Gen Z and millennials believe the financial services industry needs to be more diverse, a report has revealed.
Research from financial services forum, Everyone Matters found 57 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds think financial services firms need to employ people from more diverse backgrounds to tackle issues like climate change and biodiversity loss.
This can include people across sectors and with different backgrounds to avoid ‘groupthink’.
Everyone Matters is a new advocacy platform set up to promote more inclusive teams to help the industry address challenges impacting the future.
The research also highlighted the pensions industry needs to be doing “much more” to be addressing the issues above.
According to Everyone Matters, creative thinking is going to be a key priority for the financial services sector in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, based on a World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report.
Pat Sharman, co-founder at Everyone Matters, said: “It’s more apparent than ever before that we need to find ways to drive more creativity and transformational behaviour to address the big issues facing us today. Everyone has a part to play to help address the challenges from a changing world.
“Cognitive diversity in teams can enhance the ability to foresee and adapt to the multifaceted and evolving global challenges.
"The varied nature of risks, from climate to demographic changes, requires diverse perspectives for effective risk management and decision-making.”
This comes as Isabel Scavetta, co-lead of Inclusive Cyber at Global Shapers said branding everything as a diversity effort can make people weary and better outcomes could be achieved if diversity was integrated into firms' core structures.
alina.khan@ft.com
