Annual report 2018: Laura Hinton, Chief People Officer, transcript

The future of work is changing fast, and so too are our clients’ needs.  We know that our people are our biggest strength as a business and that’s why we’re focused on helping to empower them to be the best that they can be, based on what we know matters most to them.

So we’ve invested in technology such as, Workday, Google and Salesforce and this is really helping us to create the right culture, so that our people can work flexibly and in different ways.

We also continue to push ourselves to make sure our that our culture is as inclusive as possible.  As we know, we all perform at our best when we’re able to be ourselves. We’ve taken bold steps on the issues that we know matter most to our people, such as banning all male short lists for external hires, being one of the first firms to report its ethnicity pay gap, sponsoring Pride in London and setting an action plan to advance social mobility.

Care is one of our core values at PwC, we want everyone to be able to feel confident to speak up about important issues, such as their own wellbeing.

Our Green Light to Talk campaign is all about encouraging people to have conversations about mental health.  We’ve also partnered with the Samaritans to develop mental health well-being training, to equip our people with the skills to listen and help each other.

The changing nature of work will demand new skills and that’s why we’ve invested in a new learning and development platform that gives our people control of how and when they learn, providing them with the power to develop new skills at their fingertips.

We’ve also held our biggest ever events for our people managers, to give them the right tools and skills to empower the people that they manage, to reach their full potential and prepare them for the future.

Focusing on building a sustainable and diverse pipeline of future talent is also really important.  Our technology apprenticeship degrees, with 5 universities across the UK, combine a traditional university experience with on the job training.  They open up new routes to our profession for more young people from diverse backgrounds.

Our Tech She Can charter, now supported by over 50 organisations will help ensure that more young women are inspired to pursue technology careers and therefore bringing greater diversity to the sector.

The current backdrop of disruption brings both opportunities and threats.  At PwC we know that it’s the human difference - our people - that will make the biggest difference, to both our own and our clients success and that’s why we’re investing to ensure that our people feel empowered to be the best that they can be, now and in the future.