Mizuho is proud to be a founding signatory to the Women in Finance Charter. The Charter represents a genuine commitment by HM Treasury and signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fair industry that reflects the government's aspiration to see gender balance at all levels across financial services firms.
In March 2016, the UK government, via Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT), launched the WIFC. The aim is to encourage the financial services industry to improve gender balance in senior management. The Charter now has more than 400 signatories covering 950,000 employees across the financial services sector.
The four principles of the WIFC are:
- Having one member of the senior executive team who is responsible for gender diversity and inclusion;
- Setting internal targets for gender diversity in senior management;
- Publishing progress annually against these targets on a page on the company’s website dedicated to their Charter commitment; and
- Having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity.
Mizuho as a Founding Signatory
We are proud of our status as one of the founding signatories of the WIFC. As of end of September 2023, we had 23.2% female representation in senior management roles.
We remain strongly committed to our pledge and to making positive sustainable change. As such we have set a future aspirational target of 33% of senior management roles being held by females, by September 2030.
Our People & Culture
The success and reputation of the Group is driven by the commitment, engagement and integrity of our people. We recognise that people are our most important asset, and as such employee wellbeing and embedding an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive and be their authentic selves, is at the heart of all we do.
Our People strategy is delivered through a number of key levers: talent attraction and assessment, learning and development; a reward strategy incentivising the delivery of our growth strategy and meeting changing regulations; and a culture of inclusivity, diversity and equity. In line with MHFG’s corporate philosophy, we aim to operate responsibly and transparently with foresight and enabling our people to flourish.
The Group defines its culture based on the core value from Mizuho Financial Group as “be a catalyst for change”. Underpinning this are five values, integrity, passion, agility, creativity and empathy, and the following arrangements and initiatives support this culture.
Senior commitment to Inclusion & Diversity
The Senior Leadership remain fully committed to the Group’s inclusion and diversity agenda and receive regular updates on our progress including in relation to gender. Senior Leadership continue to have objectives set which hold them accountable for achievements towards internal targets. Our head office in Tokyo also has its own targets in relation to gender balance and their commitment is demonstrated by their inclusion in the 2022 Bloomberg Financial Services Gender–Equality Index for the sixth year running.
Talent Attraction
Junior talent attraction
One of our key drivers is strengthening our junior talent pipeline. We run a number of development programmes designed to support and nurture this population including an Intern programme, Graduate programme and a number of Apprenticeship programmes.
Focusing on Socio-Economic Diversity
As an employer committed to having a diverse workforce with equity of opportunity for all. We are actively seeking to better understand the profile of our employees and get a better understanding of who our employees are and how we can support them. This in turn enables us to understand the dynamics of our population and therefore utilise our company resources in a targeted manner to best support our employees. We are seeking to have an engaged and diverse workforce who add diversity of thought to the organisation. Such information will help us consider areas of under-representation and develop actions to address these, making positive changes and help inform future planning and policies. It also helps us assess any potential impact of decisions on different populations and to identify potential areas for improvement.
Creating a supportive and inclusive workplace
We are making great strides in embedding a culture of equity and inclusiveness and recognise the role this has to play in achieving a truly inclusive and diverse culture. The following initiatives form part of our winning culture, which inspires trust and aims to increase diversity of thought.
Employee Networks
Our Inclusion Network is comprised of five EMEA wide networks of Cultural Diversity, Family, Future Leaders, Gender and Pride. Collaboration across the networks allows us to take an intersectional approach to inclusion to drive real culture change. Our Inclusion Network supports our employees to create connections across the business, highlighting role models and establishing a culture where all of our employees feel able to bring their authentic selves to work. These employee resource groups play a central role in informing our policy and ensuring the needs of our people are better understood. The networks continue to play a vital role in our employee engagement strategy.
Flexible Working
We continue to further embed our supportive and inclusive workplace culture which is supplemented by a range of competitive family friendly policies and the promotion of flexible working. We support Hybrid working practices with elements of homeworking as standard, along with the option of utilising our core hours policy. This policy allows employees flexibility in how they manage their working hours. The move to flexible working no longer being solely associated with primary carers and mothers is a critical one, and the ability to capitalise on agile working solutions enables us to unlock increases in innovation, engagement and productivity.
Menopause
We have continued our focus and commitment to supporting our staff who are impacted by the menopause. Our company frameworks include menopause as a way of life, and the provision of bespoke support for our employees and their partners around menopause. This focus supports all our employees to have fulfilling roles at every stage of their careers and aims to ensure we retain our key talent.
My Family Care
We are pleased to continue partnering with My Family Care to offer a range of benefits to our employees including six free sessions of emergency back-up care for children, adults or the elderly. By providing this support to all employees, we enable them to better balance work and family life and remove some of the pressures associated with modern life.
Talent Development and Mentoring
Our comprehensive development suite, which supports our inclusive culture, incorporates an Inclusive Leadership Programme for our leaders. The Elevate leadership development programme is entering its third year. This is a programme for women across the EMEA region, who are looking to enhance their skills, widen their internal profiles and work on specific development goals. Nurturing our female talent through programmes such as this ensures we are building a strong pipeline of women into senior management roles. This in turn means we have role models for the next generation of talent.