Our experience shows that creating a firm where our people can be themselves leads to enhanced success, increases profitability, diverse decision-making and - quite simply - makes life more enjoyable.
Our 'BE YOURSELF' Strategy
If we aspire to build a culture where everyone can be themselves, we need to ensure that people feel they belong and are included at every point of their career at BDO. Our Be Yourself strategy is founded on our Core Purpose – helping you succeed – and allows us to check that at four levels: Leadership, Culture, Selection and Development.
What does this mean in practice?
It means we value you as an individual and want you to realise your aspirations. We know that if you bring your ‘full self’ to work and feel a sense of belonging, you are far more likely to be successful. You have a voice and your opinion counts.
Gender Balance
As part of our commitment to Gender Balance, we are proud to be signatories of the HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter. This is a commitment by HM Treasury and signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fair financial services industry.
When we signed up to the Charter in 2019, we originally set the ambition of 20% by July 2021. Since achieving this in November 2021 (with a slight delay due to the impact Covid-19), we set our new ambition of 30% female partners by the end of 2030.
Our definition of ‘senior management’, in relation to the Charter, includes all of our salaried and equity partners. As at September 2023 we have 22% female representation in senior management and are on track to meet our 2030 ambition.
By signing up to the Charter, we have committed to:
We are focused on gender balance and increasing representation, particularly at senior levels, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is vital for the culture, sustainability and performance of the firm.
Diversity and Inclusion Networks
Well-represented groups with strong and prominent role models are important throughout BDO.
We embrace individuality along with collaborative working; Being Collaborative is critical between our networks. We believe that ‘difference’ is what makes us great and what strengthens our team, which is why we foster an inclusive culture at BDO that encourages people to be themselves
Race in the workplace
During the year, we announced an important new ambition for representation in terms of race and ethnicity. By the end of 2026, 10% of our partnership will be from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic heritage and, of that, 10% will be of Black heritage.
This is a real step in the right direction and one that I fully support as we move towards making the partnership more representative of the wider community that we serve.
Race Action Plan: Our 5 Commitments
Social Mobility
Improving social mobility and socio-economic diversity in our profession and society as a whole is a complex but important issue. We know BDO must play a role in helping to achieve this and that’s why we have a formal social mobility strategy in place, designed to make a real impact.
Our Social Mobility programmes and partnerships aim to create opportunities for young people, no matter what their background, who they know or where they are from. This includes our own annual targeted virtual insight programme ‘Explore BDO’, providing mentoring and skills workshops through to the ICAEW’s RISE programme and our partnership with social mobility charity Leadership Through Sport & Business, supporting young people from less privileged backgrounds to kick-start their careers in business.