PwC’s celebration of LGBTQ+ progress, and recognising work that is yet to be completed
PwC is proud to support the British LGBT Awards, and celebrate the progress made by this inspirational community, as we also recognise the work that has yet to be completed to increase equity and equality for LGTBQ+ people.
We are first and foremost a people business – that includes being a workplace where LGBTQ+ talent thrives. Inclusion is a priority for us not only because we need the best talent to bring truly diverse and inclusive thought to solve our clients’ most pressing challenges, but because it is the right thing to do in our business and in society.
We work our LGBTQ+ and ally network, Shine to better understand how our LGBTQ+ colleagues experience our culture, what more we can do to attract and progress LGTBQ+ talent, and to define our strategic roadmap for LGBTQ+ inclusion. We analyse data in our systems to identify trends, and in our staff survey responses to understand patterns of how people feel. We use these to inform interventions that improve how LGBTQ+ people experience our business and our culture.
To track our progress, we’ve set targets for ourselves and publicly report on our progress and our core programmes in our Annual Report and Non-financial scorecard each year.
In 2022, we published our sexual orientation pay gap for the first time, joining our pay gap reporting for gender, ethnicity, disability and social mobility. Using data is key to holding ourselves to account to building the diverse workforce we are striving to achieve, and to informing our strategic people actions.
For all demographics we draw insight from people statistics and from base data. This has driven our focus on supporting LGBTQ+ people to feel safe and secure to disclose sensitive data like sexual orientation and gender identity. Examples of how we have supported and celebrated LGBTQ+ people this year include:
- The publication of our sexual orientation pay gap for the first time in 2022, which provides a baseline for measuring our progress and against which we will hold ourselves to account.
- Our pronouns campaign across all of our offices, for all of our people and visitors, which allows them to take a pronouns pin which best describes them, and provides information to all about why pronouns are important.
- The #Inspirational50, a celebration of 50 people who have inspired us to be our authentic selves to mark 50 years of Pride in the UK. The nominees included staff, clients and friends of all grades and seniority showing that inspiration is linked to passion not grade.
- Working with our clients to support their inclusion journeys – in everything from joint panels and round tables, to hosting conferences, and to coaching their own LGBTQ+ networks – in the knowledge that this benefits their people, our teams, and wider society.
- Our support for charities and organisations who exist to support the LGBTQ+ community, and
- Celebrating and profiling our LGBTQ+ people, to materially show LGBTQ+ people who are less comfortable being out at work, that they can be themselves and succeed at PwC.
Collectively our approach has driven over 60% growth of our LGBTQ+ network since 2020, with our highest ever levels of LGBTQ+ disclosure. Our role models regularly lead the conversation on inclusion across our firm, and are championed by their teams and clients.
People who have different experiences bring innovation, creativity and a fresh perspective, and we are incredibly proud of our people who are continuously working to grow LGBTQ+ equity and accelerate change. We are steadfast in our commitment to LGBTQ+ people at PwC, in our clients, and in wider society. To find out more go to www.pwc.co.uk/shine