Purpose Led
Becketts believe in diversity and inclusion across all our workforce and at all levels of our firm.
We are committed to attracting, developing and retaining a wide range of talented people irrespective of their gender, race, age, sexual orientation, disability, religion, beliefs or any other characteristic.
Women in Finance
We are proud to have become one of the signatories of HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter which aims to support gender diversity at all levels across financial firms. Around 411 financial firms have signed up to the Charter as of March 2023.
As part of our commitment to the Women in Finance Charter we pledge to promote gender diversity by:
- having one member of our senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion;
- setting internal targets for gender diversity in our senior management;
- publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on our website; and
- having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity
Samantha Owen is the senior team member who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion at Becketts.
Gender Diversity At Becketts
Our firm enjoys exceptionally high levels of gender diversity across all levels and our aim is to maintain gender balance across all parts of the business.
We first published our gender diversity information and our parity target at the end of Q3 2017 and, since then, the split has altered as we have recruited new staff to help with our growth, and we made some changes to our structure.
Back in November 2017, we had extremely high levels of gender diversity with 50% female representation in senior management positions. As of 31/10/22 we have, disappointingly, fallen short of our parity target, despite having a higher percentage of women at Becketts overall. We now have 35% female representation in senior management, but the senior team as a proportion of the group has also reduced as we have expanded.
Gender diversity, and all diversity strands, are as important as when we first signed up to the Women In Finance Charter in 2017. We are always looking at our recruitment and training & development policies, and strive to get back to our previous high levels of gender diversity at the senior levels.
Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
Our mission is to make diversity and inclusion a priority in everything we do, and here are some of the initiatives that Becketts is undertaking to promote it in our team:
- We include items on diversity in our staff newsletters
- We are capturing data at staff appraisals on staff education levels in order to show a spread of social background by position.
- Ensure our Opportunity Reports will highlight additional knowledge being added to the team through courses
Gender Pay Gap
What is the gender pay gap?
The gender pay gap is the difference between the average (mean or median) earnings of men and women across a workforce.
From 2017, if you are an employer who has a workforce of 250 or more on your ‘snapshot date’ (the date by which you must comply with government regulations for gender pay gap reporting), you must comply with government regulations on gender pay gap reporting.
The financial services sector has typically shown one of the largest gender pay gaps in Britain, often attributed to a lack of women in senior jobs.
A recent Reuters article collated pay gap data from 21 major financial institutions, which showed a narrowing in their average mean gender pay gap of just 0.4 percentage points to 33.4% in the year to April 2020, from 33.8% in 2019.
We are smaller so why have we decided to calculate ours?
We know the gender pay gap in our industry is poor and we want to work alongside other major institutions to improve this, as our own firm continues to grow. We also want to see how we compared and want to start measuring it so we can improve over time.
What is our gender pay gap?
Based on November 2021, data our Gender Pay Gap (mean) is similar to the industry at 33%.
What happens next?
It won’t change overnight but we are committed to playing our part in reducing this. We will accomplish this by:
- attracting more women into the world of financial services by attending careers fairs and working with local schools;
- capturing the broadest range of candidates for new roles;
- focused talent programmes in our business, aiming to achieve more women in senior roles and higher earning positions.
Supporting Employees with the Menopause
The wellbeing of our employees is a core value at Becketts.
The menopause can have a big impact on a person’s working life and so, at Becketts, we have a network support group that employees can talk to if they are struggling and need support.
Our aim is to provide an inclusive and supportive environment, and with the network support group and regular articles and guidance, we are able to guide employees through this period of change – and signpost them to help if required.
We offer an Employee Assistance programme under our BUPA Cash Plan and we have the 24/7 GP, mental health & healthy diet and fitness service programmes available.
A guide has been produced for line managers so they are able to support a member of their team.
