Our people and purpose

Jackie Henry, Managing Partner for People & Purpose

Listening and learning
 

It’s critical to listen to our people and understand how they feel about their experience at our firm, and I was proud to see record responses to our biannual people engagement survey, alongside our inclusion in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list.  

This focus on listening means we can prioritise our efforts where it matters most for our people – for example, providing flexibility and choice in our ways of working. 

We’re also listening to the feedback of our Inclusion Council and diversity networks to guide our efforts on diversity and inclusion. This has helped us to continue improving targeted interventions like our Future Leader’s Programme, aimed at women and under-represented ethnic groups, alongside introducing new initiatives such as reverse mentoring for our UK Executive. And as ever, we work closely with our 12 diversity networks, all of which play a role in helping create an inclusive workplace.

Enhancing our people’s experience

This year we have continued to see the impact of the investments we made in our people over the previous 12 months, including enhancements to our family policies and launching PMI for all. We have recently extended these enhancements to include equal parental leave, paid time off for fertility treatment, additional paid leave for parents of babies receiving neonatal care and further support for carers. 

We’ve launched Deloitte University EMEA, a world class learning and development facility that brings together people from across EMEA. We’ve invested in our People Leaders through a new targeted People Leader Development Programme and we’ve introduced our Firm Fundamentals, a set of clear commitments to help our people understand what they can expect from a career at Deloitte and how to make the most of the opportunities available to them. 

Our Culture Council has also continued to play an important role in helping us to consider how our Shared Values are embedded across our firm, including encouraging discussion around the issues that matter to us as individuals and as a firm.

Protecting our Communities and Planet

In the last year, we’ve partnered with over 80 charities and schools, and we were particularly proud to see record participation in Futures Month, our annual firmwide volunteering initiative, with over 1,250 of our people investing their time and skills to drive positive change. In total, last year 5,287 of our people gave their time to volunteer for our 5 Million Futures charity partners.

We’ve continued to focus on building skills and inclusion, including our work with the Royal Foundation on the importance of early childhood and a programme to help refugees build better futures.

And as part of our commitment to protecting our planet, we have been working closely with clients to address key sustainability challenges like the energy transition, and deliver on our WorldClimate commitments, including our partnership with the EarthShot prize.  We’ve also introduced a new mandatory sustainability goal for all our people as part of our annual goal setting process.

Looking ahead

Over the coming year, we will continue our commitment to making our firm an even more family friendly place to work, looking at how we best support our people through key moments in their lives, and building on our inclusive ways of working.

Finally, I look forward to seeing more of our people attending Deloitte University EMEA and to continuing our work in building an even more inclusive workplace, with a particular focus on the Deloitte Black Experience.