Stakeholder engagement
We’re committed to engaging with our stakeholders in a transparent and collaborative manner. We believe that effective stakeholder engagement is essential to our success as a business and our ability to create long-term value for all our stakeholders. We recognise that our stakeholders play a crucial role in shaping our business practices and decisions. We value their input and feedback and actively seek to understand their perspectives and concerns.
Here we identify our different stakeholder groups and explain how we maintain an open and constructive dialogue with them.
Clients - building trusted client relationships
We engage at multiple levels with our clients, most notably via the Executive Sponsor, Client Relationship, and Client Service Directors. While our preferred channel is face-to-face to discuss day-to-day business and strategic initiatives, we also engage at internal and external conferences and use video and email to ensure that our clients are kept up to date.
Our listening programme, “Know You”, provides valuable independent feedback on our service quality and key strategic initiatives which we use to continually improve our service and product offering for our clients.
Business Partners and Intermediaries – deepening valuable relationships
Other key stakeholders are our Business Partners and Intermediaries, who also work very closely with our clients. We regularly engage with this group generally face-to-face but also remotely and online and at industry and IQ-EQ events and conferences. An example of this is our annual Crossroads event, which in 2024 discussed the topic of ‘Is the financial sector future-proofed.’ In 2023 the topic was ‘Conscious Capitalism’.
We value and work hard to build on the authentic relationships we have with this stakeholder group, many of which have been built over time. We know that delivering on our promise is key to deepening this relationship, which is why we regularly invite them to participate at key internal events such as at our annual commercial conference.
Asking for direct feedback and finding out what’s important to them ensures we deliver on the service quality promises we make and also keeps us true to our own values of authenticity, boldness and collaboration.
Know You, our listening programme, also includes business partners.
Our people - developing and engaging with our talent
Each year we ask employees to take part in a group-wide employee engagement survey conducted by Gallup, which is entirely anonymous and confidential. The survey provides feedback from the team to the manager so they can work on their challenges together.
We encourage our employees to share ideas and ways to improve processes through our Ideas Channel. We also use other communication channels including surveys, focus groups, email communications, Athena our intranet, and closed social media channels.
Finally, internal learning sessions providing our employees with opportunities to learn about initiatives we’re running within the business, and the various products and services that we offer to clients.
Suppliers - create mutual value and more resilient supply chains
We ask our suppliers to participate in joint innovation and continuous improvement initiatives and host events such as IQ-EQ Crossroads, to support SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth.
We also invite key clients and business partners into our business to speak at first hand to our people so that together we work to build lasting and mutually beneficial relationships.
Investors – advancing transparency, trust, and long-term value creation
We share timely and accurate information about our performance, strategic direction, risk management practices and regularly seek feedback through Board and committee meetings. European investment firm Astorg is a long-term and majority investor in our business and has supported our development and championed our sustainability and ESG evolution.
Regulators – building trust and confidence
We proactively address any regulatory concerns or issues, review and enhance controls of acquired businesses, expect all employees, suppliers, clients, and stakeholder to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
We’ve a proactive horizon scanning approach involving the systematic monitoring and assessment of emerging regulations, trends and potential threats, allowing us to develop strategic responses to mitigate risks in a timely and compliant manner.
By fostering a culture of continuous improvement and creating transparent and efficient communication channels across regions and jurisdictions, we ensure regulatory concerns are promptly identified and addressed, maintaining organisational integrity and trust.
Communities – encouraging collaboration, inclusion and sustainability
Through CHESS we develop partnerships and collaboration between IQ-EQ employees and third parties in the communities where we operate. CHESS is an employee led initiative which we rolled out globally in 2023.