Opportunity & diversity
We strive for diversity at every level of the organisation and for every employee, regardless of their age, race, gender, beliefs or religion, disability, sexual orientation or hours of work.
Our policies are informed by all relevant UK legislation and by organisations of which we have membership. We are supported by our Diversity & Equality of Opportunity Committee, chaired by a Director. We also work closely with the Nationwide Group Staff Union.
As of April 2007:
- over 9% of our employees are from an ethnic background, compared to an industry benchmark of just over 7%. See data on ethnicity profile
- over 27% of our senior management team are women, compared to around 20% last year. See data on women in senior management roles
- over 56% of our managers are women – up from about 52% last year and more than double the financial services industry benchmark. See data on women in management roles
- nearly 12% of our workforce is aged 50 or over. See data on employees aged 50 or over
This year we continued to promote awareness in our workplace. We rolled out our new diversity training video ‘Valuing Everyone’, which won three gold awards from the International Visual Communication Association for its creative and inclusive approach and received a great deal of positive feedback from employees.
We were named third-best financial services provider in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index of the UK’s top 100 employers of lesbians and gays and significantly improved on the previous year’s ranking.