless of their disability, neurodiversity, or long-term health condition to thrive at work. We also observed the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and ‘Purple Day’ to create awareness on disability inclusion.

In the past year, we hired seven degree-apprentices for our Degree Apprenticeships programme in the UK, six of them from a disadvantaged background from a social mobility perspective. We hosted the annual Summer Work Experience programme (along with our Group) in London for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We partnered with social mobility charity upReach to give a group of high-achieving 1^st and 2^nd year university students from disadvantaged backgrounds a three-day work experience programme. We invited 10 and 11-year-olds to our London office under the RedSTART Educate initiative. In Hong Kong, we worked with the government run Strive and Rise programme to provide mentorship to school students from underprivileged families.

This workstream promotes freedom of thought, conscience and religion in our workplace where people of different beliefs and backgrounds can work together in harmony and respect, fostering a culture of inclusion. Our initiatives include promotion of religious festivals and knowledge sharing to improve multi-faith understanding.

For the third year running, HSBC Group was ranked 1^st by CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmark Global 100+ report. Within HSBC Asset Management, the Mental Health and Wellness workstream runs several initiatives and publishes a newsletter to create awareness and share resources on mental health. We have a pool of Global Mental Health Ambassadors – colleagues who have volunteered from across the world and who make themselves available to anyone who wishes to reach out and discuss their issues. We also host an annual mental health webinar, ‘Mind Matters’, in which colleagues share their mental health journeys and coping mechanisms.

The Working Parents workstream creates a network to provide resources and support to address the priorities of ‘working parents’ and ‘carers’ of every parenting situation and at each stage of their journey. We offer Parental Transition Coaching for all employees, open to expectant and new parents.

The Veterans workstream was created to add talent from the veteran community into suitable roles within HSBC Asset Management, initially within the UK. We have hired four veterans through UK Veterans Hiring Programme. We also host veterans’ events like the ‘Insight & Networking event’ held last year in our London office attended by many veterans/service leavers.

In its fourth year since the global roll-out, the global Mentoring Programme saw participation of many mentees and mentors for one-on-one mentorship, and some colleagues for group-mentorship. The participants experienced a wide range of benefits, including personal and professional development, increased confidence, enhanced understanding of our organisation, and expanded network.

To foster a culture of learning and development, we hosted the fifth Learning and Career Development Week last year, with 10 sessions across six days on topics such as: Unlocking Potential, Changing Lanes (transitioning across roles or regions), Career and Skills Development, Networking with leaders, Development Planning Workshop and Developing Personal Gravitas. Our internal Degreed learning platform provides integrated learning pathways with access to over 10,000 articles, books, videos and TED Talks, allowing individuals to customize their own learning objectives in tandem with their own development plans.