2020
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
We, at SMBC Aviation Capital, are a mosaic of unique individuals whose distinctive talents, backgrounds and diverse opinions result in better diversity of thought and better decision making.
It has been recognised for many years that the aviation industry is not a strong performer when it comes to diversity. Aircraft leasing is no different. While we are conscious of this at SMBC Aviation Capital, we recognised that we had to put formal structures in place to follow through on our intentions to advance the diversity agenda.
In reviewing the statistics, there is diversity across the organisation, however, we recognise that we can and need to do better. We must build a company for the future that is diverse and inclusive in all its forms because this will make for a better business and a better industry.
This has led us to establish Mosaic, our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) committee. The name was chosen by staff and was inspired by Jimmy Carter’s quotation “We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”
We seek to champion diversity by embracing and celebrating the distinctive backgrounds of our worldwide team.
The establishment of a committee was simply our recognition of the need to ensure greater structure, governance and ongoing oversight of this important aspect of our organisation. It was important to create the right foundations for change and that means bringing all of our employees on the EDI journey from the very beginning.
The first step was to find out what our global workforce of 47 different nationalities based in 10 global offices, felt about EDI. We needed to know what was important to us and we put a lot of time into finding out.
The results, undertaken independently, found that while we felt valued, we needed to advance our diversity and inclusion agenda.
Those findings were borne out by staff focus groups which showed that we should be more open to concepts like agile working and to elevate our sense of being a truly cohesive global company.
When Mosaic was launched on International Women’s Day in March 2020, it set out to address three strands in the initial phase. These were embracing individuality, one global office, and generating awareness.
Embracing individuality involved finding out what was important to us as employees and to look at ways to meet our needs and expectations.
One global office means ensuring that everyone feels they are working for the same company and has the same opportunities for advancement and opportunities regardless of where they are working.
The third strand is the continuing task of generating and amplifying awareness around EDI.
We have achieved many of our first year objectives since our launch with our first event being a panel discussion with other companies who are further along the EDI journey than us. We have held online awareness events on autism in the workplace, the experiences of female pilots, and we have celebrated Pride Month.
I was selected to chair Mosaic. As an engineer, I have always been aware of the gender imbalance in technical roles in the aviation industry. Both society and the industry needs to take proactive steps in order to address this imbalance and to promote engineering at primary school level. This year, we ran our second annual Engineers Week event where we helped pupils from a local girls DEIS school (Delivering Equality and Opportunity in Schools) understand the benefits and opportunities of a career in science and engineering.
Covid-19 has taught us a lot about what can be achieved through e-working. It’s been exceptional how everyone has adapted so quickly and seamlessly to it. A recent survey of our people managers revealed that most will facilitate some form of agile working for their teams when we return to office based working.
We are currently developing a revised and more comprehensive policy on agile working. We aim to give people the opportunity to work in the environment that suits their personal circumstance while continuing to support the business in meeting its objectives.
Our objective is to create a workplace that is representative of the society we live in. Everything is on the table for us as we work to instigate positive actions in pursuit of that objective.
As a committee, we recognise the support of Barry Flannery, our CFO and sponsor, and Peter Barrett, as CEO, along with our executive leadership team. This demonstrates our recognition of diversity as a critical enabler to advancing our vision, mission and delivery of our goals.
Indeed, the leadership team has set EDI as one of our proactive strategies as a business for 2020/2021. We will continue to drive it forward because we are aware of the benefits that it can bring. We recognise that is a journey, and we are committed to it.
Eimear Pepper
VP Technical Asset Management and chair of Mosaic