Wendy Papworth on how to prioritize DEI work, collaborating for successful implementation and the KPIs she uses to measure progress.
Wendy Papworth joined FNZ in January 2022 as their first Global Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Wellbeing. She has over 20 years’ experience in diversity, equity and inclusion having started with IBM, building out their D&I strategy for EMEA, Canada and Japan and then moving to Barclays, where she partnered with the United Nations on their HeForShe campaign and developed the bank’s approach to dynamic working which enabled all colleagues to work in flexible ways irrespective of role. More recently at BlackRock, Wendy was instrumental in developing their approach to socio-economic diversity and diversity data collection. Prior to focusing on D&I, Wendy began her career in the insurance industry in client facing business and technology roles. She is currently Chairwoman of FACET, a social enterprise based in Cambridgeshire, UK which supports adults with learning disabilities and complex needs to lead more independent lives.
Dinal: As DEI practitioners, we are working towards DEI being embedded across all aspects of our organizations but we have to be strategic. How do you decide on the initiatives or practices that you'll prioritize?
Wendy: I think the first imperative is to get to know the organization and do what I call a DEI Health Assessment. By which I mean to talk to the leadership team, one to one; reach out to Managers and colleagues and listen to where their hearts and minds are on the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion. Very often DE&I teams are small (if you are lucky enough to have a team) so, working closely with your fellow Human Resources professionals is imperative to understand how DE&I is currently embedded in people management processes and policies.
❛To my mind, DE&I is a strategic imperative but it has to align to what is uppermost in the mind of the business.❜
Understanding what is already working well; what’s gone before and where there are gaps is key. To my mind, DE&I is a strategic imperative but it has to align to what is uppermost in the mind of the business. The FNZ DEI strategy aligns around our people; our brand and our customers. Any initiative not only has to support our people strategy but support our brand and add value to our customers. There are a couple of other tests for example 1) Does the work impact the majority of the workforce and 2) Is the particular initiative sustainable and does it meet the longevity and repeatability test.
Dinal: As you move to implementation, what does collaboration look like with other parts of the organization to bring it to life? Can you share an example?
Wendy: Collaboration is key. As I mentioned previously DE&I teams tend to be small and to have real impact across an organization you can’t work in isolation. We also need to live by our own mantra that diversity of thought has real benefits for an organization so it is wise to follow that through in the way you co-create and deliver initiatives.
A couple of examples are:
We recently launched our enhanced family benefits – these are now global and provide 26 weeks fully paid leave for first and secondary caregivers no matter where you happen to be in the world, along with enhanced emergency family care and bereavement leave. This has been a long held aspiration of the organization. When I arrived I started to build on some preliminary work to build a business case and then working with our Head of Reward presented to our CEO, deputy CEO and CFO. Whilst the mechanics of the family leave sit with our Benefits Team and they drove the implementation once approved by our leaders we worked together on the messaging and launched on International Women’s Day 2023 under the #EmbraceEquity theme. We were able to use a key date in the DE&I calendar to gain traction on a groundbreaking benefit that is good for both women and men at key moments in their lives, driving equity for all.
❛Collaboration is key.❜
Another example is the launch earlier this year of our Diversity Toolkit. In 2022 we set gender diversity goals for our senior leaders, the achievement of which are part of their objectives and linked to their remuneration. But, there was a disconnect between the leadership's goals and managers doing the right thing to achieve the goals. I created the toolkit which covers all the interventions that managers, leaders and our Human Resources function need to do consistently to enable the achievement of the gender goals thereby setting leaders up for success but also creating a more gender balanced organization throughout. Whilst the draft was created by me, the refining was through a consultation process with colleagues from Board members, investors, HR subject matter experts and most importantly managers. Having launched the Toolkit in March I’m now actioning an ongoing communication plan and awareness training to embed the toolkit as best practice.
Dinal: When communicating the impact, what are some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) you might use to measure success?
Wendy: I have my own key performance indicators that I measure myself against and then the business leaders have a set which are trickled down to all colleagues. It is a layering effect that is dependent on your role in the organization.
All colleagues have a mandatory performance objective to support the DE&I agenda. We provide examples of how they can achieve the objective but it is up to colleagues to determine how they support the DE&I work. Our leaders have their engagement and gender diversity goals as previously mentioned. The Board have their ESG and DEI commitments.
And, then there are my specific KPIs which include:
Improving the specific DE&I engagement score
Improving our external DE&I ratings for example on Glassdoor
Increasing the number of colleagues self-identifying their diversity characteristics
Achieving the internal and external gender and race diversity commitments
I’m transparent with all colleagues on what these are and if everything is working as it should we hopefully will achieve our KPI’s.