The Ignite initiative was first announced to the bank’s employees in December and officially launched in February.
It consists of four workshops which are focused on awareness, development, relationships and impact. Delegates of each workshop will complete self-awareness profiles and questionnaires to help them with their development, particularly confidence building.
Guest speakers from across the business, including members of Paragon’s executive committee, will present at the sessions to share their experiences regarding issues like imposter syndrome, growth mindset and creating impact.
Each delegate will also be assigned a mentor from the bank’s senior leadership team.
Identifying the need for support
Fal Naik (pictured), EDI chair and learning and development manager at Paragon, said: “The motivation for establishing the Ignite Programme came from feedback provided by Paragon employees from listening circles hosted by Paragon’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Network.
“The listening circles held during the past 12 months on race, gender, LGBTQ+ and disability inclusion highlighted a lack of self-confidence amongst some attendees, coupled with a limited ability to champion self-development in the workplace. Ignite was created to address these issues and aims to ensure that everyone can progress in their career, regardless of their background.”
Following feedback from the sessions, Naik designed the Ignite programme.
She reached out to Paragon’s executive committee to make sure the programme had support from its senior leaders. They expressed their commitment and enrolled as mentors.
Ignite was then announced on Paragon’s staff intranet, The Hub, and employees were invited to apply.
Naik this received a “great response”.
She added: “The feedback so far has been extremely positive, and delegates are really engaged with the programme.
“It’s also been great to get buy-in from our senior leadership team who are looking forward to meeting their mentees and supporting their development during the programme.”
Naik said it was too soon to see the tangible benefits of the programme but regular reviews were being held so it could be refined if needed.
Progress Together
Ignite builds on Paragon’s wider EDI strategy, Naik said, and being a founding member of Progress Together works in conjunction with this.
Richard Rowntree, managing director of mortgages at Paragon, helped to form Progress Together. This is a membership body that aims to improve socio-economic progress, retention and diversity in the financial services sector.
Naik added: “Progress Together has been really successful, particularly in how senior figures in financial services have shared their own experiences in quite an open way, so I would say it has certainly inspired the development of the Ignite programme and will continue to do so.”
Going forward, Naik said Paragon wanted to carry on receiving feedback on Ignite so it could support under-represented groups and develop ideas.
