It’s been long accepted that in terms of portfolio management “diversification leads to better returns,” but we should apply the same principle to the workforce.
This is the opinion of Nasreen Kasenally, chief risk officer UBS Asset Management and UBS Group EMEA.
Speaking at a diversity and inclusion roundtable, hosted by UBS in London, she explained that the firm is focusing on improving its gender diversity across its workforce.
Global head of diversity and inclusion Carolanne Minashi elaborated on this, explaining that while the firm has had an active diversity and inclusion strategy for the past 10-15 years, it began focusing more on gender at the beginning of 2016 after a strategic decision by the group and that it is now “trying to make the most progress on gender”.
UBS is aiming to increase the number of women in senior roles by a third, with those in management positions being held accountable for the progress within their teams. It also wants to increase its female representation on its board, with women currently making up 30 percent of the board.
To do this, the firm has a simple three step approach: to hire more women, to lose fewer women, and to promote more women, while maintaining a “system of meritocracy”.
In addition, the firm has key foundations to help improve gender diversity. These include: setting aspirational targets; holding management accountable for diversity within their teams; and having metrics which give a “much keener sense” of the firm’s progress.
A manager herself, Ms Kasenally explained that the aspirations are “embedded” into the performance reviews of all senior leaders and that the executive committee regularly reviews specific metrics.
The firm was keen to state that it wants to hire more women in senior positions, not just in entry level roles. As part of this, UBS runs a “career comeback scheme”, which is now in its fourth year. This offers director level jobs from day one, demonstrating UBS’s “serious commitment” to the individuals, Ms Minashi explained.
Since the scheme began, UBS has hired over 100 people, the majority being women, globally.
In terms of promoting more women, one tool which Ms Kasenally believes is “extremely useful” is an online coaching app called Rungway which was initially introduced as an engagement tool, but they have since discovered that women significantly outnumber men at asking questions.
The closed community app allows anyone, regardless of seniority, to ask a question anonymously and anyone can respond, “Democratising access to seniors” and giving women the confidence to ask more questions. The answers are given under your own name and everyone can benefit from seeing the dialogue, making it “very impactful”.
In order to fulfil its third objective, to lose less women, the firm allows flexible and remote working. This includes UBS’s ‘take two’ initiative, which allows employees to take two hours anytime in the week for personal reasons, as long as they arrange coverage beforehand, and reciprocate for other team members.
UBS also believes it is ahead of the game in terms of shared parental leave. The firm allows either parent to take 26 weeks paid leave. Since its introduction, it is estimated that 75 percent of eligible men have made use of this scheme, taking on average 12 weeks leave.
Ms Minashi, concluded that the work the firm is doing to improve the workplace for women is also benefiting men and making the workplace better for all, as everyone can make use of the new initiatives.
UBS AM is a large-scale asset manager with a presence in 23 countries. It is a leading fund house in Europe, the largest mutual fund manager in Switzerland, the second largest fund of hedge funds manager and one of the largest real estate investment managers in the world.
