Corporate Social Responsibility
Community and charity
Our Board has placed Community as a fourth and equal partner in our strategic planning alongside clients, staff and shareholders.
We are dedicated to supporting the community and making a difference to those in need.
As a business we have helped to raise over £750,000 over the last 5 years for charities including Pancreatic Cancer, Help for Tomorrow and the Halow Project.
Our new charity partner for 2023 is Different Strokes. Different Strokes is a stroke charity run by younger stroke survivors for younger stroke survivors and is an affinity charity for us as staff and friends of staff have been impacted by strokes.
We have introduced employer match-funding, so every pound our staff raise for Different Strokes will be match-funded up to £10,000 per annum. This is expected to have an absolutely enormous impact for a charity of their size, with only 5 full-time equivalent staff and a turnover of circa £300,000.
As an employer we additionally give one day per annum to each member of staff to spend on charitable causes. As a firm we encourage our advisers to give back to their local community by delivering a careers or a financial education workshops to schools and colleges in the South East, supporting the Chartered Insurance Institute and The Personal Finance Society’s Education Champions programme.
The environment
We recognise that we all have a role to play in protecting the environment and HFMC Wealth wants to play its part.
We have been taking steps to improve both our culture and awareness in this regard. With our clients we are promoting positive impact for our clients through the provision and management of positive impact portfolios for our clients, helping to orientate our clients pensions and portfolios to more sustainable investments.
For our staff we know that getting to work, and seeing clients, also plays its part in impacting on the environment. We have aimed to reduce our impact by introducing green employee benefits to reduce carbon footprint. We support season ticket loans for staff to encourage travel by train and also by introducing an electric car scheme. Cleaner commute initiatives like our EV salary sacrifice scheme and electric vehicle business lease can save over 1.5 tonnes of carbon per employee every year when they switch to electric.
Within the business we appreciate took the steps a number of years ago to switch our energy supply to renewable energy. We additionally took the steps to ensure that our energy usage is limited to that which is needed turning off lights and equipment outside of office hours.
We recognise the role that paper has in the environmental chain with large swathes of forests being destroyed to use the paper that many of us use. Where possible we have replaced paper with electronic communication. In 2021 our switch to using Docusign to send electronic envelopes saved 3,490 envelopes and paper being sent. Sadly, not all providers that we use to provide services to clients accept electronically signed application forms. Where paper is required we have ensured that all paper used in our offices is Forest Stewardship Council certified paper.
We additionally recognise the detrimental role that plastic plays from an environmental perspective and replaced single use bottles that were traditionally provided to our clients to glass bottles. We have installed recycling points in all of our common areas within our business, encouraging positive behaviours from our staff.
As a business we are evaluating what more we can do and the Board of HFMC have sponsored a project to review further CSR related activities that are appropriate for a business of our size, and are seeking to engage further input and commitment from our staff.
Workplace culture
Our vision is to the UK’s No. 1 home for entrepreneurial, independent & Chartered High Net Worth advisers. It is to be a place where advisors thrive, growing their business, achieving ambitions and staying for the long-term. A place where clients thrive, receiving an unrivalled service, great outcomes, working with us throughout their lives. A place where employees thrive, fostering great working relationships and building fulfilling and long-lasting careers. It is to be an organisation built to last.
We do this by empowering each and every one of our staff to make the decisions that they feel are best to deliver on that vision and the freedom to deliver it how they best see fit, tailored for each and every client. We are a company that believes in giving our people responsibility to allow them to grow as individuals.
Whilst we empower our people to be able to make decisions independently we also provide a supportive environment for all.
We our proud of our team and the team are, in turn, proud to work at HFMC Wealth. This has been recognised by the independently assessed “Professional Adviser Best Financial Adviser to Work For” award, which we have been evaluated for every other year, winning in 2023, 2021 and 2019.
We work hard to maintain a family feel despite our growth. We support flexible working and a positive work-life balance. Our Board members know all of our staff on first name terms
Our People & Culture team have been busy working with Diversiti UK, the multiple award-winning diversity and inclusion provider, to review and evaluate our EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) practice and build on our own knowledge around the subject. This has been a rewarding project for us and we’re delighted to share that after completing this first part of the process, we have been awarded a level 1 EDI accreditation, which means that we have shown commitment to implementing EDI best practices as an employer.
HFMW Wealth is proud to support the Chartered Insurance Institute’s Insuring Women’s Futures manifesto. We are delighted to play our part in improving financial security for women and society as a whole and have signed up to the Financial Flexible Working pledge.
Client conduct
Our advisers offer pure investment independence, ensuring clients are given truly unbiased financial advice.
We have a culture of autonomy, trust and transparency.
Our emphasis on partnership means advisers seek to build long-term client relationships. Over 40% of our advice team have been with us for 10 years or more, providing continuity of relationship for our clients – invaluable for a high net worth business built on relationships.
We place our clients’ needs at the centre of everything we do, guiding them through their life stages, to help them achieve their financial goals.
We continue to be at the forefont of technical and ethical excellence, and are recognised by the Society of Trust and Estate practitioners as an employer partner and by thr Charterd Insurance Institute as a Chartered Financial Planning Firm.
Industry affiliation
Across the firm, we are active supporters of industry bodies with partners holding memberships with organisations such as: CII, CISI, STEP, and CFA.
We have provided interviews and articles for industry publications, such as New Model Adviser and Citywire.
Responsibility
We appreciate the importance of policies and procedures and ensure that our documentation remains compliant and up to date.
We respect the views of our team and encourage ideas to shape the future of our business.
