Corporate responsibility

People

As an employer, we value diversity, encourage inclusion and support staff wellbeing.

Diversity and inclusion go together

We’re working to create a workforce that reflects the diversity of the society we serve. And we think diversity and inclusion go hand-in-hand. So we’re also developing an inclusive workplace culture that allows people to be themselves at work and achieve their potential.

As part of his appointment as Governor, Andrew Bailey committed to leading an institution that is truly diverse. At the launch of the Meeting Varied People initiative in Spring 2021, Andrew highlighted that identity and cognitive diversity are equally important and that his desire to have an inclusive and open culture will mean people can speak up, ensuring we make better decisions.

We’re building a diverse workforce

Diversity targets

We’re building a diverse workforce because we believe it will allow us to build trust with the people we serve and help us make better decisions.

We set our original diversity targets in 2014 (revised in 2017), aiming to increase gender and ethnic diversity. By setting targets, we can be held accountable for our actions, and these actions will benefit all staff whatever their characteristics. Our new targets are set for end-February 2028 (with a review in 2025). 

Our targets support focus on where progress is most needed and reflect our commitment to greater senior female and ethnic representation, both in appointments to senior management but also in ensuring that our pipeline of talent is diverse. 

We have also introduced Black specific representation targets to address disproportionately low Black representation at the Bank, particularly at senior scales (this includes all staff with Black heritage).

Our new gender and ethnicity targets will be supported by the development of clear action plans and the introduction of processes to support truly effective accountability. Importantly, our targets are in no way a limit to our ambitions which, if our actions are effective, we can exceed.  

While our targets are focused on gender and ethnicity, we also considered whether we expand our targets beyond gender and ethnicity and in National Inclusion Week 2020 we published our approach for disability and sexual orientation and gender identity.

We publish an update on our progress towards our diversity targets in our annual report.

We are signatories of a number of Charters – Women in Finance Charter; Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter; The Valuable 500, which aims to get disability on to the agenda of Boards and Tech Talent Charter. In early 2020, we launched our own Out and Proud Charter, a public commitment to support LGBTQ+ colleagues

Our Career Returners Programme supports employees who’ve taken a career break, including many women and people from ethnic minorities.

In recent years our work experience programme became virtual and will predominantly remain virtual in 2022. We recruit students through partner organisations such as Speakers for Schools, Mayor’s Fund for London and Social Mobility Foundation. None of these students have a personal connection to the Bank of England, and in 2022 we are focusing on giving opportunities to young people from Birmingham, Bradford, Glasgow and Liverpool. Find out more about our work experience programme in our annual report. 

And inclusive workplaces

We want everyone who works for us to feel that they can be themselves at work. We encourage a workplace culture that makes that happen. For example, we support many staff networks.

Wellbeing

The wellbeing of our staff is important to us

We provide a wide range of services, benefits and initiatives to support staff with their mental, physical, social wellbeing and financial wellbeing. This includes:

• flexible working
• a network of Wellbeing Champions, Peer Supporters and Mental Health First Aiders
• seminars to help support wellbeing and good work-life balance
• practical advice and support through our employee assistance programme
• in-house counsellors
• discounted gym memberships

We encourage staff to be open about mental health

We work hard to challenge mental health stigma. For example, we provide our line-managers with training and we made a video of our staff talking about their experiences to encourage others to.

We have a staff mental health network that raises awareness and provides support. For example, by taking part in the Green Ribbon Campaign and turning our Threadneedle Street building green.

Our senior staff support this work too. Our former Governor Mark Carney highlighted it in The Express. And our executive directors explained our approach in a case study by the City Mental Health Alliance.

We also recognise mental wellbeing is an important issue for people starting their career. Watch a video featuring some of our most recent joiners, as well as colleagues further along in their career, discuss their own experiences of mental ill-health.

In both 2020 and 2021, The City Mental Health Alliance awarded us its highest accreditation mark in their annual 'Thriving at Work' assessment.

Community

Many people who work at the Bank of England choose to support the charitable causes they care about by fundraising and volunteering. 

We support them to do this by offering volunteering leave and by matching the funds they raise. 

Our support for individual charities

Every two years we support three individual charities. We call them our charities of the year.

We choose these charities by inviting our colleagues to advocate for causes they support. Then we ask colleagues to vote to decide which we should choose.

Currently, we are supporting Carers UK, Demelza Hospice Care of Children and WWF-UK until November 2023.

Our local community partnerships

We partner with organisations such as Governors for Schools and The Switch to support local communities. Colleagues have recently been part of their virtual ‘Writing Partners’ scheme to support pupils at schools in Tower Hamlets to develop writing skills.  

And some of us mentor young people through our partnerships with the Social Mobility Foundation, East London Business Association and With Insight Education. 

Until early 2020 our staff volunteered at a range of charities including a local homeless charity, and at local green spaces or city farms. 

Environment

We’re committed to improving our environmental performance. We’ve developed a ‘Greener Bank’ programme that’s supported by a staff network of over 150 ‘green champions’. Our approach includes:

• changing how we produce and recycle our banknotes
• using a 100% renewable energy supply (electricity and gas) for all our sites
• making changes to make our buildings more energy efficient, such as switching to LED lighting
• supporting biodiversity at our sites, including introducing beehives.
• continuing more environmentally-friendly business practices like holding virtual meetings to reduce travel and using less paper
• encouraging our staff to use reusable cups and food containers

You can find out more about our carbon footprint and our work to reduce our environmental impact in our annual report and in our climate-related financial disclosure.