"Diversity is integral to our products."
I have roughly 700 colleagues and enjoy a workplace culture that encourages everyone to be true to themselves. OneFamily is like a microcosm of what’s happening in the outside world; we’ve established networks that focus on LGBTQ+ and ethnicity inclusion. To support our neurodiverse colleagues, we’ve joined the Group for Autism, Insurance, Investment & Neurodiversity (GAIN) and pledged to establish a Neurodiversity Employee Resource Group (ERG) which will provide employees and their families with a platform for sharing feedback, offering support, and addressing unique challenges.
READ MORE: GAIN announces OneFamily as latest corporate member
Being able to see someone who’s like you at all levels of an organisation means you know you’ll have a voice, that you’ll be heard. We’re lucky at OneFamily that diversity is reflected in both recruitment and the board room. It’s important for those in the early stages of their career; we want them to look at our most senior management and think ‘You’re a bit like me’.
“It’s vital that women are involved at all levels of our organisation.”
HM Treasury’s ‘Women in Finance Charter Annual Review 2023’ reported women in senior management is up to 35% in the UK – but more needs to be done. At OneFamily, 66% of our Board of Directors are women but we recognise gender equality is an ongoing commitment. We ensure all jobs are advertised with gender-neutrality, and support staff returning to work after maternity or paternity leave; we offer women-specific programmes to help gain confidence and our reward policy ensures fair and equal pay for all.
“Employers need to consider the stress of real life, to value the person rather than the role.”
As an organisation that welcomes diversity in the workplace, we mirror society and our customers. We’re actively seeking solutions in the products & services we offer to support their lives, enable social mobility, and improve accessibility to financial products. Our customers span across an entire lifetime. We have teenagers who want access to their savings accounts, so we’ve developed a digital-first journey that allows them to withdraw funds. We also have customers that prefer to speak to a real person so we’ve employed specialist customer service advisers who’re happy to chat on the phone – they're trained to spot customers who may be vulnerable and require additional support.
For busy parents who might want to communicate at a convenient time, people who want to access their account solely through our online account management system, and customers who might want to speak with a member of staff instead of a chatbot, we’ve designed our contact channels to be as accommodating as possible.
Our product proposition is continuously under review to ensure we meet the needs of our diverse customer base. When we identified those with lower incomes as the most vulnerable, often falling through society’s now threadbare safety nets, we acquired Beagle Street.
“Losing an income could be devasting to a family in this position.”
We bought the business to build our offering, with innovative products on the horizon that will further support people’s financial resilience. Diversity is integral to our products.
