Making meaningful and positive change
Through our BRAVER allyship framework, we are committed to building a culture where unique perspectives are celebrated and to create a workplace where colleagues to feel welcomed and supported however they show up. We know that great minds don’t think alike, so we rely on our colleagues’ diverse thoughts, feelings, beliefs and backgrounds to be the best we can possibly be.
By sharing experiences and knowledge around ethnicity, culture and religion we are able to bring more diverse thinking to the table, better serve our customers as well as encouraging our colleagues to bring their true selves to work. We are committed to increasing opportunities and representation by building more inclusive recruitment practices, working hard to create equity in the colleague experience, creating initiatives to promote career mobility and working closely with our partners to empower ethnic minority colleagues to grow and thrive and Virgin Money.
Our action plan
We are determined to make progress against our ethnicity representation targets and have a clear plan to help accelerate us towards achieving these;
- A radical and bold approach to recruitment: we’ve introduced bold commitments for recruitment suppliers requiring them to include diverse candidates on all selection lists. We’re also challenging ourselves to do better by including a diversity questionnaire within the process to gain a better understanding of who we are attracting and where we need to improve.
- Partnerships that make a difference: we’re working with Black Professional Scotland, a charity which champions the Black community, to equip prospective candidates with the skills to be successful in applying for jobs in the financial sector. This includes keeping attendees updated on internal opportunities at Virgin Money. We are also signatories of the Black Talent Charter.
We’ve reviewed our approach to succession across the bank. We’re making diversity a core part of this approach. We’ve set targets for every business unit to improve diversity at the senior leadership level. We know that having visible role models is important, so our short-term targets are focused on the top three layers of the Group.
We are proud to support the 10000 Black Interns programme and are offering paid work experience and mentoring as part of this important initiative.
We’ve committed to take practical steps to tackle the barriers that ethnic minority people face. We have taken calls to action that supports our colleagues who are black or from an ethic minority career progression. Through our allyship framework, we embed practical means which ensures equity in the workplace is the responsibility of all colleagues. We pledge to increase awareness and encouraging conversations among colleagues around ethnicity and to empower black and ethnic minority colleagues/allies to role model skills where they work.
We’ve launched our career sponsorship programme which will be made available to our colleagues across all our network groups. The programme is designed to support colleagues from underrepresented groups to empower them in the workplace and give them access to mentoring, learning materials and career opportunities.
Embrace
Virgin Money’s Embrace Network is open to all colleagues, not just those from an ethnic minority background and it exists to celebrate what makes our individual cultures so unique. By leveraging on the shared experiences of its members and amplifying underrepresented voices we can raise awareness and be advocates for change. Embrace champions career development, provides tools and resources as well as sharing career stories from role models to encourage internal mobility and create safety for colleagues from ethnically under-represented backgrounds.
A Life More Virgin
Our hybrid approach to work, A Life More Virgin allows for more flexibility in where and how our colleagues work. This means we will be able to reach and attract talent in geographies and communities that we haven’t been able to before. This approach also offers much more flexibility around working patterns, meaning that colleagues should not have to compromise faith and religious practice to work for us.