Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Our Approach

Our approach to diversity, equity and inclusion is to value differences. It’s about being an inclusive company where our people from all groups and backgrounds are treated fairly and have access to equal opportunities. As such it remains a significant area of focus for us across all our people touchpoints, from talent attraction, development and engagement through to retention. Indeed, one of our core values is Innovation, and as such we understand diversity of thought plays a significant part in enabling us to deliver creative, best in class solutions for our clients.

Inclusion is embedded in our organisational culture under our Life@Work framework, which pulls together various initiatives and practices and underpins our culture and working environment to support everyone to be themselves in the workplace.

Change Requires Action

An inclusive culture is the responsibility of us all – it’s why we developed an ambitious Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Roadmap which is overseen by a DEI sub-committee whose members include our Executive Committee. As a direct result all our employees have taken part in an innovative interactive training workshop; we will shortly be launching a mandatory DEI objective which will form part of our annual objective setting exercise for staff; and a new mandatory online learning module is in development to be rolled out to all staff in early 2023.

Employee Networks

Our employee networks include Pride & Allies, Be Me - Race Equity, Gender and WAY, which is specifically for employees at the start of their career. Co-Chaired by senior leaders the networks provide a safe platform to bring together common interest groups with a desire to share their experiences and bring fresh ideas to ensure we continue to actively promote and develop our broader diversity, equity and inclusion agenda.

Our strategy for all our networks revolves around three key pillars: 1) Networking & Influencing 2) Driving Cultural Change 3) Promoting broader collaboration and connection

Our networks ensure our employees have a broader voice and engage in a company-wide conversation.

Building a Female Talent Pipeline

We understand the importance of building a junior talent pipeline of women who we can develop and grow to become tomorrow’s leaders. It’s why each year we hold Women in Finance Open Days, where we invite University students to join us for workshops and talks. This initiative has been extremely successful for all involved resulting in a number of hires being made. We’ve also launched an innovative apprenticeship programme called Debut, which attracts diverse talent from a broad range of universities and degree disciplines and offers a professional qualification fully-funded by the Apprenticeship Levy.

Women in Leadership Programme

We have programmes and initiatives specifically designed to encourage the development of high-potential female talent to support them in reaching their career ambitions by transitioning into more senior roles across our business. A notable new addition is Maximise Your Potential, a programme targeting VPs and Directors with development and coaching over nine months and sponsored by our CEO.

Women Returners Programme

We have opened up key roles for women who have taken a career break. The programme offers coaching support to set them up for success by helping them transition back into the workplace. And we plan to explore ways to increase the breadth of this programme.

Mentoring & Sponsorship

Key decisions linked to promotions and career development opportunities are taken with gender diversity front of mind. Our senior leaders are proactively encouraged to champion the development of our female talent. Further, our mentoring programme ensures senior leaders can share their expertise and experience with aspiring talent who want to develop their knowledge and network. We have also introduced a Reverse mentoring programme, which offers opportunities for senior leaders to be mentored by individuals from our Gender, Pride & Allies and Be Me - Race Equity employee networks. The objective being to increase understanding and sharing of employee experiences from these groups, while also encouraging allyship within our senior leadership population.

A Focus on Work/Life Balance

We offer all our staff access to a mental health and wellbeing platform which provides a wealth of content, videos and online tutorials. We also offer paid family leave (maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave) above statutory entitlement; tuition reimbursement; emergency family care support, and wherever practicable, flexible working arrangements to help employees balance their work and personal lives. We are proud to have signed the Wellbeing of Women Menopause Workplace Pledge, recognising that menopause can be an issue in the workplace and showing commitment to provide support to employees at every stage of their career. Details of this support are outlined in our menopause policy launched in 2022.

Gender Pay Gap

Societe Generale was founded to support the ambitions of entrepreneurs; from the French ‘entreprendre’ meaning ‘to undertake’.

So that’s what we’re doing: taking positive action to create a balanced, inclusive workforce that empowers every unique individual to unleash their entrepreneurial spirit and change our world for the better.

Our latest Gender Pay Gap report is an opportunity to both share our progress and hold ourselves to account.