Our commitments and actions
We’re taking action to remove barriers to our colleagues, our customers and our communities realising their potential. This supports an inclusive environment where our colleagues can flourish and helps to drive the strong and purposeful delivery of our strategy.
Different ideas and perspectives help us innovate and grow in a sustainable way. But we know we aren’t yet representative enough at all levels.
Our global goals
To guide our progress, we are focused on specific Group-wide goals for which we hold senior executives accountable. Alongside Group goals, some executives have local priorities, such as combatting social inequality in the UK, to allow flexibility for a broader diversity and inclusion agenda that is relevant to their market.
Global gender representation
After achieving our ambition of having 30% of senior leadership roles held by women in 2020, we set a new goal to reach 35% by the end of 2025.
We remain on track, with 34.1% of senior leadership roles held by women at the end of 2023, an increase of 0.8 percentage points since 2022.
Global ethnicity representation
We are on track to double the number of Black colleagues in senior leadership by the end of 2025, having increased the number of Black senior leaders by 62% since 2020.
To better reflect the communities we serve, we have enhanced our approach and set a goal of having 3.4% of Black heritage3 colleagues in senior leadership across the UK and US combined by the end of 2025.
We are on track to meet this, with 3.0% of leadership roles held by Black heritage colleagues in 2023.
Inclusive culture
Our inclusion index looks at how inclusive our culture is by measuring colleagues’ feelings of belonging, psychological safety, perception of fairness and trust in our annual all-employee engagement survey.
At the end of 2023, we scored 78% favourable – three points higher than our goal and two points above the financial service industry benchmark.
1 Senior leadership refers to employees performing roles classified as 3 and above in our global career band structure.
2 The focus for this goal is on the UK and US, where Black colleagues are particularly under-represented. The starting point is 31 December 2020.
3 We define Black heritage to include all colleagues in the UK who identify as Black or mixed race where one of the ethnicities is stated as Black, and in the US who identify as Black or African-American.
Our four priorities
We have made progress, but we know we still have more to do. Our four priorities are focused on actions that improve representation of under-represented groups and build an inclusive culture across the organisation:
We’re focused on ensuring our hiring processes are fair, transparent and inclusive for all, and we attract high-performing people from diverse backgrounds who represent the communities we serve.
Our actions:
- More than 10,000 hiring managers globally completed the mandatory inclusive hiring training in 2023, which is aimed at enabling fair and inclusive decisions that are in line with our hiring principles
- We partner with specialist recruiters to increase the diversity of shortlisted candidates and in the UK, we monitor the ethnicity of candidates through the recruitment process to continually improve our hiring practices
- We have developed partnerships including the #Merky Foundation and the 10,000 Black Interns initiative that have resulted in a 28% increase in black heritage hires in the UK since 2022
- We target a wide student population to improve the diverse representation of our global graduate intake. In 2023, 43% of new graduates were women and 9% were of Black heritage
- We have adapted our global graduate and intern selection process to meet the needs of neurodiverse candidates and received a 91% ‘fully fit for purpose’ rating in the most recent neurodiversity audit
Note: The ethnicity representation data is based on employees who have shared their ethnicities, in markets where it is legally permissible and culturally acceptable to collect this information.
We’re focused on ensuring all colleagues have access to opportunities to achieve their potential, and we benefit from their diverse experiences and perspectives.
Our actions:
- Since 2017, 24% of women on our Accelerating Female Leaders development programme have been promoted, 27% have taken a lateral move and we have retained 79% of participants
- In 2023, HSBC senior leaders coached more than 5,200 female colleagues, as part of our Coaching Circles programme, to help them develop leadership skills and build professional networks
- We partner with specialist firms to help provide sponsorship and mentoring for Black heritage colleagues. 29% of participants in the Solaris programme for Black heritage women in the UK have been promoted over the last two years
- In 2022, we began to collect socio-economic diversity data of our colleagues within the UK, with the aim to improve socio-economic mobility. We use this data to help us understand the representation and progression of colleagues from lower socio-economic backgrounds
Note: The ethnicity representation data is based on employees who have shared their ethnicities, in markets where it is legally permissible and culturally acceptable to collect this information.
We’re focused on ensuring we have an inclusive environment where different perspectives are valued, and colleagues want to stay and develop their careers.
Our actions:
- Executive sponsorship of our global employee networks (for example, our Ability network to promote disability and neurodiversity inclusion) is provided by the Group Executive Committee and Non-Executive Directors of the Holdings Board, who champion these employee resource groups and drive change
- In 2023, we introduced carer leave of 5 paid working days in the UAE, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. We also introduced longer periods of paid parental leave in Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand and 20-weeks paid gender-neutral parental leave in Australia
- In 2023, we launched a global menopause framework and toolkit, including guidance on how to access resources and how line managers can best support those in need
- HSBC UK is recognised by the Business Disability Forum as a Gold Standard employer with the highest score (95.8%) achieved since BDF refreshed its Disability-Smart Framework in September 2021
We’re focused on ensuring we provide an accessible and inclusive banking experience, and working within our communities to create positive impact.
Our actions:
- We’re investing in academic sponsorship programmes that help diverse young people enter our industry, and skills-building programmes for under-represented groups in the community. For example, our Stormzy partnership has funded 30 University of Cambridge scholarships for Black and socially disadvantaged students
- We’ve continued to support female-owned businesses through our $1bn Female Entrepreneur Fund, alongside hosting bespoke Pitch Day events for those seeking investment
- We’ve launched a Supplier Diversity portal in the UK and US, enabling small and medium-sized enterprises or businesses that are majority-owned, operated and controlled by historically under-represented groups, to register interest in becoming an HSBC supplier
- In 2023, we’ve continued to run a digital accessibility training and awareness programme, engaging more than 10,000 colleagues, as well as partners and other companies.
Global diversity data
We’re creating an accurate and transparent view of our workforce so we can effectively target our actions and measure our progress.