J.P. Morgan, Finalist 2016, The Centrica Best for Modern Families Award
Key features
- A wide ranging approach to diversity covering recruitment, employee networks, provision of faith rooms and support for those on global assignments.
- Investment in modern families, providing private medical insurance that subsidises fertility treatment as well as investing in staff networks.
- Staff networks are taken seriously and respected with nearly 40 per cent of EMEA staff belonging to at least one.
- Monitoring of protected characteristics to identify and respond to challenges people face throughout their careers with the company.
At J.P. Morgan the approach to recruiting and retaining people with modern family lives is comprehensive and wide-ranging. It starts with recruitment where a varied range of strategies are used to ensure recruitment is from the widest pool of talent possible. This includes targeted advertising through Stonewall, Timewise and EmployAbility and through universities known for their part-time courses and high proportion of mature students. All J.P. Morgan advertisements use inclusive imagery, particularly demonstrating support for LGBT equality, disability equality and support for older candidates. J.P. Morgan is also careful to ensure that gender-neutral language is used and promotes the fact that it is an inclusive employer widely.
A particular feature of J.P. Morgan’s approach is the collaboration with expert bodies to ensure staff get the most informed support. For example, working with Stonewall, Europe’s largest LGBT charity, J.P. Morgan’s well-funded working families employee network, together with PRIDE, the network for LGBT staff, ran two workshops in 2015 to support employees who wish to navigate the field of adoption and surrogacy. Other workshops have tackled issues specific to parenting LGBT youth, including a workshop titled ‘So you think your child is gay…’. These workshops have provided employees with a source of peer-to-peer support and guidance around issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.
J.P. Morgan employs approximately 240,000 employees globally in more than 40 countries. Consequently, they have an extensive network of employees. They have a dedicated team that handles employee relocation from start to finish, providing guidance on local cultural norms and customs so that the employee can easily adapt. Where relocation of the family isn’t possible (such as when LGBT staff relocate to the Middle East) every effort is taken to ensure that an employee gets regular contact with their family. In cases where an employee turns down an overseas assignment due to personal reasons, the firm makes every effort to ensure the employee does not suffer career detriment by identifying a suitable alternative posting.
J.P. Morgan provides faith rooms at every location that can be used by people of any faith. During the month of Ramadan, the company provides transport for Muslim employees to the nearest mosque to observe prayers during the working day.
Fundamental to J.P. Morgan’s approach is monitoring to track the various protected characteristics, including gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. This enables the company to identify if there are specific challenges faced by any of these groups in recruitment, appointment, development, promotion or retention – and to devise appropriate strategies to address any identified issues.
