VinciWorks Blog

Diversity and Inclusion Thought Leadership
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4 min read

February is LGBT+ History Month: how can your organisation participate?

Group of Diverse Hands Together Joining Concept

February is LGBT+ history month, the annual month-long celebration that recognises the history and contributions of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and nonbinary (LGBT+) community.

It’s also an opportunity to raise awareness of the issues LGBT+ people face and reflect on the history of LGBT+ rights.

This year’s theme for the month is ‘Behind the Lens’, and the idea is to highlight the contributions of behind-the-scenes workers in the world of film and cinema from the LGBT+ community.

How can organisations participate?

There are many ways for organisations to support and participate in LGBT+ history month, including organising events and workshops, offer training and information, and encouraging employees to bring their whole and authentic selves to work.

Skill Boosters and VinciWorks have published a short but useful workplace awareness guide about LGBT+ history month that gives some background on the month, talks about this year’s theme, and provides a list of actionable ways that organisations and employees can take an active role and participate in LGBT+ history month.

View guide

Download your copy of the Inclusion Awareness Calendar today

LGBT+ month is just one of the many dates included in Skill Boosters’ new Inclusion Awareness Calendar, which lists awareness days and campaigns for organisations and individuals to know about and support and participate in throughout the year.

The calendar is available for free, instant download. It can be hung up in your organisation’s offices to raise awareness of the various days throughout the year, helping to create an even more inclusive culture where all workers feel understood, comfortable and valued. Click the button below to download your copy today.

View calendar

Additional Skill Boosters D&I resources available

Skill Boosters offers a huge library of video-based training for inclusion, leadership and teamwork. Their video-based training addresses meaningful workplace challenges in equality, diversity and inclusion, leadership and teamwork and feature analysis and advice from industry experts, case studies based on genuine issues from the workplace, high quality contemporary drama scenarios, and real people sharing their real lived experiences.

Skill Boosters Access-all Licensing Plans (ALPs)

Skill Boosters offers Access-all Licensing Plans (ALPs), which are the flexible and cost-effective way to access the entire Skill Boosters catalogue of high-quality, video-based training courses and resources. For a great value annual subscription fee, based on the size of your organisation or region, you get 12-months’ on-demand access to all Skill Boosters courses and resources via our online Membersʼ Resource Centre (MRC). Use as many of our short films, courses, videos and trainer packs as you need.

VinciWorks Diversity and Inclusion resources and tools

Diversity and inclusion training

VinciWorks’ suite of diversity and inclusion courses empowers users to recognise diversity issues in the workplace and gives them the tools to transform office culture.

Diversity and inclusion resource page

Our diversity and inclusion resource page includes dozens of resources, guides, policy templates and assessments to help organisations implement inclusive workplaces that promote equality and do not tolerate racism or harassment.

Diversity questionaire

Our diversity questionaire, powered by our flexible yet powerful data collection and reporting tool, Omnitrack, helps organistations understand their employees’ attitudes towards diversity in the workplace and allows organisations to measure and improve their staff’s perception of workplace inclusion.

Upcoming webinar: The intersectional approach to diversity and inclusion

Wednesday 22 February, 12:00pm (UK)

People are multi-dimensional in their identities and may identify with several different marginalised or minority groups at the same time. These overlapping identities can result in multiple and intersecting forms of bias, discrimination and disadvantage, both in the workplace and in wider society.

Intersectionality provides a framework for considering our different identities and experiences in order to understand the complexity of biases and prejudices that people can face and take steps to address any resulting inequality or discrimination.

In this webinar, we will draw on expert insight, ‘lived experience’ interviews and original drama to look at how an intersectional approach can support inclusion and help to achieve more equitable outcomes.

The webinar will cover:

What we mean by ‘intersectionality’
How our intersecting identities can overlap to create privilege or disadvantage
Why taking an intersectional approach is key to more effective inclusion
The importance of collecting and analysing data
How to put an intersectional approach into practice

Free registration

Anti-bribery Money Laundering News Thought Leadership
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7 min read

A new ‘failure to prevent’ fraud offence will shake up corporate compliance

The ‘failure to prevent’ concept is being expanded to fraud, false accounting and money laundering

The UK government have announced they are pushing ahead with a game-changing new regulation to expand the ‘failure to prevent’ family of offences to failure to prevent fraud.

The announcement came during Parliamentary debate over the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which aims for a wide-reaching attempt to tackle all aspects of economic crime, along with reform of Companies House.

ESG Policy Templates
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7 min read

Why should businesses have ESG policies?

Companies around the world are beginning to recognise the importance of having Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies in place. These policies not only benefit society and the planet but can also lead to financial benefits for companies. From reducing carbon emissions to promoting diversity and inclusion, ESG policies are becoming a key part of any company’s strategy.

What is an ESG policy?

An ESG policy documents how a company is addressing the three pillars of ESG – environmental, social, and governance. This formalised document outlines the company’s ESG commitments, guiding vision on ESG issues, how the business is involved in these issues, and how ESG activities are monitored and reported.

Events Health and Safety Thought Leadership
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2 min read

On-demand webinar: Health, safety and the supply chain in a changing world

In a rapidly changing economy, companies are ever more reliant on a well-functioning supply chain to get things done. From outsourcing payroll to launching a new product, supply chain management has never been more crucial. Examining the risks posed by new suppliers is equally vital. A worrying incident can have a knock-on effect on your business, from reputational risk to fines or criminal action.

Many companies have become highly skilled in managing their own health and safety risks, particularly since the pandemic. But what about the health and safety risks of third parties? What are your legal, ethical, and ESG responsibilities to ensure the health and safety of workers in your supply chain? How do you ensure suppliers are meeting their health and safety obligations, how do you assess suppliers for risk, and what should you do if you have health and safety concerns in your third parties?

In this webinar, VinciWorks, in collaboration with our partners DeltaNet, examine the risks of third-party failures in health and safety.

We look at:

Legal, ethical and ESG obligations in supply chain management
The health and safety expectations of third parties in your value chain
The risks of a health and safety failure from a third party
How to mitigate third-party risks in health and safety
Undertaking health and safety-focused risk-based due diligence

Watch now

UK MDR: What’s Changed? New micro course

The UK has published the final version of the updated regulations for UK Mandatory Disclosure Rules (MDR). These regulations will come into force on 28 March 2023, and any arrangements entered into on or after this date will need to be reported to HMRC under these rules. The new MDR rules will replace the existing DAC6 regulations, though HMRC have confirmed that the DAC6 reporting portal will remain open for another month to allow arrangements entered before 28 March to be reported under DAC6.

Firm fined for AML compliance failures

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has fined the conveyancing firm, Ferguson Bricknell Solicitors, £20,000 ($24,400) for falling short of its anti-money laundering (AML) obligations. The firm also had to pay £1,350 for the cost of the SRA probe. The fine was issued under a regulatory settlement agreement following an investigation by the SRA.

The investigation found that the firm did not have a compliant, practice-wide, anti-money laundering (AML) risk assessment in place until July 29, 2022, and also failed to fully assess its product/services risks, specifically those associated with conveyancing and controlling client money, which accounted for 75% of its fee income. The risks associated with conveyancing should have been addressed in the assessment provided when the investigation began.

FCA
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2 min read

New Course: Fraud & Market Abuse — A Practical Overview

For firms involved in the financial markets, it is fairly easy to get caught up in illegal market abuse practices without even realising it. The temptation is great for staff members to trade on insider information or exploit the firm’s resources to try to manipulate the market. In many cases, the lines between what is acceptable and not are grey and unclear.

The European Union launched Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) legislation in 2016 in order to reduce market abuse and protect investors. MAR requires all EU Member States to criminalise insider trading, market manipulation, and the unlawful disclosure of inside information. The United Kingdom adopted EU MAR into UK law when it left the EU in 2020, but since 2021 has developed its own set of amendments separately from the EU.

Although MAR is an EU regulation, it applies to a wide variety of financial instruments traded anywhere in the world.

Our new course on fraud & market abuse gives staff members the tools to identify different types of fraudulent market activities, know the regulations surrounding them, and prevent potential abuses on an organisational and personal level.

FCA Thought Leadership
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2 min read

New course: FCA Safeguarding — Keeping our Customers Safe

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requires all non-bank payment service providers (PSPs) to perform safeguarding procedures. These procedures are designed to make sure that payments owed to customers are not at risk in the unlikely event that the firm could suddenly go into liquidation or be otherwise unable to make a payment.

The most common safeguarding method, known as the segregation method, requires PSPs to make an immediate and clear separation between the money belonging to the customer and the fees taken by the PSP. This requires a constant process of separating funds into distinct and dedicated bank accounts, as well as recording and reconciling every transaction.

Our new course explains how safeguarding is done and what non-technical staff members need to know about it.

DAC6 Tax Evasion
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1 min read

UK MDR to come into force on 28 March 2023

The International Tax Enforcement (Disclosable Arrangements) Regulations 2023 (UK MDR) regulations, were laid before the House of Commons on 17 January 2023. UK MDR will come into force on 28 March 2023. Any UK arrangements entered on or after 28 March 2028 must be reported to HMRC under UK MDR (and not UK DAC6).

HMRC will open a new portal to support UK MDR, however, the DAC6 reporting portal will remain open until the end of April 2023 to allow arrangements entered into before 28 March 2023 to be reported under DAC6. The current DAC6 guidance (which is relevant to MDR for hallmarks D1 and D2) will be updated where necessary to reflect these new regulations.

VinciWorks will support all their UK-based clients in making the transition from DAC6 to UK MDR. HMRC will be joining VinciWorks for a webinar about UK MDR on 15 February 2023.