A great place to work
Our social
responsibility
We believe that creating the right culture will support our people to achieve the best outcomes and experiences for our customers and members, and we are firmly on that journey.
Creating a great place to work
During our 2017 Employee Roadshows we launched our People Commitments. Based upon our people’s feedback, we designed a set of three promises that will make Royal London an even better place to work:
Career development
Reward
Leadership
These build on our existing internal Culture programme, which aims to increase employee engagement.
Employee engagement
Improving employee engagement at Royal London is a priority.
Research conducted within the group indicates that engaged employees deliver better customer outcomes, and also shows that our desired culture is increasingly defining the way we work. As a mutual, our employees are also members and customers, and so we invite our employees to share their experience of Royal London through our Employee Engagement survey.
We are proud to report positive gains in our Employee Engagement Index results over the last four years (2014-2017). In 2017, 90% of our employees participated in the survey and we achieved a favourable Employee Engagement index score of 80%, a result that exceeds the Financial Services norm.
Employee recognition
Our recognition scheme In the Spirit had its first anniversary in July 2017.
Nearly 4,000 acts were recognised by colleagues as positive behaviours and actions. We believe that rewarding our staff fairly is critical, and in 2017 we undertook salary benchmarking for all our staff, committing to bring their wages within the market range of between 90-110% of the market salary. In March of 2017, we became accredited as a Living Wage Employer.
Our people promise "Your Difference is our Strength": the four pillars
Work somewhere inclusive
Being inclusive is about giving everyone the chance to shine and contribute in their own way. Whoever you are, we want you to feel empowered.
Work somewhere responsible
We are all about trust and teamwork. We support each other, make the most of our strengths and encourage personal development and growth.
Work somewhere enjoyable
As a mutual we focus on building long term relationships. That's why our people love the teams they work in.
Work somewhere fulfilling
If you are inspired to deliver great things for customers and colleagues, this is a place where you can make a real difference to people's lives, including your own.
Diversity and inclusion
It's often said that "Diversity is being invited to the party; Inclusion is being asked to dance"!
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) has been integrated into everything Royal London does, from how we recruit to how we manage retirement and exit interviews and everything that happens in between. Our D&I initiatives don't stop with employees - we have suppliers, customers, members and clients to consider too, which is why our D&I programme supports this by working to ensure that everyone is welcomed and valued for who they are and the skills they bring. This means being accepting and welcoming of all individuals, irrespective of their background, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any other individual characteristic.
Employers’ Network for Equality and Inclusion (enei)
We are members of the Employers’ Network for Equality and Inclusion, the UK’s leading employer network covering all aspects of equality and inclusion in the workplace. Enei awarded us a Bronze standard, and are helping us in our aim to improve and achieve the best practice in equality and inclusion in the workplace.
A key part of our D&I programme involved signing up to the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter (WiFC) in 2016, and we’re proud to be one of the first to have done so. We believe better gender diversity delivers business benefits and a positive impact on society and the economy, which is why our initial target is for our most senior grade to be 40% female by the end of 2020. We will then set a new target to achieve a level of female participation that fully reflects their representation in the UK workforce. At the time of signing, this rate was 32.6% - by the end of September 2017, it was 33.7%.
Women in Finance Charter
Royal London has pledged:
- To set ourselves a target of increasing our female senior management population from 33% in 2016 to 40% by the end of 2020
- To publish annual reports that outline the progress we’re making towards meeting this target
The Group Executive Committee (GEC) is required to contribute to our Diversity agenda and, in particular, the achievement of our WiFC target. We publish how we’re doing against the targets every year on our website, and we will continue to strengthen our focus on improving gender balance across the Group at every level by supporting and developing the next generations of female leaders.
Employee development
We take the development of our employees seriously and continue to encourage learning across the group, with over 3,500 delegates going through internal training workshops, including 10 delegates from staff at East London Business Alliance, our London volunteering partner. We believe our culture and people are fundamental to our success and recognise the importance of a diverse workforce.
The number of our delegates who have gone through internal training workshops to encourage learning and development.
The number of acts recognised by colleagues for positive behaviours and actions under the In the Spirit recognition scheme.
