Financial Empowerment

This blog is written by Rachel Duncan, HR Director, at Experian. At Experian, we encourage our employees to bring their whole selves to work and have created a culture of inclusion that helps to fuel our continued product innovation. We understand the incredible value in having a truly diverse workforce and this means removing barriers and working through challenges we all may face in and outside the workplace.   That’s why we are proud to be supporting Stonewall’s ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’ campaign today to help reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004. We believe that all trans people should be protected and supported with legal and policy framework that enables them to live with dignity, privacy and respect, free from fear, isolation and discrimination.  The GRA was introduced in 2004 to allow trans people to apply for legal recognition of gender in which they live. However, the process in doing so is expensive, intrusive and takes a very long time. To apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which allows someone to legally change their gender, the individual will have to overcome many psychological challenges and it can be very emotionally taxing.  It’s estimated that just 12% of trans people have a GRC, despite 92% of trans people stating in the National LGBT Survey (2018) that they would be interested in getting one. GRA reform is therefore a key step in allowing legal gender recognition to become accessible to this marginalised community.   The reform requests the removal of having to disclose a psychiatric report or proof of diagnosis in order to obtain legal recognition. It moves to allow trans people the human right to decide their gender for themselves and protect all trans and non-binary people’s rights to privacy and to family life.  As well as this, non-binary people should be able to legally change their gender to reflect who they are including amending their birth certificate to reflect this.  The reform should also include the removal of the spousal veto. This veto allows for the spouse of a trans person the decision as to whether they can change their gender and gives control over to someone who may not have their best interests at heart.  We are fully committed in ensuring LGBTQ inclusion which means, as well as evolving our own internal policies and practices, we must also contribute to external debates that campaign for equality.  Our Experian Pride network has been instrumental in helping us drive change throughout the business, whilst also educating and raising awareness amongst our colleagues about the LGBTQ community. This includes supporting a collaboration with Stonewall and our HR teams to create our new ‘Transitioning at Work’ policy, along with raising money for transgender charity, Mermaids.   Experian is part of a growing group of leading businesses who have joined forces to support trans equality, so we hope that together we can make a real difference to the lives of trans people across the UK. See our interview with Lewis Hayden, Service Desk Specialist and Experian Pride Network Member.

Today kicks off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The Experian Asian American Employee Resource Group (ERG) is proud to recognize this special month by sharing how Experian is supporting a national campaign to address the adversity facing some of our most at-risk communities right now. Experian has joined ten non-profits and more than 80 companies from across industries and sectors nationally to support the #AscendTogether action agenda. It includes promoting inclusion, raising awareness of vulnerable groups, denouncing bias, supporting frontline healthcare workers, COVID-19 victims and families, and donating funds and resources to support vulnerable populations and impacted businesses. Led by Pan-Asian leadership nonprofit Ascend, this effort is designed to bring about unity at a time when fear about COVID-19 has led to rise of intolerance and racist acts, particularly against the Asian and Asian-American community. Experian is proud to step up as a leader in our industry to participate in this effort. As executive co-sponsors of Experian’s Asian American ERG, we hope you will join us in our efforts to be a champion for diverse communities, especially during this time. You can learn more about #AscendTogether here. Written by: Dacy Yee, Chief Customer Officer ECS Direct-to-Consumer and Jimmy Cheung, Senior Vice President of Technology and Engineering

We are proud of our workplace culture at Experian North America. Today, we released our third annual inclusion and diversity “2019 The Power of You” report. We encourage our employees to bring their whole selves to work and have created a culture of inclusion that helps to fuel our continued product innovation. Our Power of You movement began in 2017 to raise awareness about our efforts around inclusion and to provide employees with greater transparency of the initiatives that are part of this program. Progressive policies across a wide range of initiatives such as pay equity, paternal leave, flexible working arrangements and corporate social responsibility help to make our employees feel proud, committed and empowered to work at Experian. “Diversity of background, of experience and of thought bring new ideas to our organization which foster the innovation that helps to improve the lives of consumers every day. Our culture of inclusion and diversity underpins our business success which, underpins what our brand stands for,” said Craig Boundy, former CEO of Experian North America. “With the launch of our ‘2019 The Power of You’ report, we are excited to share how our inclusive workplace is helping to drive our culture of innovation.” Some highlights of our 2019 report include: We have 1,200 women in STEM positions 47% of new hires are women and 44% are non-white Women and men are promoted equally We created our newest ERG, Aspire, which focuses on mental health and physical disability awareness and caregiving We have a total of eight ERGs with 1,200 active participates Employees participate in events including charity walks, fundraising events, and toy and food drives, among others Events recognize International Women's Day, Veteran’s Day, the Lunar New Year, National Coming Out Day, Cinco de Mayo, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Black History Month, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Hispanic Heritage Month and Diwali, among others Employees spent more than 12,000 hours volunteering With the support of our employees, we donated more than $10,000 for California wildfire relief to the Red Cross Employees packed a total of 65,880 meals volunteering with Rise Against Hunger locations in Costa Mesa, Allen and Franklin, California We currently have 38 clubs with 800 members We rolled out a new Paid Family Care Leave Program, expanding on our existing Paid Parental Leave Program Additional programs include the launch of a new, enhanced Employee Assistance Program, which offers a greater level of resources and benefits for mental and behavioral health for employees and families and the Experian Hardship Fund, launched in 2018 to help employees who are facing financial hardship. We continued our Humans of Experian video series, which highlights the stories of employees who have unique backgrounds that enhance the diversity of our company. We also had hundreds of our employees from throughout the organization volunteer to personally evaluate Experian Boost™. Employees participated in this program because they believed in the product’s potential to help millions of Americans. At Experian, we continuously foster a culture of development and growth and we have various forms of mentorship, career paths and leadership programs to support our employees. Our commitment to creating an inclusive workplace has also received numerous accolades. We were named one the 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2020 and one of the Best Workplaces for Diversity in 2020 by Fortune and Great Place to Work. Additionally, for the second consecutive year, we were awarded a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2020 Corporate Equality Index. Experian was also named a Top Workplace in 2020 in Orange County, Calif., by the Orange County Register for the seventh consecutive year, and one of the world's most innovative companies by Forbes magazine for five years. A copy of this year's report can be found here.  

At Experian we’re proud of our culture and commitment to honoring, practicing and celebrating the values of diversity and inclusion. Which is why we’re especially thrilled to be starting the year with some remarkable honors in recognition of our culture. Fortune and Great Place to Work have named Experian North America as one of the Best Workplaces for Diversity. Additionally, for the second year, Experian was awarded a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index. Each year, Fortune honors 100 companies in the U.S. that do the most to create inclusive cultures for women, people of color, LGBTQ people, employees who are Boomers or older, and people who have disabilities. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index is a national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees, and Experian has earned the distinction of “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality.” We’re extremely proud of these awards and the culture we’re building here at Experian. We truly believe in embracing inclusion and diversity and celebrating the differences among our employees. Through our Power of YOU inclusion and diversity commitment, we seek to create an environment where everyone is comfortable bringing their whole self to work, regardless of differences or backgrounds. As part of this effort, we have a variety of initiatives including eight Employee Resource Groups, which are sponsored by Experian and led by our employees. Additionally, everyone across the company is encouraged to play a key role in the creation of our latest innovative products. For example, this past year, we launched Experian Boost™, a free, first-of-its-kind, consumer-controlled tool that has the potential to impact an individual’s financial health for the better. Hundreds of employees from throughout the organization volunteered to personally evaluate Experian Boost because they believed in the product’s potential to help millions of people across the U.S. Throughout the past few years, Experian has received numerous accolades for our workplace and culture, including being named a Top Workplace in Orange County, Calif., by the Orange County Register for the seventh consecutive year, and being named one of the world’s most innovative companies by Forbes magazine for five years.  Our ongoing goal is to further an inclusive and innovative workplace, which helps contribute to greater financial health and inclusion for everyone.  

For the past seven years, Experian’s perennial presence on the Orange County Register’s list of Top Workplaces has been the cause for real celebration across our workforce, making this year more special with added honor of receiving the Award of Excellence for its corporate values. “We embrace strong corporate values and celebrate a diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. This diversity of thinking and the way we harness it at Experian helps to fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business,” said Craig Boundy, former chief executive officer of Experian North America. “This award is a credit to all the talented people who work here at Experian, bringing a strong drive to perform around a shared mission.” We celebrate our diversity through a range of fun, engaging and informative cultural events, including those supported by our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).  Employees can also join one of our many social clubs to share interests with colleagues, or volunteer with nonprofit organizations to give back to the communities of which Experian supports.  Our culture of inclusion is truly something to celebrate and that’s because of every single person who makes up the Experian family and brings our brand to life every day. Experian’s mission is to create a better tomorrow through data, connecting consumers and businesses with more opportunities than ever before. This is supported by our culture of continuous innovation, from the way we work to the solutions we create. This commitment to innovation has helped us create a workplace where our teams across the world have a desire to help change the lives of millions for the better. The diversity of thinking across Experian, and the way in which we harness it, helps fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business.  This makes our work relevant to our consumers and clients, adding more value in their own lives – creating a better tomorrow for them. As part of this, our culture works to connect employees to our brand, by involving them in the creation of new products and services. This has had a tremendous positive impact with employees providing valuable feedback and creating advocacy among team members. For example, when developing Experian Boost, which has helped millions of people raise their credit scores, we first beta-tested and shared the innovation internally and were able to garner valuable feedback and support from employees. As a result, we’ve seen tremendous success since the launch of Experian Boost earlier this year. Innovation and Business Success Our culture of diversity and inclusion has enabled Experian to grow and evolve while remaining at the forefront of innovation. For more than 40 years, Orange County has been the heart of our North America operations. We’ve remained focused on developing a culture that achieves and sustains higher performance while giving back to the community, and we’ve strengthened the business across every front. As a result, we continue to have a positive impact on consumers, businesses and the economy. We do this with our products, technology, and innovations -- from finding breakthroughs around better utilizing data, to identifying ways we can make access to credit faster and simpler for millions around the world. We’re very proud to be named a Top Workplace by the Orange County Register for our positive workplace culture, which attracts and retains top talent in Orange County, as well as our other locations across North America.      

This blog is written by Matt Dunn, GTM Managing Director at Experian. The Women in Sales Awards recognises the exemplary efforts of individuals in sales teams across Europe. Open by nomination only, the awards celebrate the achievement of women who go above and beyond in their career. It aims to promote the needs for greater gender diversity in sales and executive leadership teams across the corporate landscape. We place significant emphasis on helping and supporting women to reach senior roles, and I’m delighted that seven colleagues – Laura Webster, Kathryn O’Brien, Liz Clarke, Ivelina Mihaleva, Bally Ubhi, Clare Brown and Caroline McCrystal - were nominated as finalists at the awards. Even better, Caroline was named as the overall winner in the ‘2019 Best Woman in Inside Sales’ category. Not only that, Caroline was also the winner of the ‘Most Distinguished Saleswoman of the Year’ award too. In total, there were more than 1,000 nominations from companies in 22 countries, which goes to show what a remarkable and fantastic achievement to be recognised in such a way. We’re extremely proud of all their efforts this year and I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating all of the nominees and Caroline on their outstanding success.

This blog is written by Lisa Fretwell, Managing Director of Data Services at Experian. It’s no secret that women are hugely under-represented in careers relating to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In fact, research suggests that only 13% of the overall UK workforce are women in STEM and, as a consequence, we find ourselves with fewer female role models to inspire confidence and ambition in the next generation. Positive female role models are fundamental if we are to transform some of the preconceptions that girls have about a career in STEM. And part of encouraging new generations into our industry means recognising and celebrating the achievements of those women blazing a trail here and now. That’s why we are delighted to be sponsors of today’s Women in Data (UK) conference for the third successive year. This unique event helps inspire, educate and support women across the data industry. It’s a privilege to be part of the Women in Data community, to get to know more amazing women in our industry and to share their incredible stories. One of the highlights of the event is the annual ’20 Women in Data and Technology’ recognition, celebrating incredible role models who are motivating others to pursue their own career ambitions in the industry. We were particularly thrilled to learn that our very own Louise Maynard-Atem, has been included in this year’s highly prestigious list. Congratulations to Louise on a truly phenomenal and well-deserved achievement. Experian’s goal is to have a workforce that’s as rich in diversity as the people who use our services. That’s one of the many reasons we’re so excited by WiD’s mission. Together we hope to empower and encourage more women into the data industry, supporting the next generation of data scientists who can help shape the future.

Building a credit history takes time. Establishing a credit history early in life can help ensure you have access to affordable credit when you need it. The problem is that people tend to learn about credit and finances through trial and error. This is unfortunate because recovering from financial mistakes takes time, too. In fact, it could take years to rebound from one financial misstep. This trend is especially common for young adults who are just beginning to get their financial feet wet, and it’s one of the many reasons credit education and improving the financial health of consumers of all ages is core to our mission at Experian. As Director of Consumer Education and Advocacy, I get the opportunity to talk to a variety of students and young adults across the country on a regular basis. Millennials and Gen Z are often labeled slackers, but I don’t believe that for an instant. They experienced the financial crisis firsthand in their early years, and they really don’t want to repeat what their parents went through. Can you blame them, really? One thing we know for certain about young adults is they are very interested in learning as much as they can about money, finance and credit, and it’s our goal to be an educational resource to them. As the saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know. We have a chance to give younger generations the information and tools to know more than previous generations did at their ages. Here are some of my favorite tried and true tips to help set young adults up for credit success: Start small and grow slowly. A secured account with a small credit limit can establish your credit history and help you start saving at the same time. Good credit and strong savings habits go hand-in-hand. You don't need a credit card with a high limit to have good credit. Use the credit you have wisely. Good credit scores are not about having a lot of credit, but rather about how you use the credit you have available. Make a small purchase each month and pay it in full. That will show you can use credit well without taking on debt. Use your cell phone to improve your credit. With Experian Boost, you can add positive telecom and utility payments to your credit history and possibly boost your credit score. In the past, failing to pay your utility or cell phone bills could hurt your credit, but paying on time didn't help. With Experian Boost, that's changed. Use technology to make managing your credit automatic. Millennials and Gen Zers are the most technologically savvy generations in our history. Use technology, such as online banking apps and credit management tools like the Experian app, to automate savings and payments, to alert you to potential fraud and to track your progress as you build your credit history. We know helping people better understand and access credit is a team effort, and we work closely with our advocacy networks to increase our impact. We recently joined the American Bankers Association to provide young adults with financial education. Leading up to Get Smart About Credit Day, we hosted a Facebook Live with Jeni Pastier, Director of Financial Education Programs for the American Bankers Association to address credit topics young adults typically don’t understand or know about at all. You can watch the full video here and find additional articles to get smarter about credit on the Ask Experian blog.

We are delighted to have been placed on the inaugural Financial Times’ 2020 Diversity Leaders list, released today and accessible here. The organisers spoke to more than 80,000 employees across Europe to build the list, asking employees to rate their own employers as well as other firms around multiple categorise, taking into consideration areas including age, gender, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and overall diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. Over the last few years we’ve worked hard to focus on inclusion and diversity across our global business. We believe that embracing a truly inclusive culture, one where everyone has a real sense of belonging, is critical to building a diverse workforce and fostering innovation. Ultimately, it’s our ambition for our business to become as diverse as the people we serve around the world. We’re dedicated to encouraging diversity at every level within Experian. That means building our culture, our ways of working and our approach in a way that offers equality of opportunity. Supporting our employees from the moment they join our organisation, at every level. Letting people work flexibly, in the way that suits them and opens the door to new opportunities. One of the five key tenets of The Experian Way is “Value Each Other”. That means that each one of us is responsible for making this a great place to work. We treat each other with respect, trust and integrity. We support and invest in each other to help everyone achieve their potential and aspirations. We promote a culture of inclusivity and value diversity of all kinds, including thinking,  knowledge and experience. Our goal is to embrace and celebrate the diversity of ideas and backgrounds across the company. This diversity of thinking, and the way we harness it at Experian, helps to fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business. Like many companies, we have more to do to be as inclusive as we would like to be. But we are proud of the work we’ve done to date, and we are delighted by the recognition given to us today.