How MUFG Investor Services is winning the battle for top talent

Sarah Mears, Chief Human Resources Officer at award-winning MUFG Investor Services, talks about how the firm works hard to maintain its reputation as an ‘employer of choice’ by prioritising diversity, inclusion and employee wellbeing, demonstrating flexibility and encouraging professional and personal growth.

What was your reaction when MUFG Investor Services recently received an Invest Cyprus International Investment Award in recognition of its contribution to the country’s economy and society?

We were honoured to receive that award and extremely pleased to be recognized by the Cyprus business community. MUFG Investor Services opened its Cyprus operational centre in Limassol in mid-2022 and since then we’ve grown to the point that we now have more than 150 talented colleagues here. Our leadership team is excellent and our highly skilled employees are doing an exceptional job for clients, providing a business hub with key infrastructure to support our growth across Europe in the alternative asset servicing and fund administration space. In fact, we are so pleased with Cyprus as a strategic location that we plan to increase our workforce on the island as appropriate in the coming years.

What does it mean to you as an HR leader when MUFG Investor Services is considered an ‘employer of choice’?

It means a great deal and I think it’s a very important designation. The competition for top talent, especially in the financial services industry, remains intense. More and more, we’re seeing funds outsourcing back-, middle- and even front-office processes and those clients need us to help them solve their most challenging issues. To provide the level of client service that they want and deserve, we must ensure that we are recruiting, hiring, developing and retaining the very best people in our industry. Potential colleagues have choices about where they can work and we want to attract them to us.

How do you go about attracting and retaining top talent?

It’s all about creating the most positive and supportive culture possible. We have more than 1,800 colleagues in 14 locations around the world, and those colleagues represent 80 different nationalities. As a global financial services firm, we offer a highly competitive compensation and benefits package and we’ve built a workplace model that focuses on treating all employees with care and respect. This enables our teams to build strong, long-term client relationships while giving back to the local communities in which we operate and contributing to the development of a sustainable society. In fact, employee wellbeing, work-life balance and professional growth are core elements of our benefits philosophy.

I believe that the differentiator for our firm is our employee value proposition – being ‘brilliantly different’. We put the mental health and wellbeing of our colleagues above everything else. We’ve created an open, innovative culture where everyone has a seat and a voice at the table, we’re open to trying new ways to solve issues and our leadership is very accessible. We cultivate a sense of belonging by listening to our colleagues and creating an environment where they feel safe and comfortable bringing their whole selves to work. We celebrate diversity and inclusion and we welcome a wide range of perspectives in our workplace.

Now that the pandemic is officially over, many financial services firms are requiring their employees to return to the office at least three days a week and some more than that. What’s your view on hybrid work?

One of the things I’m most proud of is our approach to hybrid work. We believe that our hybrid model, and the flexibility and balance we offer, also are key differentiators for our firm. We blend remote and in-office work based on a number of factors to create a balance between meeting work and personal needs, while ensuring delivery for our clients and supporting our teammates. While we do ask employees to come to the office to connect and collaborate with each other – and we review and adjust our model based on client and market needs – we also offer a great deal of flexibility. We’ve created a supportive, social environment that enables colleagues to work with some of the world’s largest asset managers on projects with substance, scope and scale, regardless of where they are. At the same time, we offer dynamic training and development programmes and opportunities that encourage and enable growth.

You’ve mentioned employee wellness, diversity and inclusion as part of your value proposition. How does your firm demonstrate its commitment to those principles?

They really are fundamental to everything we do and we believe strongly in the “show, don’t tell” model. We don’t just talk about those things but make a very clear, very public commitment to them. For example, since 2019, increasing LGBTQ+ awareness has been one of the three pillars – along with Gender and Mental Health and Wellness – of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programme. We demand that all our colleagues be treated with kindness and respect, and we’ve launched a series of initiatives to create a warm and open community. We want all colleagues to have a sense of belonging and to know absolutely that they are respected, supported and empowered to do their best work in a psychologically safe space. In May, a team of 11 colleagues celebrated LGBTQ+ Pride by joining the Cyprus Pride 2023 parade in Nicosia, and we also participate in events in Dublin, Halifax, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

We’ve taken similar steps for our mental health and wellness pillar by creating safe, interactive spaces/forums and meetings for colleagues to hold frank conversations about the challenges they’re facing. Many of these topics have traditionally been taboo in the workplace – they include the menopause, fertility, neurodiversity and managing elder care. We offer an app (Unmind) that enables colleagues to proactively improve their mental wellness and we’ve implemented a global Mental Health First Aiders programme, through which select colleagues are trained to assist their co-workers during a crisis and offer guidance on receiving additional help. By making mental wellness a priority, we want people to know they can say, “I’m not OK,” without worrying about the consequences. More importantly, we want them to know that we care and will work together to help them.

To support our gender pillar, we conducted a global employee survey this year and used the feedback to shape workshops and strategies included in training for our senior leaders. In the coming months, we’ll be offering an interactive programme with virtual workshops and peer learning to help colleagues at all stages of their career create strong professional relationships and robust peer networks.

Earlier you mentioned adding more staff in Cyprus. When you think about the culture you’re building, what is your ultimate goal?

Our goal is the same in Cyprus as in all our other locations – we put clients at the centre of everything we do. We do the right thing always and, by listening to and understanding our clients’ needs, we deliver an exceptional client experience. The only way to achieve that goal is to hire and retain the best people and the only way to accomplish that is by demonstrating our commitment to our colleagues. Our CEO, John Sergides, really said it best: “We want to be the best, not the biggest. It is not enough to be slightly better at doing the same thing as everybody else. You have to be different and that means looking at where you can innovate. If you take care of your people, they will take care of your clients.”

This Special Feature first appeared in the August edition of GOLD magazine. Click here to view it.