Our D&I strategy

At  Walters People, diversity and inclusion is a huge priority for us around the world. We believe, that to achieve success and to create real value for our clients, stakeholders and communities, we require diverse talent with equal opportunities.  

Our diversity and inclusion policy is rooted in the challenges, realities and opportunities of our business. We proactively develop a working environment that welcomes people from all backgrounds. Here you will see how we encourage a diverse workforce and drive change internally. 

What Walters People are doing to drive equality in the workplace

Recognising our Great Place to Work® 

We participate in the annual survey that puts employees at the heart of the organization. The Best Workplaces survey analyses what they think and feel and identifies real issues that the business needs to address. We use the insights from the survey to improve our recruitment, retention and productivity strategies.

The Best Workplaces assessment takes into account an employee experience survey and a culture audit to benchmark the organisations involved. Some of our awards include:

  • Ranked 18th as one of the Best Places for Women to Work in the larger organisation category 2020
  • Ranked 19th in the Best Large Places to Work category (251 – 1,000 employees) 2019, moving up 43 places – sharing the top 20 bracket with the likes of CiscoMarsEY and Adobe
  • Scored 83% positive employee engagement score and an 83% overall trust index score, with improvements, according to employees, made for Recognition and Talent Management in 2019.

Providing diverse benefits for our employees

While there are core benefits that appeal to all demographics, we understand that the benefits that appeal to different groups can differ and change over time. Recognising the diversity of our workforce, we launched CHOICES, an enhancement on our core benefits offering. CHOICES is a flexible benefits platform that gives control to the employee in selecting the benefits that support their wellbeing, financial goals and lifestyle.

Supporting maternity and adoption 

As part of our gender pay gap initiatives, we committed to reviewing our family friendly policy in 2018. Following feedback sessions and a comprehensive benchmarking exercise, we formed an industry-leading maternity and adoption leave policy to support the return of female employees to the workplace.

Key features:

  • Receiving 9 months pay – 20 weeks at 100% and 19 weeks at 50%
  • Childcare allowance when returning between 9 and 12 months
  • Phased return – part-time hours on initial return, gradually phasing back  to full-time over the first month

Championing the LGBT movement

We invite colleagues across the Group to support communities and causes that champion diversity across all areas, including LGBT support. For example, employees across the business were involved in representing Robert Walters at the London Pride Parade.

Encouraging all voices to speak up

Recent Robert Walters research highlights that over a quarter (28%) of professionals see the value of diversity networks. This has inspired the HR department to set up a new Group D&I forum, developing a calendar of events to support a range of initiatives throughout the year, coinciding with nationwide events such as National Inclusion WeekWorld Cultural Diversity Day and Mental Health Awareness Week.

Cultivating a workplace culture for everyone

We’re conscious that our workforce has responsibilities outside of work, not exclusive to professionals with children, but those with caring responsibilities or an active lifestyle, among other commitments. We support our people to achieve a healthy work-life balance by providing remote working.

We create environments where employees can come together to build relationships outside their teams with activities and teams such as yoga, netball and exercise classes. These well-being initiatives are offered to all employees, both contract and perm across all levels of seniority.

Integrating global cultures

With an office network encompassing 31 countries, we facilitate cultural integration across the Group, through the provision of cross-culture events and incentives. Such rewards foster productivity and social enterprise among colleagues.

Our social offering includes an annual incentive weekend for the Group’s top performers hosted in locations such as Las Vegas, Cambodia and Cancun, as well as our volunteering programme. Twice a year, four members of staff from the Robert Walters Group are given the opportunity to support international charity Global Angels’ work in Tsavo, a remote area of Kenya in East Africa. From building a new classroom to setting up new projects and businesses, volunteers collaborate and immerse themselves with the local community to help them build a sustainable future.

We also encourage our people to create their own culture and celebrate their own backgrounds. For example, consultants plan their own events such as the Friday afternoon quiz which are regularly based on their home country.

Promoting inclusivity through Glassdoor

We have an active, responsive Glassdoor strategy and encourage participation on the platform at every level of the organisation so employees can ‘tell it how it is’. The HR team regularly monitors statistics of reviews to keep track of discourse around each area of our employment offer, encouraging leadership teams to review what their staff really has to say to promote an inclusive environment.

Additionally, we use Glassdoor to celebrate the cultural, generational and gender diversity of our workforce through the content we curate on the platform. We do this to encourage diversity in our job applications.

Encouraging global connectivity via Workplace by Facebook

Robert Walters recognises the importance of social media for our internal communications strategy. For this reason, we’ve adopted Workplace by Facebook, an employee networking and integration tool that allows employees to share perspectives and respond to news and insights from across the Group. Workplace includes posting, live broadcasting, group calling, instant messaging, groups and team organisation functionality to provide maximum visibility, involve employees in company activities, give them the autonomy to set up their own social groups and connect with colleagues over the globe in an instant.

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