HSBC Continental Europe

In February 2021, we committed to energising our people through active engagement in a more effective, agile and empowered organisation. Since then, we have been engaging colleagues through numerous initiatives to enable them to apply our purpose and values in how we work and how we serve our customers.

Inspire a dynamic culture

We are inspiring a dynamic, inclusive and connected culture, and empowering our people by helping them develop future skills.

We are committed to fostering a supportive environment with a focus on mental health and wellbeing, supporting our staff who want to adopt flexible and alternative ways of working. We have also launched ‘Boost Your Future’ webinars, available to all HSBC Continental Europe employees, in support of our aim of creating an organisation built around a shared culture collaboration.

Champion inclusion

We have a strong commitment to increase diverse representation across our organisation (e.g. achieve more than 35 per cent of female senior leadership by the end of 2025), raising awareness on the importance of diversity in our governance committees as well as in our Diversity and Inclusion observatories, working closely with our Employee Resources Group (‘ERG’). Actions have been undertaken during the second half of 2021: (i) we have made available two specific trainings on ‘Mental Health’ and ‘Inclusive Leadership’;(ii) we are working with 50/50 Partner of Balance to develop an engaging gender diversity charter alongside other large financial institutions through Financi'Elles; (iii) we have set qualitative objectives of awareness-raising actions alongside 50/50 Partner of Balance on the theme of cultural diversity; (iv) on top of our legal requirements in every country, we are committed to contributing to the HSBC Group's pilot project on the development of a cross-functional disability policy in all areas (accessibility, customer offer, adjustments and retention in employment, recruitment and mobility, etc.); and (v) we will keep working with our local Pride ERG (in France, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, and Luxembourg), and the newly-created European Pride ERG to support an inclusive environment through sensitisation of our employees on these topics through different events, including during Pride month and in staff exchanges.

Develop future skills

In HSBC Continental Europe, the Future Skills programme is now fully in place. During the second half of 2021, various actions have been taken to promote Degreed, an integrated training platform, and encourage our staff to adopt new learning habits, notably through the development of 'Focus4' learning curriculum (articles, videos and HSBC University’s content). We have also set up a programme named ‘Resilience’ to help our staff and managers navigate through our transformation. It comprises well-being workshops, inspirational conferences and peer discussions to encourage an inclusive and dynamic culture.