Embracing Inclusiveness

Somerset Bridge has a commitment to our customers, our community, our environment and our people. As part of our ongoing commitments to our emplyees we aim to create a successful working environment for all, embracing diversity in its widest sense.

In this spirit we are committed to the following initiatives in 2022 which will provide benchmarks on which we can build solid foundations for progress which embraces the collective value of our differences:

• A D&I steering group has been set up, with Board representation
• An anonymous employee D&I survey has been conducted to help us understand the breadth of diversity within the business
• Attracting and recruiting the best and broadest talent is key to the success of this project.   We are taking a good look at who we attract and following the diversity through to interview and job offer to ensure that we are not just recruiting in our own image
• L&D is offering line managers a wealth of different elective course which support a culture of inclusiveness including addressing unconscious (or conscious) bias

SBG is acutely aware that in order not to fall foul of  any unconscious bias our team members need to be fully supported in their understanding of D&I. In response the L&D team offer a full spectrum of Diversity & Inclusion training courses for all employees at every level.”

The interest of our clients always come first . To continue providing our clients with creative ideas and solutions for operating effectively in a complex global economy, we must be fully capable of dealing with different cultures in an informed and nuanced manner. Further and in line with the FCA (July 21) discussion paper “Diversity & Inclusion in the financial sector” SB are working towards an inclusive culture which supports better decision making. This does not just include the nine protected characteristics defined in the Equality Act 2010 (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage & civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation), but can also include other factors such as socio-economic diversity, gender (including where it does not coincide with sex) and cultural background.