Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

In partnership with our Learning & Development team and our DEI Network, we’ve launched a series of impactful training initiatives via the Bridge learning platform, aimed at fostering a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. These courses cover a wide range of topics, including DEI fundamentals, identifying and addressing microaggressions, conscious inclusion, and harassment prevention.

To complement our digital learning, we’ve also delivered in-person training sessions focused on microaggressions, bullying, and banter. These sessions were tailored specifically for our Partners, Directors, and Associate populations, encouraging open dialogue and providing practical tools to support inclusive leadership and respectful collaboration across all levels of the firm.

Importantly, our training is designed not only to raise awareness but also to equip our people with the confidence and skills to have constructive, and sometimes difficult, conversations at every level of the business. By normalising open dialogue around challenging topics, we create space for growth, accountability, and shared learning—ensuring that DEI principles are not only understood but actively lived in practice.

Alongside training, we also champion mentoring across role levels to aid professional development, encourage collaboration, and build confidence. By flexing our approach to meet individual learning styles and needs, we ensure that every colleague has access to the right support, guidance, and opportunities to thrive at HaysMac.

We also recognise that creating an inclusive culture means ensuring colleagues feel safe and supported to speak up. At HaysMac, we provide a range of routes to raise concerns or share feedback, so that everyone can use the channel they feel most comfortable with. These include our Whistleblowing Policy, direct access to the People Team, and open conversations within departments and sectors. By offering multiple avenues for dialogue, we encourage colleagues to raise issues early, share ideas, and seek guidance without fear of judgement - helping us maintain a transparent, accountable, and supportive workplace.

This blended approach ensures that DEI principles are not only understood but also embedded in our daily behaviours and decision-making—helping us build a culture where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.

Our DEI Network plays a vital role in fostering our inclusive culture at HaysMac by organising a variety of internal events throughout the year. These include cultural celebrations, educational sessions, and interactive workshops designed to encourage connection, learning, and the sharing of lived experiences across the firm.

Over the past year, we’ve proudly hosted a wide range of events that spotlight diverse voices and stories, with a strong focus on education and awareness. Through these events and many more, we continue to create space for meaningful dialogue, learning, and celebration. A few of our highlights include:

• Black History Month – We hosted both internal and external panel discussions on ‘Reclaiming Narratives’, sparking important conversations around identity, representation, and lived experience.

• Pride Celebration – Our rooftop event brought people together for a joyful celebration of LGBTQ+ pride, complete with activities, community engagement, and fundraising for Switchboard, an LGBTQ+ helpline charity. We also held an internal Pride event celebrating individual stories and the history of Pride.

• Women’s Day (Cape Town) – The DEI Committee shared a special gesture of appreciation with the women in our Cape Town office. Each received a rose and a personalised envelope containing a heartfelt message recognising their value, contributions, and the important role they play both within our firm and in our wider communities. This celebration forms part of a month-long recognition of women across the office including a women’s sip and paint celebration.

• Cape Town Pride – Some of our team attended the Cape Town Pride Parade and Mardi Gras! The march was about celebrating diversity, promoting inclusion, and raising awareness for the LGBTQI+ community particularly in Cape Town. This year, we celebrate 31 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in South Africa, and 19 years since same-sex marriage was legalised.

Our internal network dedicated to cultivating and nurturing meaningful relationships among our incredible women within HaysMac is FemNet.

Through mentorship, collaboration and mutual support, we strive to create an environment where every women can confidently grow, learn and excel in her professional journey. By fostering these connections, we aim to amplify each other’s voices, raise awareness to the wider firm and to keep driving a positive change within HaysMac.

At HaysMac, we believe the accountancy profession should better reflect the diversity of society — particularly in terms of socioeconomic background. That’s why we’re proud to partner with Access Accountancy, a collaborative initiative aimed at improving access to the profession for young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

By taking part in Access Accountancy, we’re not just opening doors — we’re helping shape a more inclusive, representative, and socially mobile future for the profession. As part of our long-term DEI strategy, we are committed to offering at least 30% of work experience placements to applicants who meet two or more socio-economic criteria.

We also partner with RISE. Rise is an initiative being championed by ICAEW and pushed forward by partner firms. Its aim is to improve social mobility in the UK by working with schools in deprived areas to give students a better chance in the business world. Rise offers students aged 14 to 16 from low socio-economic backgrounds the opportunity to build essential skills required in the workplace. They do this through workshops with schools, providing confidence boosting activities and knowledge about the real world. We encourage all employees to take their paid volunteer day to give back to the community, for example through the RISE initiative.

Through this partnership, we’re committed to creating meaningful opportunities that help break down barriers and support students in building successful careers in accountancy. Our involvement includes:

• Developing and delivering tailored work experience programmes

• View our Work Experience opportunities here

• Participating in outreach initiatives to raise awareness and aspiration

• Collecting and submitting key data to track progress

• Senior Leaders at HaysMac annually attending and contributing to Patron meetings

• Completing milestone returns and making an annual donation to support the initiative's broader mission

At HaysMac, our Talent Acquisition team is committed to creating a recruitment process that is inclusive, equitable, and accessible at every stage. We regularly review and challenge our hiring practices to ensure they reflect our DEI values and support fair, objective decision-making.

As part of this commitment, we’ve embedded DEI-focused training into our interview process, covering unconscious bias, conscious inclusion, and inclusive hiring practices. This training equips hiring managers and interviewers with the tools to recognise and mitigate bias, using practical exercises and real-life scenarios to reinforce learning and encourage mindful, inclusive decision-making.

In addition to interviewer training, we’ve implemented a number of inclusive recruitment practices, including: Bias-free job descriptions that focus on skills and potential, inclusive and accessible application criteria, innovative and fair assessment methods and ensuring we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

We are continually exploring new strategies to improve representation and ensure that every candidate has an equal opportunity to succeed.

As part of our Early Talent recruitment strategy, we are proud to partner with WISER, a leading organisation specialising in connecting employers with diverse graduate talent. Through this partnership, we gain access to WISER’s network of 200+ trained student ambassadors across 70+ UK universities, enabling us to engage with candidates from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.

WISER’s ambassadors help us to build meaningful connections on campus, ensuring our opportunities are visible, accessible, and appealing to underrepresented groups. By leveraging their insight and reach, we can better understand the needs and aspirations of early career talent, while actively breaking down barriers to entry.

This collaboration not only supports our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in recruitment, but also helps us to attract, engage, and retain the next generation of diverse talent, strengthening our pipeline for the future.