Baillie Gifford – Culture Audit

Baillie Gifford

Baillie Gifford & Co is an investment management firm which is wholly owned by partners, all of whom work within the firm.

Business challenge

Baillie Gifford (BG), a UK-based private-partnership financial services organisation, partnered with In Diverse Company (IDC) to explore employee experiences of women, understand gender imbalances, and incorporate cultural changes to support women’s progression within the organisation. This initiative was spearheaded by The BShe Network, aiming to support women’s career progression, build awareness and allyship, and elevate BG’s external reputation as a gender-diverse leader.

The project involved the following steps:

Context Setting – Initial conversations to understand the data and conditions within the organisation.
Survey – A bespoke questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative questions distributed to all 1800 BG employees globally, focusing on demographics, inclusion, and employee experience.
Listening Groups – One-hour sessions with 10-12 participants to delve deeper into women’s experiences at BG, discussing barriers, support needs, allyship, and perceptions of the gender pay gap.
Analysis and Reporting – Detailed thematic analysis of qualitative data to generate themes based on raw data, providing a nuanced account of inclusion experiences and plans for women’s inclusion at BG.
Recommendations – Actionable recommendations provided to the BG project team, tailored for practical implementation.

Impact:

IDC’s findings revealed key areas for improvement and led to several significant outcomes for BG:

Enhanced awareness among employees and senior management about existing issues and challenges related to intersectionality within BG.
Identification of social mobility issues, leading BG to plan further investigations in partnership with IDC.
Active participation of senior leadership in ED&I discussions and activities, encouraging mid-level managers to embed ED&I into daily operations.
Formalisation of regular ED&I conversations in small teams and 1:1s, ensuring awareness and adherence to ED&I policies.
Implementation of periodic surveys and organisational studies to measure and enhance inclusion over time.

Results

Honest depiction of inclusivity within BG’s culture and its impact on intersectional identities (gender, ethnicity).
Insights into social mobility and the gender pay gap within BG.
Identification of underlying reasons for lack of support for older and women employees, and reasons for their attrition.
Pathway for future inclusion actions for board members, middle management, and employees.
Recommendations on leveraging senior partners for ED&I strategies, and embedding ED&I into the organisational fabric.

About the company:

GES Economists can be found working across all areas of the Civil Service, providing economic analysis and insight in support of the entire range of UK Government and public service activities. Supporting policy development, public service delivery, ministerial objectives, or meeting at pace the issues of the day.

Active participation of senior leaders in ED&I initiatives, driving cultural change throughout the organisation

Over 1800 employees participated in the survey, providing valuable insights into inclusion and gender experiences.

Story & quotes:

A White participant, for the very first time in her life, called out an act of racism that she witnessed outside the workplace. She felt that she was more equipped to do so after the session and felt confident in supporting the victim. Though she was extremely uncomfortable doing so, she did it and that was her starting point in this journey she plans to continue.

Maria was discussing how frontline workers, from marginalised backgrounds, were being targeted for racial abuse by the public. She said that this was an ongoing problem, where an elderly white woman refused to be served by anyone of colour, and Maria’s manager assisted the woman to be served by a white person instead of addressing the racism that his colleagues were being subjected to. Maria’s manager, a white man, was asked to intervene repeatedly but instead allowed the abuse from the customer to continue. Post the ARLO sessions, Maria felt emboldened by the content, and the fact that everyone had been on the course; she spoke to senior leadership above her manager, and they have decided to ban the elderly white woman from the building.

Next Steps

Following the project, a comprehensive report was published and can be accessed here.

“We had a great response to a recent panel discussion we ran about the results, and there was an appetite from a lot of colleagues to see the whole report.”