Our journey to gold.
2017 was the beginning. A first Military internship was launched where we had two roles for recent service leavers for 6 months on offer, always with the intent that these candidates would find a full time role.
It is very pleasing to report that both of these individuals are still at Schroders 3 years on and now run the Schroders Armed Forces group! It was also about signing the Armed Forces Covenant and building relations with the Defence Relationship Management team to start our journey going forward.
2018 was about growth, gaining a sound understanding of the number of veterans and serving reservists in the company and forming an Employee Group with an executive sponsor. We then started to run events and talks such as serving/Ex-military talking about resilience and other themes that were particularly relevant for the City, but done well by the military.
At the same time we started looking in to HR policies and ensuring that reservists would be given additional leave for Annual training. The military internship roles increased from two a year to three and more veterans were hired in to direct hire roles.
2019 was building on momentum and going for Gold. The main challenge was demonstrating there was a framework in place to support mobilisations and ensuring that all policies were fit for purpose and as supportive as they could be for veterans and reservists.
However as well as making sure we achieved internally that which was required to achieve the Gold award, it was also about advocacy externally; helping other firms start similar military schemes and to begin their own journeys.
2020 is not the time to stop. Our scheme continues to attract many more applicants than we have places and of the 8 people who have completed 6-month internships, 7 remain at Schroders today and the next intake start soon.
