To effectively leverage our most significant resource – our people. With employees working in over 100 offices in more than 30 countries, it is important to find ways to connect employees, encourage collaboration, and promote inclusion.

Following the introduction of an online social collaboration tool at the firm in 2012, groups of employees began coming together to form communities with shared interests and experiences. As a natural evolution, communities representing different diversity groups began to emerge.

In 2015, Franklin Templeton formally recognized five of these groups as business resource groups (BRGs). The BRGs – which are employee initiated, governed, and led – promote inclusion by supporting employees in bringing their whole selves to work and help employees gain a greater sense of shared experiences with colleagues. These communities, supported by senior level executive sponsors, enhance the understanding of diversity in the workplace among our employees and in broader communities.

Through partnership with the BRGs, we have strengthened our culture of inclusion, for example, by enhancing our US parental leave policies, recently achieving a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, and participating as a Stonewall Diversity Champion in the UK and improving our score each successive year.

There is further opportunity for BRGs to play key roles in the following:

• Promote a culture of inclusion by supporting new employee onboarding, recruiting, and mentoring.

• Enhance the understanding of diversity in the workplace and participate at recruiting/networking events.

• Cultivate Franklin Templeton’s brand in the local marketplace and communities.

Laura Fergerson