Pendal
Our culture
Our inclusive and innovative culture is an integral part of our value proposition. It helps to create a positive working environment where people feel valued to do their best while supporting recruitment, development and retention.
Ethical behaviour and fostering a culture that requires employees to act with integrity and honesty ensures that we earn and maintain the long-term trust of our stakeholders and is critical to building a successful sustainable business. Conversely, poor behaviours can cause harm to our clients and damage our reputation, therefore the Board continues to place a high level of importance on ensuring our culture supports the best possible outcomes for all stakeholders.
We focus on creating a workplace that inspires passion, purpose and outstanding performance. To help maintain positive employee engagement we carry out a range of activities, including employee opinion surveys and regular business update meetings to monitor morale. We also have comprehensive recruitment and performance management processes to assess behaviour and conduct.
The FY20 employee surveys carried out across the globe showed a high level of engagement with a response rate of more than 80 per cent across the Group. The results from these surveys and other engagement activities provide valuable insights and inform our people strategy.
For more information about our employee engagement risks and associated controls refer to our Corporate Governance Statement.
Diversity
We believe diversity of thought, skills and experience deliver great outcomes and support effective decision making.
Our Board and Group Executive are committed to broadening workplace diversity. This includes but is not limited to: embracing individual differences in: views, personal/work experiences, lifestyle, ethnicity, nationality, culture, religion, age, gender, disability, physical attributes, family responsibility, sexual orientation and education.
Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is reflected in our D&I Policy and is supported across the business by our D&I Strategy.
For example, the gender targets set by the Group are as follows:
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At least 40 per cent female representation on the Pendal Board by 2023. This was achieved in 2017 and has continued
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At least 40 per cent female representation across the Pendal Group Executive teams by 2023.
Full details of our approach to diversity and inclusion and performance metrics can be found in our Corporate Governance Statement and data pack.
The diversity of our team is, in part, reflected in their location. The team is spread across four continents1
1 Based on Group headcount of 370 as at 30 September 2020
Health and wellbeing
The health, safety and wellbeing of our people is crucial for our success and continued retention of high-performing teams. Our wellbeing programs in Australia, UK and the US provide a comprehensive range of initiatives and benefits designed to equip our people with the tools and resources to own their wellbeing, with a strong focus on mental health and encouraging our employees to balance all aspects of their lives.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have partnered with employee mental health education providers to deliver wellbeing seminars and supported local mental health activities.
Our Employee Assistance Program continued to ensure adequate support is available to employees to cope with a new environment and to support one another while working remotely.
Staff benefits include:
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Ongoing training sessions covering a range of topics to support mental and physical wellbeing
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Our Employee Assistance Program
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Private medical coverage
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A biennial program of health assessments
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A flu vaccination program.
Managing talent
To help develop and grow talent, we continue to evolve our personal and professional development program for employees. We provide support and guidance for employees looking to grow their career and to enhance their leadership qualities. We do this through offering internal mentoring programs, financial support to pursue education and industry association memberships.
Our talent identification and management processes complement detailed succession planning reviews in both corporate and investment teams, and help manage key person risk. The reviews establish short, medium and long-term action plans that support people growth and succession pathways for critical roles.
During the year we continued to enhance our performance and talent management processes with the introduction of a new global Human Resources Information System (HRIS). The innovative online system is a single repository of global employee data that will enhance HR reporting capabilities and enable improved data-driven people decisions. Additional functionality will be implemented in the coming year.
Governance and decision making
During the year, we enhanced our governance practices with the appointment of Non-Executive Directors to several of the Group’s subsidiary boards. These boards play an important role in protecting the interests of our investors and ensuring local regulatory compliance.
Additionally our Global Executive Committee was expanded with the appointment of Nick Good, JOHCM CEO – USA. The Group now has CEOs in the key regions of Europe, UK & Asia (EUKA), US and Australia. Each CEO brings a unique set of skills and diverse insights, to support growth and our people on the ground in each jurisdiction.
Recognising and rewarding our people
Our reward and performance management frameworks reflect our business model and values and are designed to recognise and motivate our people to deliver the best outcomes.
We seek to instil an ownership mindset to ensure all employees are aligned with our shareholders and our investment professionals are aligned to client outcomes.
We regularly monitor market benchmarks to ensure we are paying our employees fairly for their skills and ability. Additional information on our remuneration and reward framework is available in our Remuneration Report.
Employee turnover remained lower than the industry average1 at
5.2 per cent per year
1 Survey data compiled by the Financial Institution Remuneration Group.
Australian equities focus on cultural heritage
Throughout the year, the issue of cultural heritage risks for resource companies was thrust into the spotlight with revelations of the destruction of ancient Aboriginal rock shelters at Juukan Gorge. While issues around native title and benefit sharing with traditional owners have been discussed in engagement with resource companies for a few years, this incident, and the heightened public scrutiny that resulted, has elevated reputational and stakeholder risks across the resource sector more broadly. In a multi-month program of engagement, the team engaged at board, executive and site level with five companies operating in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to make known our wishes that companies take a more holistic approach to stakeholder issues, and to demonstrate that they do not just rely on legal minimums in making decisions.
