Our commitment to tackling racial inequality

We’re committed to tackling barriers and discrimination that ethnic minority employees face in the workplace, and work to improve and create a representative organisation.

The PPF became an official signatory of the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter in 2019, which has helped us to shape our call-to-actions. We’re currently working towards targets of increasing black, Asian and minority ethnic representation to 30% across the organisation and 25% in senior leadership roles by December 2023.

We know there is still a lot of important work to do to achieve these targets and are actively taking steps to help us reach them. For Race Equality Week 2023, we’re sharing with you some of the recent actions we’ve taken within our organisation to help us move closer to achieving these targets.

A lot of these initiatives have been driven forward by our internal employee-led Race Action Group, who provide a safe space for PPF employees to share their perspectives, insights and proposals for a more inclusive organisation.  

One of the actions the Race Action Group is leading on is the facilitation of reverse mentoring. This enables employees, often senior leaders, in our organisation to be mentored by colleagues from an ethnic minority background, who, from a diversity and inclusion perspective, are different from them in some way, and therefore have different experiences. By doing so, this builds awareness of the barriers faced by ethnic minority employees, fostering a culture where all experiences, skills and ideas are leveraged. 

Additionally, the group have updated our internal online platforms to ensure the images and content reflect the diversity of our organisation. They’ve also reviewed our recruitment and retention rates to identify any potential barriers. 

As an organisation, we’ll be continuing our partnership with Investment 20/20 whose mission is to drive an inclusive investment industry where organisations attract, develop and retain talented people from all backgrounds. We’ve worked with Investment 20/20 to support our intern and apprenticeship recruitment, as well as on initiatives to raise awareness of investment roles within schools and colleges in Croydon and London.  

We’ve also introduced a new competency interview question that focuses on inclusion in the workplace, to ensure our new employees are just as committed to ensuring the PPF is an inclusive organisation.  

Despite the steps we‘ve taken already, there are still improvements we will make within the PPF to further our commitment to racial equality. This week we’re encouraging all our employees to think about what actions they can take to end racial inequality based on Race Equality Matters’ 5 day challenge framework.  

You can read more about the ways we’re aiming is to foster a workplace culture where everyone can be themselves and feel respected and valued for their differences, here.