Strategic report Governance Financial statements Other information STRATEGY OUR PEOPLE CONTINUED Annual colleague Learning and development Colleague engagement and listening Memberships, accreditations and partnerships engagement survey Learning and development is a key component of It is widely recognised that an organisation 81% our People Strategy, and it’s important to us that whose colleagues are engaged with its purpose, all colleagues have the opportunity to develop values and culture will perform better than others, their skills regardless of experience, age, and create value for clients and shareholders. of colleagues agreed background, or role. Our fully blended learning This is because engaged colleagues feel a strong their manager supports provision offers a broad range of opportunities, connection with their place of employment and them in their learning with the use of technology providing bite-sized, understand how their work adds value to Women in Finance Charter Fostering Friendly and development digital learning to support the ongoing strategic delivery. Organisation engagement and development of colleagues We signed the Women in Finance We believe it is important to listen to and Charter in May 2016, a pledge We are an accredited 90% when they need it. understand our colleagues’ views and motivation; for gender balance across Foster Friendly Organisation We recognise the importance of building a their honest feedback is crucial in evolving our financial services pipeline of skilled and motivated talent for future colleague engagement programme. Our most of colleagues agree leadership roles and have developed a new robust recent annual colleague engagement survey there is good cooperation HL Leadership Model to ensure we deliver this received a strong response rate of 70% (2020: and teamwork in their teams pipeline and retain those in business critical roles. 68%) with a record 66% engagement score We have career development paths for both (2020: 63%). In the context of this challenging specialist and managerial career streams, year, we were delighted to see our “Manager” recognising the differences in skills required. index increase to 78% (2020: 71%). We use this to help colleagues understand where Women in Business Charter 30% Club member to focus their development activity. In addition to our twice yearly engagement We are a signatory of the We are a member of the 30% Club, survey, we have run regular pulse surveys so that Women in Business Charter which aims to increase gender We also have a comprehensive mentoring offering we can quickly respond to colleague sentiment. diversity at Board and senior for colleagues: “HL Career Confidence”. This We’ve also used the survey to obtain colleague management levels scheme aims to build confidence and support insight into topics such as communication, mentees to release their potential and achieve whistleblowing and our future workplace. their career aspirations. The scheme now has 72 mentoring relationships in place and has received positive feedback showing that the scheme is making a tangible difference to the engagement, development and growth of participants. Disability Confident Employer Living Wage We are a Disability We are an accredited Confident Employer Living Wage Employer 34 Hargreaves Lansdown Report and Financial Statements 2021