FSCS

Attraction and Recruitment

Public commitment

The FSCS promote inclusive and diverse recruitment policies and practices, including a commitment to recruit older talent.

This is evidenced by their public commitment to recruit more older workers as part of the Government One Million More campaign. Employers signed up to this campaign have set themselves a target to employ increasing numbers of older talent in their business by 2022.

They have also signed up to the Age-friendly Employer Profile, published on the independent website Renegade Generation sharing videos and stories of how older employees are supported and encouraged to develop their career options across the FSCS.

Recruitment Practices

The FSCS has a principle of open competition in its approach to resourcing and seeks to recruit the best candidate for the role based on merit. The recruitment and selection process ensures the identification of the person best suited to the job and FSCS.

When recruiting employees the FSCS aims to reach as wide a range of potential applicants as possible.

Specific evidence that the FSCS promotes age diversity in its recruitment practices are as follows:

  • All job vacancies are advertised using age neutral language
  • A variety of recruitment channels are used to source candidates, including the FSCS jobs site, agencies, LinkedIn, Indeed and Total Jobs
  • Third party job agencies used for shortlisting are monitored for age discrimination
  • Interview shortlists are monitored for age bias
  • References to date of birth, gender and images are removed from the application form
  • The selection process is criterion referenced
  • Equal Opportunities forms are used for monitoring age bias in the recruitment process
  • Interviewers are fully trained in unconscious bias and recruiting for diversity

Diversity and Inclusion

The FSCS recognises that a significant aspect of its commitment to Diversity and Inclusion lies in its policy and procedures for the recruitment and selection of employees.

They ensure that “no candidate is denied access to the recruitment process based on age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, pregnancy, maternity, race (which includes colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins), sexual orientation, religion or belief, or because someone is married or in a civil partnership.”

Recruitment Programmes

Apprenticeships

The FSCS encourages applications from all ages.

FSCS apprenticeships include Administrative Apprenticeships and Finance Apprenticeships.

Learn more about Apprenticeships in the U.K.

Learning and Development

Career Development

In addition to all employees having a Personal Development Plan using the ‘GROW’ Model, the FSCS offers additional career and learning opportunities to their over 45s. This consists of:

Mid-career Review Conversations

The FSCS offer mid-career review conversations to over 45s. The session takes a more holistic view of career development and how the FSCS can support them in whatever direction they'd like to take. The conversation forms part of the additional resources available during ‘Making the Most of Midlife’ Week to provide learning and resources that address the particular needs of an older audience.

‘Making the Most of Midlife’ Week

The FSCS has developed a customised approach to expanding the knowledge of older workers and their managers around midlife issues.

As well as looking at life at work covering such themes as career development and retraining, the FSCS offers guidance and support on financial education and planning, health and wellbeing and life at home. This incorporates issues such as caring, recognising and managing the menopause, writing wills, powers of attorney, inheritance tax, gifting, pension provision, trusts and empty nest syndrome.

Mid-career Transition Coaching

In 2018 the FSCS launched a new workshop, in partnership with Renegade Generation, to support over 45s with future career transitions, whether that be within the company or externally. The workshop explores eight key areas to consider and plan for in the future when contemplating any career transition. The key areas are: Relationships, Networks, Community, Financial, Using Skills, Sustaining Fitness, Purpose, and Emotional.

External Job Shadowing

The FSCS provide an opportunity for some employees to job shadow other roles and careers they may be interested in via Viewvo.

Equal Opportunities (Promotion and Performance Appraisal)

In order to ensure fair opportunities for career development and promotion the FSCS use equal opportunities monitoring, including age to ensure that older workers are not disadvantaged in the application and interviewing stage.

Diversity Training

As part of onboarding training and ‘Making a Difference’ day all FSCS employees receive unconscious bias training to emphasise the commitment to equal treatment of all. Diversity training is also included as part of the interviewing training and managing attendance courses.

Age audit

Data related to training, promotion and learning opportunities is monitored quarterly by age (as well as other characteristics) to ensure there is fair treatment of all employees.

Mentoring

The FSCS provides both internal and external mentoring opportunities to all ages of employee.

Intergenerational and Reverse Mentoring

The FSCS encourages intergenerational and reverse mentoring (mentoring between younger and older employees).

External Mentoring

The FSCS support a number of organisations through their mentoring support scheme, including:

  • Business in the Community - BAME Mentoring Circles
  • Tony Blair Institute for Global Change - Compass project
  • 30% Club

External mentoring opportunities are open to all employees.

Learning Resources

The People Team at the FSCS monitor the access to learning and use of learning resources. Any adaptations required to assist the learning process are available to all employees.

Digital literacy is supported as part of any new change process at the FSCS and all employees have access to resources to support their learning.

Rewards and Benefits

The FSCS offer a variety of fixed and flexible benefits and financial and non-financial rewards to all employees to help attract, retain and promote high levels of employee engagement within the organisation.

Benefits

‘My Flex’ is the FSCS Benefits Programme that allows employees to tailor their package of benefits to suit their individual needs on a rolling 12-month basis. What is important to one person may not be to others, so this approach means employees can chose what matters most to them. The benefits are divided into 5 categories: My Savings, My Wellbeing, My Lifestyle, My Money, My Deals.

Core (Fixed) Benefits

These are the core benefits paid for by the FSCS and provided to all employees:

My Savings:

  • Pension
  • Life Assurance
  • Income Protection/Critical Illness
  • Spouses’ Death in Service Pension
  • Access to an Independent Financial Advisor through the Pension Scheme (Scottish Widows)

My Wellbeing:

  • Private Medical Insurance (including partner and children)
  • Doctor Care Anywhere (Virtual GP)
  • Dental Insurance
  • Employee Assistance Programme
  • Free Eye test

My Lifestyle:

My Money:

  • An online tool to help employees monitor their personal expenses.

My Deals:

  • Employees can benefit from additional savings across many different online and high street retailers by using the FSCS retail discount website.

Non-Core (Flexible) Benefits

These are the non-core benefits available to all FSCS employees:

My Wellbeing:

  • Gym Flex

My Lifestyle:

Rewards: Pay

Equal Pay Statement

In the 2017/18 Annual Report the FSCS state that they are “committed to the principles of equality of opportunity in employment and believe that employees should receive equal pay for the same or broadly similar work, for work rated as equivalent and for work of equal value, regardless of age, disability, ethnicity or race, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, in accordance with the provisions of the Equality Act 2010.”

Gender Pay Gap

In the 2017/18 FSCS Annual Report it shows the FSCS have narrowed their gender pay gap since 2014 to 15.6% against an industry mean of 18.4%.

Pay Structures

FSCS seeks to achieve competitive, but not market leading, remuneration by setting salaries for individual roles in the light of benchmark information about median pay for equivalent roles in the wider economy.

Cash Bonuses (Past Performance)

The FSCS operate a non-guaranteed bonus scheme for all roles.

Give as you Earn Scheme

The FSCS have signed up to the Government Payroll Giving Scheme that allows employees to give money to charity without paying tax on it.

Rewards: Recognition

Employee of the Month Scheme

All employees can give their colleagues a virtual high five and these are made public on the internal communication network. Managers have access to small gifts such as gift tokens, chocolates and wine that they can give to their team members for a job well done.

Work Anniversary Recognition

The FSCS have a scheme that rewards key work anniversaries every five years.

Health and Wellbeing

Employees at the FSCS benefit from a number of Health and Wellbeing initiatives. Some of these initiatives are particularly useful and applicable to their older workers.

Health

The following preventative health initiatives are freely provided by the FSCS:

  • BUPA Health Screening to all employees who are 50 and above.
  • Breast screening for all employees 40 and above.
  • Access to Doctor Care Anywhere (Virtual GP)
  • Access to an employee assistance programme provided by AON
  • Access to an occupational health programme provided by AON
  • Access to UNUM for Mental Health counselling

Wellbeing

In addition to the preventative health initiatives the FSCS is active in promoting wellbeing within its workforce. It does this through a number of activities that include:

Physical and Mental Wellbeing

  • Programmes to train Mental Health First Aiders
  • Menopause support
  • Bereavement support
  • Access to yoga, mindfulness, massages in the workplace
  • A monthly newsletter on advice for work/life balance
  • Workshops on nutrition and healthy eating during national nutrition week

Workplace Ergonomics and Environment

The FSCS provides adjustments to both the employee workstations and the working environment to reduce the probability of physical and mental health issues. These include:

Ergonomic:

  • A display screen and workspace equipment check and necessary adaptations such as back supports and sad lamps
  • Access to an occupational health programme to create specialised exercise routines to reduce physical symptoms

Environmental:

  • Adaptations to lighting and sound around the workspace
  • Adaptations to internal resources to meet the needs of employees with physical disabilities
  • Adaptations to the office spaces to differentiate quiet and meeting zones

Age Diversity Monitoring

The FSCS are fully engaged in using data about employees, new recruits and candidates to ensure they retain and recruit a diverse workforce.

This information is published in the data section of their Age-friendly employer profile on www.renegadegeneration.com.

The data is monitored on a quarterly and annual basis to ensure that older workers are not discriminated against on grounds of their age.

The following key areas are scrutinised for age bias:

Recruitment

Vacancies

The total number of vacancies and those filled by older workers are monitored across the year to ensure there is diversity in the successful applications, as a percentage of total applications.

Applications

The FSCS provide multiple application channels for jobs including direct applications, agencies and job sites. All their vacancies are posted on the FSCS LinkedIn page. They are particularly careful to post advertisements that use appropriate language to ensure an unbiased interview selection process. No references to age or other potential discriminatory characteristics are included within the application process.

Workforce Demographics

This looks at the breakdown and ratio of young to older workers employed at the FSCS. The demographics are monitored by age group from youngest to oldest employee and by average age, to ensure diversity and an effective recruitment policy and reported on a monthly basis to the Board of Directors.

Retention

Training

Companies can be in danger of only providing learning and development opportunities to younger workers, thinking that older workers aren’t interested. The FSCS consciously monitors the number of learning and development sessions delivered to all their employees by age, ensuring older workers receive a fair quota of what is on offer.

Promotions

Succession planning and promotional opportunities are also monitored regularly to ensure equal opportunities for all demographics of employees, including age and gender.

Seniority

The FSCS regularly monitor the number of managerial positions by demographic, including age and gender, to ensure the validity of their equal opportunities policy.

Redeployment

Leavers

The demographic of company leavers is regularly monitored and exit interviews conducted to understand the reasons for the employee departure.

Redundancy

All possible scenarios for an employee redundancy would be investigated with options for redeployment or other solutions before a position was made redundant. Redundancies are monitored by demographics to ensure an unbiased and fair approach to the process.

Retirement

The FSCS offers varied retirement solutions should the employee wish to discuss this route. Retirement ages are monitored to ensure equal treatment and practice.

Grievance and disciplinary

All grievances are monitored to ensure age is not an underlying factor to any employee grievance or disciplinary action.

Employee Relations and Engagement

The FSCS actively promotes a number of policies and initiatives that support employees working flexibly in order to achieve a satisfactory work life balance. These are particularly useful for older employees who are trying to balance changing priorities such as caring for older relatives, spending more time with their family, reducing hours and/or responsibilities, or to develop their own interests outside of work.

The FSCS communicate these tools through their People Team and Line Managers to ensure they can support their employees to achieve a balance in their work and home life.

Caring for Carers

Access to Carer Resources

Carers can access resources to support their needs via their FSCS benefits partner, UNUM.

The FSCS provide up to 3 days of paid leave for Carers who have to deal with emergency situations.

Employee Carer Network

Although the FSCS do not have a Carer Network due to the size of the organisation, they are investigating other ways in which they can provide this service.

Leave

The FSCS is committed to helping employees who have responsibilities for dependents and believe that it is important for an employees overall health and wellbeing to have breaks from work.

Annual Leave

The core basic entitlement for all permanent employees is 26 days paid leave per annum plus the 8 public bank holidays designated in the UK.

Compassionate Leave

In exceptional circumstances compassionate leave can be granted for a maximum of 5 days paid leave.

Study Leave

The FSCS support career development for all employees and offers up to 5 days of paid study leave in a 12-month period, plus paid time off to sit exams.

Medical Appointments

Hospital appointments are included as paid time off, at the discretion of the People Team.

Public duties and Jury Service

For public duties the FSCS will pay up to a maximum of 10 days leave and all leave associated with having to attend court for Jury Service or as a witness.

Family Leave

This paid leave policy includes maternity, paternity, adoption, parental, shared parental and dependents leave.

Unpaid Leave

Employees can request to take unpaid leave if their standard annual leave and additional leave entitlements have been exhausted.

Flexible Working

The FSCS has a flexible working policy in place and actively promotes its use. Although there is no automatic right to work flexibly, they believe that unless proven otherwise, every job in the organisation can be done flexibly. Use of the policy is regularly monitored for discrimination. A number of options are available to all employees to enable flexible working including:

  • Remote Working/Working from Home
  • Reduced Hours
  • Compressed Hours
  • Part-time
  • Job share

Volunteering

Access to Volunteering/CSR days

The FSCS supports a number of charitable organisations by providing mentors. Employees can volunteer to take part in these schemes and in addition can make use of 2 days paid leave for volunteering on a project of their choice.

Secondments

Internal

Employees have the opportunity to be seconded to other teams and departments as part of the ongoing personal development programme.

External

Paid secondments to other members of the financial regulatory group (including Financial Conduct Authority, Bank of England, Financial Ombudsman Service) are available to FSCS employees.

Organisational Design and Culture

As gatekeepers of the organisation’s people data, the People Team at the FSCS sit across the organisation with the benefit of a systems-wide view, providing the team with a good understanding of the current people and business performance challenges. Armed with this data the team are able to identify, design and implement the appropriate opportunities to contribute to a more effective and engaging culture.

Many of the FSCS policies and initiatives are designed to encourage and enhance the cultural value of older workers, actively supported by the Board of Directors.

Organisational Design

Board Strategy

The FSCS Board of Directors is an active campaigner for age diversity across the organisation. This is evidenced through:

  • Membership of the Age Team at the Princes Responsible Business Network (Business in the Community).
  • HR Lead for Age Diversity
  • Finalists in the "Award for Championing an Ageing Workforce" 2017
  • Age diversity board reporting for recruitment, learning and development, retention, succession planning, promotions, remuneration and redeployment.

Learning and Development Culture

Training

The FSCS provides training to employees and line managers to promote age diversity and inclusivity. This includes:

  • Age diversity training for line managers
  • Unconscious bias training for all employees
  • Age diversity training as part of the onboarding programme for new employees.

Community

The FSCS have identified a number of older worker role models who are actively engaged in intergenerational mentoring.

Retirement Transitions

The effect of the removal of the Default Retirement Age in April 2011 has been positively embraced by the FSCS. A number of working practices, policies and initiatives within the organisation encourage employees to remain working for as long as they wish, with specific support from the business targeted at older workers.

The Mid-career Review Conversations triggered at 45 explore the many options available to employees to enjoy working for longer or retiring on their own terms.

Work Patterns

Flexible Working

The FSCS flexible working policy is used to create customised options for those looking for an improved work/life balance whilst still remaining at work. This includes an increase in remote working, flexible hours and flexible schedules.

Change of Contract/Role

There is also flexibility to change roles (e.g. reducing managerial responsibility) and to change the working contract (from employee to a project based contract work or to zero hours) to suit the needs of the employee.

Transitions

‘Making the Most of Midlife’ Week

The FSCS provides tools, resources and learning opportunities for employees to support their transition into the second half of their career. Workshops and talks provide support, information and encouragement to address specific age issues that can impact an older workers career. This includes:

  • Caring
  • Demystifying the Menopause
  • Financial education/setting financial priorities
  • Pensions advice
  • Wills, Power of Attorney
  • Legal aspects of retirement
  • Wellbeing

Mid-career Transition Coaching

During ‘Making the Most of Midlife’ Week employees can take part in a Mid-career Transition workshop. The workshop explores the 8 key areas to consider and plan for in the future when contemplating any career transition, including retirement. The key areas are: Relationships, Networks, Community, Financial, Using Skills, Sustaining Fitness, Purpose, and Emotional.

Retirement

Planned Retirement

For those employees considering retirement at the FSCS, additional support for planning their exit is provided by UNUM.

Early/Phased Retirement

Employees can choose to retire and access their pension from the age of 55. There are additional options to phase their retirement over a period of time agreed with the People Team. Employees do have the opportunity to alter their retirement plans should their circumstances change.

Alumni Network

Although there isn’t a formal Alumni network at the FSCS, colleagues can keep in touch with the business, post exit, with a view to re-engaging in future work opportunities.

 
FSCSMiko Coffey