Our culture of inclusion

Psychological safety is a critical foundation for an inclusive culture. In EMEA, we have focused on driving improved psychological safety over the past three years as part of our culture development work. We have trained our leaders on the concept of psychological safety and the essential interpersonal skills of humility, curiosity and empathy through our leadership conferences. We have also actively supported many teams across the firm to improve their local climate of safety.

Pulse survey results indicate we are making positive progress, with notably improved scores for:

• “While at work, I am comfortable expressing opinions that diverge from my team”: up six points (11 percent in favorability) from March 2021 to July 2022.

•  “My team values diverse perspectives”: up four points (7 percent in favorability) from July 2021 to November 2022.

Each person’s unique lifetime of experiences has created certain built-in biases that shape our behaviors and how we see the world. In many cases, they are difficult to realize and overcome. Unconscious bias training is designed to help employees throughout our organization recognize, understand and manage hidden biases that can lead to poor decision-making and undermine our DE&I initiatives and goals. Our aim is to create a workplace culture where everyone is treated fairly and feels valued.

Invesco’s companywide unconscious bias training, which all employees were required to take, was first introduced to employees in 2020. Invesco will deliver an updated course to ensure equitable employee experiences continue to be prioritized.

Ongoing learning and development opportunities that advance DE&I across our organization are a core part of our strategy. In 2022, we hired a Learning & Development Senior Program Manager to lead these efforts. We also rolled out a refreshed set of Invesco Competencies and introduced a diverse high-potential talent initiative designed to create greater exposure, development and progression opportunities for high-potential diverse talent through senior leadership sponsorship.

Neurodiversity is an important aspect of our diversity programming. Neurodiverse individuals have talents, perspectives and skills that can be distinctly beneficial in many ways. In 2022, we continued to offer specific internship opportunities for neurodiverse individuals in EMEA.

In addition, our Neurodiversity Champions in EMEA ensure we foster an environment of inclusion for all types of information processing, learning and communication styles. In 2022, we trained 52 Neurodiversity Champions across EMEA. We also launched a North American chapter of our Invesco Neurodiversity Network BRG. In addition, we hosted several external speaker sessions on topics related to neurodiversity—exploring intersectionalities with our Invesco Working Families Network BRG, as well as our Ethnicity and Social Mobility workstreams.

As our Invesco Neurodiversity Network has grown, we have taken steps to better support our employees on the spectrum. We are working to create workplace adjustments as well as guidelines for requesting such adjustments. We have also partnered with the Business Disability Forum, an organization that advises businesses on how to become more disability-smart. They will help to ensure that our neurodiversity guidelines meet the highest standards and will be supporting us in achieving Disability Confident Leader (Level 3) status—the highest ranking under the U.K. government scheme.

In 2022, we laid the groundwork for Talks That Matter, a series of candid conversations based on the PwC model of “Days of Understanding,” which will launch in 2023. These facilitated, small-group discussions allow employees to safely discuss their views on real-world topics and help build a sense of inclusion and belonging among one another.

In our U.S. offices, we announced the launch of a racial equity audit to better understand the progress we’ve made, gaps in our business practices and how we can further improve. The assessment will include the following elements:

• Assess Invesco’s diversity efforts and the progress we’re making toward building a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace (e.g., hiring practices, retention, culture of inclusion).
  
  
• Understand our business practices, including diversity among third parties that do business with us (e.g., vendors) as well as the impact of our proxy voting approach.
  
  
• Research how Invesco interacts with and supports the communities in which we operate.

An employee steering committee will oversee the assessment, and the Invesco Ltd. Board and its Nomination and Corporate Governance Committee will oversee the assessment on behalf of the Board. Given the depth and breadth of the assessment we plan to undertake, we anticipate the entire process will take approximately one and a half years to complete. However, we will take proactive action on key learnings from the assessment as we make progress toward the final report.

Invesco has partnered with the University of Cambridge to complete a landmark research project that looks to build a holistic understanding of DE&I, specifically within the context of the investment management industry. This research commenced in 2022 with findings expected by the end of 2023.