Speaking on the Diversity and Inclusivity Finance Forum (DIFF) podcast, Edwards said the association’s WorkinginMortgages website which was set up following its diversity and inclusion (D&I) survey would act as a resource for those looking to enter the sector as people did not realise “what a fantastic, diverse and welcoming place it can be”.
She added: “It’s such a range of jobs you can do, next to none of which require any maths skills… the next steps of the WorkinginMortgages website are to continue providing some absolutely fantastic support and guidance on a range of topics.”
Edwards said people submitted case studies which could allow others to find out how those from diverse backgrounds felt about working in the sector.
AMI has also set up a mentoring platform on the website to connect people at all levels of business.
Edwards said: “The people who are able to enact policy might not have spoken to somebody who’s brand new to the industry for some time, so that interesting and new viewpoint is going to be very helpful.”
Nicola Goldie, head of national accounts at Virgin Money, said it would also help employees to move around the sector and added that there would be career fairs held to bring people in.
Responding to worldwide events
When asked what work the sector was doing following the MeToo and Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements, Goldie said various lenders were already beginning their individual D&I activities.
She said host Bharat Sagar prompted activity within trade bodies following a speech he made in 2021 which highlighted the need to reflect the intermediary market and the customers it served.
The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association subsequently set up its inclusion and diversity group.
Edwards said she spoke to Rob Sinclair, CEO of AMI, who wanted to act on the concerns raised by conversations at the time.
She added: “They [AMI board] were very aware of the fact that they were lacking diversity both in terms of women and people from an ethnic background and they tried to address it before, but they kept hitting stumbling blocks in that there just weren’t really many women or people from minority backgrounds in senior management levels from a lot of companies.
“They were in a position where they knew they wanted to enact change but really needed to figure out where we were as an industry. So that drove them to conduct the viewpoint survey.”
It also made them look at other areas such as neurodiversity, disability and parents and carers.
Goldie, who was involved with the development of the AMI survey, said it garnered 1,500 responses which made for “uncomfortable reading” but was a really important indicator of where they needed to put a stake in the ground and move forward.
Once the responses were returned, AMI was able to put together clear actions.
Edwards said when she first joined, she was tasked with looking at the results and found it “not necessarily surprising but disappointing”.
Goldie said one of the stats which stood out stated that 54 per cent of women and 56 per cent of LGBTQ+, 52 per cent of ethnic minority people believe people like them are not represented at all levels of the mortgage sector.
“That’s a really disappointing stat, we really need to move the dial on that,” Goldie added.
Challenges will remain
Going forward, Edwards said the challenges around D&I would remain the same as it is such a “vast subject” and “there’s so much to consider”. However, she said there were resources which meant people would not have to solve this on their own.
She added: “All of our [WorkinginMortgages] volunteers are working on these projects alongside their stressful day jobs so sometimes progress is going to be constant but slow, and I think we just need to accept we won’t solve these problems overnight… and to try not to be disheartened by that. we can still see quantifiable evidence that things are progressing.
“People are hungry for change and that passion isn’t going anywhere. We need to be kinder to ourselves if we aren’t able to do things within a matter of weeks or months.”
Goldie said it was about harnessing the passion that was there and directing in areas where it was possible to make a difference while not neglecting other factors.
Listen to the podcast [32:34] hosted by Bharat Sagar, ambassador at large at AE3 Media, Rachel Edwards, senior policy adviser of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) and Nicola Goldie, head of national accounts at Virgin Money.
