Women in Finance Charter 2024

At Wesleyan, we strive to create a workplace where every colleague is respected, valued, and encouraged to bring their authentic selves to work.

Our commitment to building a diverse and inclusive workforce reflects the customers we serve and the communities we engage with, enhancing our skills and broadening our perspectives. This approach allows us to deliver the best possible outcomes for our customers.

David Stewart, Group Chief Operating Officer and Executive Sponsor for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, stated: “We understand the importance of an inclusive approach to recruitment, retention, and development as a cornerstone of our culture.

"We are actively working to increase the representation of women in our leadership roles, supporting our vision of achieving gender parity and fostering an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive.”

By the end of 2023, we had increased our female representation at senior leadership to 39%. This meant we exceeded our target of 35% for 2023.

By September 2024, we reached 43% female representation, which means we have already met our target of achieving a minimum of 40% representation by the end of 2024, and our 42% target for the end of 2025.

We will continue to implement the initiatives used to address our senior leadership imbalance at all job grades, aiming for diverse shortlists and having gender diverse panels during the recruitment process.

In addition to our work within recruitment, we have included a gender lens in our pay review process to ensure that no pay inequalities are introduced at this stage.

We will also continue to increase our focus on talent management and succession planning to maximise the potential to grow our own diverse talent pipeline.

To support our Charter pledge, we have implemented the following initiatives:

• Inclusive hiring practices: We've adopted inclusive hiring principles, including the use of language decoders for job advertisements, diverse shortlisting standards and diverse interview panels.
• Empowering high-potential women: We are committed to identifying and nurturing our high-potential women by investing in coaching and development programmes tailored to their personal growth.
• Support for flexible working: We have signed the ABI’s Making Flexible Work Charter, underscoring our dedication to flexibility. This initiative aims to attract more women to apply for senior roles. We have enhanced our maternity/adoption and paternity leave policies, providing male colleagues with eight weeks' full pay.
• Enhanced flexible working policy: We've updated our Flexible Working Policy to ensure flexibility is discussed for all new roles from day one, aiming to increase the number of employees working less than 35 hours per week.
• Life event support: We have introduced guidelines to support colleagues experiencing menopause and pregnancy loss, providing the necessary resources during these significant life events. We have also increased full paid leave for emergencies in addition to statutory leave.

We’re focused on supporting women at all levels to develop and achieve their career ambitions. We are equally committed to fostering inclusion in other areas, including ethnicity, LGBTQ+ representation, and mental and physical wellbeing.