Quarterlytics / Consumer Defensive / Household & Personal Products / Newell Brands Inc.

Newell Brands Inc.

nwl · NASDAQ Consumer Defensive
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Ticker nwl
Exchange NASDAQ
Sector Consumer Defensive
Industry Household & Personal Products
Employees 23700
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FY2021 Annual Report · Newell Brands Inc.
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Corporate 
Sustainability 
Report 

netwealth Investments Limited 

ABN 85 090 569 109 
AFSL 230975 

Level 8/52 Collins Street 
Melbourne VIC 3000 

PO Box 336 
South Melbourne VIC 3205 

Cover subheading 

Cover details 

 
   
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Contents 

Introduction _______________________________________  3 
Our journey ________________________________________  5 
The outcome  ______________________________________  5 
Netwealth Corporate Sustainability Framework ________  6 
How to read this report  _____________________________  6 
Thank you _________________________________________  7 

Enhance our core business __________________________  9 
Our vision _________________________________________  9 
What we have done _________________________________  9 
Our plans FY2022 ___________________________________ 10 
Long term goals FY2023 and beyond __________________ 11 

Be genuine and transparent _________________________ 13 
Our vision _________________________________________ 13 
What we have done _________________________________ 13 
Our plans FY2022 ___________________________________ 14 
Long term goals FY2023 and beyond __________________ 15 

Foster diversity, talent, and wellbeing  ________________ 17 
Our vision _________________________________________ 17 
What we have done _________________________________ 17 
Our plans FY2022 ___________________________________ 19 
Long term goals FY2023 and beyond __________________ 19 

Create a positive social and environmental impact _____ 21 
Our vision _________________________________________ 21 
What we have done _________________________________ 21 
Our plans FY2022 __________________________________  22 
Long term goals FY2023 and beyond _________________  23 

Key performance indicators  ________________________  24 

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Introduction 
Kate Temby, Independent Director 

We are delighted to present our first stand alone Corporate Sustainability Report. We recognise 
corporate sustainability is at the heart of our business.  We seek to provide products and services that 
provide clients with the ability to manage their wealth, to build and grow their investments and to 
access insights into their wealth through our leading technology.  Wealth takes time to accumulate. 
Being sustainable and here for the long-term custody of our clients’ assets is very important to us. 
Netwealth is committed to its purpose to see wealth differently and discover a brighter future.  Since 
joining the Board in February 2021, it is clear that our purpose is reflected in everything that Netwealth 
does – across strategy, innovations, managing our people and most recently in developing our 
corporate sustainability framework.   

Given my background in sustainable investing and as Chair of Netwealth’s Investment Committee, I 
am pleased to be able to play a role to help Management articulate our corporate sustainability vision 
and provide guidance on how we get there. With the pace of change across environmental, social, 
governance (ESG) and sustainability at both a corporate and investment level, it is important that 
Netwealth look beyond the obvious and to spot the trends that matter.   

Through extensive stakeholder engagement, Management has developed a comprehensive corporate 
sustainability framework, which reflects our core values of being genuine, agile, collaborative, curious, 
courageous, and optimistic. This framework sets the foundation for our key areas of focus and 
provides the roadmap for us to achieve our goals.     

In our report we set out our focus areas, why they are important to us and our stakeholders, our 
FY2021 progress, along with our future ambitions. It is critical that we are transparent and make solid 
progress across each of the following areas: 

1.  enhance our core business; 

2.  be genuine and transparent; 

3. 

foster diversity, talent and wellbeing; and 

4.  create a positive social and environmental impact.  

We understand that Netwealth has a low carbon footprint, in that our products and services do not 
directly generate negative emissions, and our environmental footprint is made up primarily of our 
energy use in our head office.  As such we are excited to be moving into our new office at 180 Flinders 
St. Our building developers are working to achieve a target of 5 star Energy and Sustainability rating, 
and a water rating of 4 stars.   

Our people have performed exceptionally during the year, remaining positive despite a long lockdown 
from July until November 2020 in Melbourne and several snap lockdowns across Australia in 2021.  
Our focus has been on supporting employees’ wellbeing through a variety of activities and care 
packages.  We are proud to have grown the company during the COVID-19 pandemic and have 
implemented work practices which will enable flexible hybrid working as we move into our new office.  
Our people are also embracing the new value-based performance which aims to recognise role 
models across our business.  

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Setting goals for FY2022, we have been thoughtful about the impact of our own activity and the 
products and services we provide and their impact on society and the environment.  Our business is 
to empower our clients to make choices with their investments. To this end, we have prioritised a 
strategic initiative to add sustainability ratings to our investment menu. Over time, we will enhance 
our reporting so that our clients can visually see the environmental and social impact of their 
investment choices. 

On behalf of the Netwealth team I am pleased to share our FY2021 Corporate Sustainability Report 
and look forward to updating you on our progress.  

Kate Temby  
Independent Director 

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Our journey 

In past years, Netwealth Group Limited (Netwealth) has reported its social and environmental 
contribution within our annual report.  In FY2021, we altered our approach as we recognised that we 
were unable to clearly articulate our corporate sustainability vision. 

As a result, we created a Management led working group to be curious and explore the question of 
creating a strategic framework for Netwealth’s corporate sustainability goals.  The working group 
collaborated extensively with all our stakeholders (our board, employees, shareholders, partners, 
wealth professional community and clients).   

Based on the feedback of all our stakeholders, we have developed the framework which we will share 
in this, our first Corporate Sustainability Report.  

Over the next few years, our framework will mature, and our goals will extend as we work to further 
advance Netwealth in each area of sustainability. We look forward to engaging further with our 
stakeholders, making progress across each of our focus areas and reporting on our improvements. 

The outcome 

After preliminary investigations, Netwealth issued a survey to our people, shareholders, partners, 
wealth professional community and clients.  We received over 434 responses and while most were 
very positive on the steps, we were taking to define our sustainability framework, some urged us to 
continue to focus on our business and delivering strong returns.  This feedback was reiterated 
throughout the focus groups, and it was apparent that our core business and our corporate vision 
must be central to our corporate sustainability. We must continue to work to ensure our product and 
services lead the specialised platform business market. 

With a strong core that provides scalable leading technology and service, the feedback received from 
the survey and working groups was that Netwealth should continue to apply rigour and scrutiny to our 
governance and compliance practices, to continue to operate ethically; to mitigate regulatory and 
reputation risk and ensuring data security.  We should continue to be open and transparent, to speak 
plainly and to apply this approach to everything we do, including our corporate sustainability goals. 

Our stakeholders reinforced our belief that our people are the life of what we do, it is their skills, 
enterprise and enthusiasm that make Netwealth, the company that it is.  Our products and services 
directly reflect our employees’ abilities and therefore their diversity, talent and mental health and 
wellbeing are critical to our ongoing success. 

Our stakeholders agree that with a strong core; a genuine and transparent approach to governance 
and a talented, diverse, and healthy workforce, Netwealth should seek to create a positive impact in 
our community by supporting partners where we have skills; raising funds and contributing to not-for-
profit organisations we believe in; and through giving back by volunteering our time and resources.   

5 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Netwealth Corporate Sustainability Framework 

How to read this report 

For each of our four focus areas we set out what we have done this year, what we plan to do in FY2022, 
and our longer-term goals.  We have not tried to list a set of projects with targeted timeframes rather 
the direction we are heading and what we hope to achieve in FY2022 and beyond.  Our success to date 
has relied on our agile spirit, which allows us to pivot when we see opportunities to get the best out of 
our people, our products, and services.  Therefore, we want to apply the same approach to our 
Corporate Sustainability goals.   

We will be accountable to what we set out to achieve and if we do not achieve our goals, we will share 
the reasons why and how this impacts our longer-term vision. 

In addition to each of these key focus areas, there are performance indicators that will support our 
journey.  These are included for FY2021 on pages 24 and 25.  Each year as we build our corporate 
sustainability framework, we will seek to expand these where they make sense and to share feedback 
on our performance. 

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Thank you 

Thank you to all 434 of our stakeholders who took the time and effort to respond to our survey and the 
40 people that volunteered to participate in our focus groups.  With your help we have created our first 
Corporate Sustainability Report.  Thank you as well, to those of you who participated in the focus 
groups that chose to donate your participation reward to the Netwealth Impact Fund.  We contributed 
$450.00 on your behalf, and every dollar counts. 

We welcome feedback and thoughts, on this report, on our framework and our direction. We plan to 
continue to engage with our stakeholders and if you would like to get involved, please get in touch. 

CSR@netwealth.com.au 

Rachel Axton 
General Manager, Legal, Risk and Compliance 

7 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Divider pager – Enhance our core 

8 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Enhance our core business 

We protect and enhance our core 
business 

Our vision 

•  Provide products and services that enable clients to manage their wealth  

•  Ensure safe custody of our clients’ life savings 

•  Be a leader in technology and innovation 

•  Provide exceptional customer service 

•  Enhance insights to see wealth differently 

•  Protect and enhance shareholder value 

•  Ensure systems are scalable, secure, and stable  

What we have done 

•  System scalability - FY2021 has seen record growth, with annual inflows of $9.8 billion and FUA 
that now exceeds $47 billion.  We invested in our core systems and infrastructure, including 
moving our reporting and analytics features to the cloud.  This initiative immediately improved 
platform performance and stability when processing significant amounts of data.  Netwealth also 
moved its web servers to a cloud platform, which enables us to scale up internal resources to 
meet increasing user demand. 

•  Product - Netwealth has continued to develop its XWrap non-custodial service to support 

additional investment options and transaction types on the platform.  The development supports 
the ability to load and report against historical data.   

• 

Technology – Netwealth recently was ranked number one for overall satisfaction with our 
platform by its users for the 9th consecutive year and for the first time we were awarded as 
delivering best value for money for its offering in the most recent 2020 Investment Trends Adviser 
Technology Needs Report.  We also won four of the six evaluation areas in the most recent 
Investment Trends ‘Best overall platform’ award, having the best decision support tools, best 
reporting tools, best transaction tools and the best product offering and came second overall.  We 
have won the overall award for the five preceding years, and we are committed to reclaiming our 
leadership position.  Netwealth also won the Chant West Advised Product of the Year 2021 for the 
4th consecutive year. This year we created a new mobile application which provides wealth 
professionals and their clients with an elegant, intuitive, and professional experience.  It is 

9 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
designed to appeal to both young and sophisticated clients, with features such as the ability to 
view portfolio changes and track performance.  

•  Service – Leveraging our successful implementation of Zendesk in FY2020, we extended our 

customer service capability in FY2021 with live chat and a self-serve knowledge portal, making it 
easier and more efficient for the wealth professionals using our products to access information.  
We engaged a new default broker for ASX securities, providing clients with a better trading 
experience.  We also added further automation for superannuation payments, which has improved 
turnaround times for members seeking to access their retirement benefits. 

• 

Third party usability - Our clients identified that they need to be able to share information with 
third party professionals such as accountants and SMSF administrators without losing security.  
In response we created a feature that allows online third-party access. 

•  Expanded investment options – The investment universe has been broadened for wholesale 
clients with options that include unregistered wholesale managed funds, Australian and 
international bonds, foreign currencies, and small parcel bonds.  We have continued to expand 
our range of managed account models and we have launched our first mandate investment 
solutions with Magellan, which are available on the Wealth and Super Accelerator Core and Plus 
menus.  The funds are the first in a new series of investment options with competitive pricing. 

• 

• 

Flexible fee consent – Regulatory change is a constant in the financial industry and FY2021 was no 
different, with the introduction of additional requirements on wealth professionals to obtain and 
provide client fee consents and annual renewal for the deduction of advice fees.  We have worked 
with our wealth professional community to build flexible options to make compliance with this 
obligation as easy and efficient as possible for both wealth professionals and their clients. 

Thought leadership – Netwealth commissioned two pieces of research to assist wealth 
professionals to see their clients and their business practices differently, with the ultimate goal to 
enable wealth professionals to grow their business.  In August 2020, we released the 4th edition of 
Netwealth’s AdviceTech survey which examined the technology used and anticipated to be used 
by advice firms.  It provided detailed insights on what the best advice firms are doing, in terms of 
maximising their technology investment, technology stack and digital client experience.  In March 
2021, Netwealth released is inaugural Advisable Australian research, which was designed to 
provide wealth professionals with a better understanding of Australian investors in terms of their 
wealth needs, attitudes, and desires.  Netwealth also produces a series of podcasts, engaging 
wealth professionals and clients in ongoing education and uplifting inspirational business stories. 

Our plans FY2022 

•  System scalability – We are forecasting more growth and as such we will consolidate our cloud 
infrastructure to scale up computing resources, simplify maintenance, and quickly respond to 
new security threats.  The consolidation will provide new diagnostic tools for software 
development teams to detect and fix issues faster.  We are also making changes to the way we 
manage our workflow, introducing a new system to make tracking and actioning administration 
tasks easier and more efficient. 

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•  Product – XWrap as a product will continue to be built out over the next financial year to enhance 

outcomes for clients and wealth professionals who wish to include assets that sit outside of the 
platform structure in their wealth portfolio.  Netwealth is also investigating how it can provide 
solutions to facilitate better reporting and portfolio management to meet the needs of Managed 
Discretionary Account operators and institutional investors. 

• 

Technology – We will continue to build out our mobile application including provision of more 
information and data and commencing the build of transactional capability.  We are also 
expanding our whole of wealth reporting to enable clients to view more of their wealth in the one 
place, including introducing property feeds. 

•  Service – We are building more options for selecting the frequency and the timing of pension 

payments, so they better suit our clients’ individual needs and circumstances and we are looking 
to introduce the ability to process W8 Ben forms, enabling clients to access reduced tax rates on 
income from US-listed securities, and to improve the process for managing foreign exchange 
transactions, which will make it easier for clients to buy and sell international equities.   

•  Reporting enhancements – We listened to client feedback and are constantly improving our 

system reports to deliver greater and more useful insights. This year we will add time weighted 
returns to our performance report and launch the ability to include benchmark data in client 
reporting against CPI, RBA cash target rate and the Morningstar Multi Sector Market indices. 

•  Sustainable investing offerings and reporting – We have increased the sustainable investment 

options on our investment menu and added a mandate fund in FY2022 which although not an ESG 
fund, contains an assessment of ESG risks.  This year we will add the ability to identify these 
options more clearly across the spectrum of sustainable investments to identify ESG and impact 
suitability and provide additional ratings within our Compare Funds functionality.  This will 
enhance the investment information available to clients so they can understand the authenticity 
of the sustainability position of the investments they choose. 

• 

Foundation layers for leveraging data – During FY2022 we plan to build the foundation layer to 
enable better use of data analytics into the future, this includes improving the storage of our data, 
designing our data governance framework, and migrating reports to utilise stored data. 

Long term goals FY2023 and beyond 

•  Data insights – Ability to enhance wealth management reporting and analyse data at scale to 

create actionable insights for clients and wealth professionals, as well as our back-office staff so 
they can better and more effectively service our clients.  

•  Whole of wealth - Leverage external and internal data, including annuities, property, banking, and 

non-custodial data sets to provide a whole of wealth experience for our clients. 

•  Sustainable investment overlay – Ability to promote awareness and understanding of a client’s 

investment portfolio, in terms of how it may contribute positively to the environment and society. 

•  Mobile application – Build out the features of our mobile application to ensure it is the preferred 

wealth management technology for our clients and wealth professionals.

11 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Divider page – Be genuine & transparent 

12 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Be genuine and transparent  

We are ethical, genuine, and 
transparent in our dealings 

Our vision 

•  Ensure compliant practices and strong governance 

•  Act in our clients’ and wealth professionals’ interests 

•  Set goals, benchmarks, and be transparent in tracking our progress 

•  Communicate clearly and consistently 

•  Seek feedback and continuously improve 

What we have done 

• 

Trustee structure project – Following the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, 
Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, Commissioner Hayne recommended that the 
trustee of a superannuation fund should hold no other office.  This recommendation removes the 
conflict where a superannuation trustee board may be working in multiple capacities. For the past 
18 months Netwealth has been working to give effect to this requirement, appointing two new 
independent directors in 2018 who have shadowed the Netwealth Investments Limited trustee 
board, learning about Netwealth and our superannuation product.  The new independent director, 
Rita Harris, holds the role as Chair of the Netwealth Superannuation Services Pty Ltd1 Board and 
the other new independent director, Jack Diamond, holds the role of Chair of the Trustee 
Investment Committee.  To support the new Trustee Board, the Office of the Trustee has been 
established.  This team also has no other role in Netwealth other than to support the interests of 
the members of the Netwealth Superannuation Master Fund.  

•  Reduction of fees – We have taken action to ensure that from January 2021 all clients are on our 

most up to date fee structure.  Across the product most clients received a reduction in fees, made 
possible by efficiencies of scale resulting from growth and more efficient technology and 
processes.   

1 Netwealth Superannuation Services Pty Ltd (ABN 80 636 951 310, ASFL 528032, RSE Licence L0003483) is the trustee of the Netwealth 

Superannuation Master Fund (ABN 94 573 747 704). 

13 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
•  Ending conflicted remuneration – Another of Commissioner Hayne’s recommendations was to 
remove all forms of conflicted remuneration.  Conflicted remuneration are payments to the 
wealth professionals who utilise our products and services for their clients, where that payment is 
not a direct fee charged by the wealth professional to the client.  Netwealth had a small amount of 
conflicted remuneration, as our primary wealth professional remuneration mechanism has always 
been based on fees agreed by clients rather than commissions and this form of remuneration has 
not been allowed for new clients since 2014.  The removal of this remuneration structure 
contributed to our ability to reduce our fees, which ensured that clients received the benefit of 
the removal of commissions. 

•  Modern Slavery Statement – During FY2021 we produced our first Modern Slavery Statement 

focusing on the work performed in FY2020.  This year we continued our work on modern slavery, 
working with Investment Managers to encourage them to consider modern slavery risk and with 
our development partners in Vietnam to get a better understanding of their business.  We will 
shortly produce our second statement which will be published to our website by 30 September 
2021. 

• 

Tax Transparency Report – In June 2021 we produced and issued Netwealth’s first Tax 
Transparency Report for the FY2020 year.  This report provides further transparency to our 
shareholders about the approach Netwealth takes to taxation.  Netwealth will continue to 
produce this report annually. 

Our plans FY2022 

•  Compliance projects – In October 2021 new rules come into place to implement design and 

distribution obligations (DDO), which will help ensure products are used by clients for whom the 
products have been designed.  As a platform that is effectively an interface between product 
issuers (e.g., fund managers) and wealth professionals and their clients, Netwealth has taken an 
active role as a thought leader in how to effectively implement DDO for the benefit of our 
clients.  FY2022 also brings several other regulatory changes, such as creating new processes to 
manage increased breach and complaints reporting to the regulators. 

•  Corporate sustainability – We will continue to work on our corporate sustainability framework 
and expand this report as we learn and develop.  We are committed to investigating whether to 
become certified and what sort of certification would best reflect Netwealth’s responsibilities. We 
expect shortly to commence our review of B-Corporation. If selected, we would like to achieve 
that certification within the next 12-18 months.  

• 

Financial accountability – The Financial Accountability Regime draft legislation has been released 
and will require many financial organisations to review and amend their governance structures.  
These include defining a clear matrix of responsibility for all functions across the business and to 
make changes to the way accountable persons are remunerated.   We are looking forward to the 
challenge of improving our governance structure and will work to compliance in accordance with 
the legislated implementation dates. 

14 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
  
 
 
•  Enhance our communications – This year we will be focusing on the communication to our 

employees and how we ensure that our corporate sustainability goals are known and shared 
across our business.  We want to improve practices relating to complaints and give clients a 
better understanding of our complaint handling process by releasing a Complaints Process 
Summary to our website. 

Long term goals FY2023 and beyond 

•  Better communication with all stakeholders – Creation and maintenance of a corporate 

sustainability communication portal which allows more frequent communication and tracking of 
our sustainability objectives as well as multi-directional communication and feedback. 

•  B-Corporation certification – Complete our evaluation of B-Corp Certification and if chosen as 

the appropriate certification for Netwealth, aim to be certified in FY2023. 

15 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Divider page – Foster diversity 

16 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Foster diversity, talent, and wellbeing 

We promote diversity and talent and 
believe all people have a right to 
wellbeing 

Our vision 

•  Celebrate diversity in gender, age, ethnicity and thought 

• 

Invest in our people and their development 

•  Maintain a workplace culture which supports mental health and wellbeing 

•  Promote individuality and inclusion 

What we have done 

•  COVID-19 support – The majority of Netwealth’s workforce is in Melbourne, Victoria.  Following 

the first nation-wide lockdown in May 2020, Melbourne was plunged into a heavy lockdown in late 
June, with restrictions escalating until our people were only allowed to leave their homes once per 
day for maximum 1 hour to exercise, and one person per household to shop once per day.  The 
lockdown continued for four months.  During this period we focused on employee mental health 
and wellbeing, including introducing pandemic leave (for our people who for reasons associated 
with the pandemic, needed to access an additional 2 weeks of leave if they did not have enough 
personal leave), mental health days so our people could recharge, a series of mental health 
wellbeing sessions to help strengthen our resolve, virtual personal training for those who wanted 
to sweat it out, weekly challenges and a company-wide trivia night to keep a social connection, a 
care package of goodies, support for managers to ensure they were checking in on staff, 
particularly those in vulnerable positions and the release of our ‘Stay Apart – Stand Together’ 
hoodies to recognise the unusual circumstances we found ourself in.  We are proud that we were 
able to support our employees through FY2021 and that no jobs were lost because of the 
pandemic, in fact we continued to grow during the period, hiring 63 new staff, who were all invited 
to a special function when we were finally allowed to reconvene, so that they had the opportunity 
to meet each other and our Executive team. 

• 

Improved performance measurement – We believe that our values are what define us and make 
our company unique; and that if we all live the values then both individually and collectively, we 
will be successful.  Our intention is to encourage open communication between manager and 
employee and our peers, and to develop high performance through displayed behaviours.  All staff 

17 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
• 

• 

are also encouraged to provide feedback based on our values to each other through CultureAmp 
and to nominate staff who role model our values for awards presented at our Company Town Hall. 

Transformed our workplace strategy – As part of our office relocation we took the opportunity to 
optimise the way we work. We have reimagined how we work and use our environment to 
enhance existing capabilities and strengths, and the outcome is outstanding. We have created a 
space that inspires collaboration, supports our agile approach, and meets the needs of our 
people. In addition, during FY2021 we have enhanced leader aptitude for managing remote and 
hybrid teams, recognising and acting on their wellbeing, and maintaining productivity and 
cohesiveness.  This change provides increased flexibility for our people to work in and outside of 
the office and to assist employees, we provided the opportunity to pick a backpack from Bellroy, a 
B Corp certified business that seeks to make durable products with recycled materials where 
possible.  Staff love the quality of these backpacks. 

Improved systems and tools – The roll out of a new human resource management system was a 
welcome replacement for the preceding systems and processes. We now house employee related 
information and management in the one place for events like improved development plans, 
learning management system, record keeping, compliance activities, payroll, and leave planning.   

•  Gender pay analysis – We have continued to monitor gender balance at all levels of the 

organisation and to ensure there are no gaps in pay resulting from gender.   For the Workplace 
Gender Equality Act 2012 reporting period (to 31 March 2021) our gender balance across the full 
business remained at 44%, while our manager balance increased by 1% to 37%.   

•  Enhanced employee value proposition (EVP) – To achieve the task of offering benefits that are 
meaningful to our people we introduced Work Perks, a Netwealth hub for benefits, rewards, and 
wellbeing. This has been very successful with 87% activation and engagement. We reengaged 
KidsCo to provide fun and interactive programs for primary aged school children during the 
school holidays.  Netwealth covered the full cost of KidsCo in FY2021 and we cannot wait to be 
able to reoffer the program in our new office as it represents a great opportunity for children and 
their parents to interact. 

• 

Training and development – We continued to invest in the training and development of our 
people.  Numbers and courses were fewer than prior years as the pandemic hampered our ability 
to run this face to face.  Of those who participated in the ‘Influencer Program’ in FY21 (25 
employees), 6 have been promoted and 5 have joined new teams or taken on new roles/ 
secondments around the business.   

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Our plans FY2022 

•  Graduate program – Part of our recruitment strategy are plans to launch our first graduate 
program later this year. This will provide the opportunity to gain comprehensive Netwealth 
knowledge from cross skilling in different departments. 

•  Building talent through development – Execute on a learning and development strategy to upskill 
for scalability, expand our leaders’ capability and show a clear career path by building on the 
formal Leadership Series, and through informal manager forums, toolkits, and new manager 
inductions. 

•  Retention – The changing landscape requires us to focus foremost on our culture and employee 
safety (psychological and physical) in achieving our wellbeing outcomes. In FY2022 we will launch 
a new employee assistance program that will provide a greater range of support to our people, 
including a wellbeing diagnostic assessment.  We will continue to support and celebrate our 
people who are role models and to ensure training and development programs are targeted.  
KidsCo in the office will be reintroduced to make school holiday periods easier for staff with 
families.   

•  Effective hybrid work practices – We will continue to embed work done so far on accomplishing 
effective work practices that supports business goals and employee needs.  Additional questions 
will be added to our Staff Survey to gauge how Netwealth’s flexible work arrangements are viewed 
by our people.  Training will be provided on our new office features such as use of the hybrid work 
technology. 

• 

Inclusion and diversity initiatives – Our goal is to promote and encourage a diverse workforce by 
creating an environment that is psychologically safe, supports continuous learning, respect, and 
appreciation of differences. This year we will look at our gender pay gap for managers and what 
opportunities we must do to narrow the gap.  We are going to review our interview techniques and 
processes to ensure they provide all candidates with equal opportunity to access a role at 
Netwealth.  Being a family friendly organisation is also important to us and we seek to become a 
certified Family Friendly Workplace. 

•  Social and wellbeing initiatives – We will continue to centre our efforts on employee wellbeing, 
offering virtual personal training while in lock down and other activities and initiatives that 
support mental health. 

Long term goals FY2023 and beyond 

•  Career development - To make sure our greatest assets are achieving their potential through 

stretch goals, challenges, internal secondments, and learning.  To do this we hope to explore how 
formal succession planning can benefit our people and to refine our role design and definition. 

•  Celebrating our people – We have many amazing people at Netwealth, and we look to recognise 

and celebrate them in the public arena.  We hope to create a movement that seeks to take our 
internal award nominations to the industry, by celebrating our people in external forums. 

19 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Divider page – positive social 

20 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Create a positive social and environmental impact 

We partner with and financially 
support organisations that create 
lasting positive social and 
environmental impacts 

Our vision 

•  Support workplace giving through the Netwealth Impact Fund 

•  Encourage employee involvement in the distribution of financial support 

•  Celebrate and support employee volunteering  

• 

Improve financial literacy and education opportunities in our community 

•  Seek opportunities to create a positive social and environmental impact 

What we have done 

•  Netwealth Impact Group – We established a companywide voluntary group to run and promote 
our agenda to provide a positive impact to our community.  This group operates across three 
pillars, the first supports the Netwealth Impact Fund and workplace giving, the second supports 
employee volunteering and engagement and the third is focused on provision of educational 
opportunities in our community. 

•  Netwealth Impact Fund – Is a dedicated sub-fund established within the Australian Communities 
Foundation Public Ancillary Fund (ACF).  The Fund offers a tax effective structure for our people to 
donate, combined with a robust governance overlay for granting to not for profit organisations.  
ACF bring their expertise and awareness of not-for-profit organisations to ensure that Netwealth 
grant to grass roots organisations that fit our brief. We have established a framework which will 
seamlessly allow both our existing and future employees to opt into Workplace Giving which will 
benefit the growth of the Fund. 

•  Employee engagement – A survey was conducted to identify the key areas of interest and 
preferred not for profit causes that resonate for our people.  For FY2021, two themes were 
selected, these included that Netwealth should look to financially support organisations that 

21 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
positively impact the environment and those that promote community and economic 
development, and similar themes were selected for volunteering. 

•  New office – 180 Flinders Street – In preparation for our move to a new ‘greener’ premises in 

Melbourne in July 2021 and as part of our commitment to the environment, we offered our people 
the opportunity to acquire many pre-loved items via a staff auction.  All the funds raised from the 
auction, which was $20,410, was contributed to the Netwealth Impact Fund in the FY2022 year.  
Netwealth’s current office achieves a NABERS2 energy rating of 4.5 stars and a water rating of 3 
stars.  Our builders are targeting a 5 star NABERS energy rating, Green Star rating and 
Sustainability rating and a 4 star NABERS water rating.  Ratings data requires 12 months of 
operation, so we expect our first set of data in June 2022. 

•  Environmental activities – When in the office, staff have engaged in recycling, including coffee 
cup recycling.  Netwealth introduced a reduction of paper initiative at the start of the financial 
year to remove physical signing of contracts where possible which has reduced the amount of 
printing required, saving both paper and ink usage.  Netwealth also supports healthy modes of 
transport to the office providing bike parking, lockers, and showers for our people. 

• 

Financial literacy – Our financial contribution to support Banqer continued in FY2021 for the 5th 
consecutive year and through our funding, Banqer, which aims to improve financial literacy in 
school children, engaged 8,586 students across 179 schools in Australia for calendar year 2020. 
Quizzing of the children before and after the program in the first two quarters of calendar year 
2021 shows that financial literacy improved by an average of 39% between the two periods. By 
fostering financial literacy in the wider community, together, Netwealth and Banqer are on a 
shared mission of enabling, educating and inspiring young Australians to see wealth differently 
and to discover a brighter future. 

•  Netwealth Social Committee – In May 2021, the company supported the Mother’s Day Classic 
with several employees attending.  The Social Committee relies on the collaboration and input 
from our people and will be re-energised in FY2022 when we can again gather in the office. 

Our plans FY2022 

•  Netwealth Impact Group – In FY2022 the Impact Group will launch each of the three focus areas, 
promoting the Impact Fund and workplace giving, employee volunteering and provide more 
awareness on our educational stream.  To do this the Group will build a brand and communication 
strategy to clearly articulate to our people the social impact that our company can achieve when 
we work together. 

•  Netwealth Impact Fund – Partnering with ACF we will select four not for profit organisations to 

whom we will grant funds in FY2022.  This year we aim to grant a minimum of $20,000, allowing us 
to grow the Fund, while also giving back.  We plan to raise awareness around the chosen not for 
profit organisations with an employee event which will champion the organisations’ mission and 
impact.  If successful, we plan to host this showcase of our not-for-profit partners in our new 
premises on an annual basis to encourage formal and informal engagement with our people.  
Netwealth will also match employee contributions to the Fund. 

2 National Australian Built Environment Rating System 

22 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
•  Employee volunteering – FY2021 volunteering plans were heavily impacted by COVID-19 with most 
of our Melbourne workforce being in lockdown for a large portion of the year.  This year we hope 
to explore activities and options for COVID-19 friendly volunteering, including a clothing drive 
where we will encourage our people to donate professional and casual clothing.  Further 
opportunities will be explored throughout the year, and we hope to achieve 1,000 hours of 
volunteer work across the business during the Financial Year. 

• 

Financial literacy – Netwealth has committed to continue to support Banqer for the 2021 calendar 
year with a combined goal to continue to improve financial literacy.  We are hoping to see a 25% 
uplift in schools and students who use the Banqer program in 2021, which will see the program 
rolled out in 225 schools with 10,700 students participating. 

•  Support businesses that are ethical – Staff loved our Netwealth Stay Apart – Stand Together 2020 
hoodies.  This year we wanted to celebrate our sustainability framework and ran a competition for 
staff to create a design and with the design chosen we have decided that we want to wear a brand 
that supports sustainability, so have engaged Etiko who focus on using organic cotton, natural 
products and are B Corp certified.  Our employees can choose colour, size, and type of garment to 
ensure we only purchase product that our people want and will love. 

Long term goals FY2023 and beyond 

•  Employee engagement – Continue to build engagement in the Impact Group and other activities 
to enable the improvement of our statistical measures (increased donations, increased volunteer 
hours and increased impact of our engagement in the community). 

• 

Financial literacy – We would like to continue to support improvement in the level of financial 
literacy in our community.  We are commencing research of the types of organisations that 
support financial literacy particularly in migrant or disadvantaged communities to explore 
whether there is an opportunity for our business and people to provide a positive impact. 

•  Carbon neutral – Explore and implement how Netwealth can become carbon neutral. 

23 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Key performance indicators 

Enhance our core 

Investment Trends  

FY2021 Actual 

FY2021 
Target3 

FY2022 Target 

Best overall platform (voted by advisers) 

Overall Satisfaction with Platform (voted by advisers) 

#2 

#1 

#1 

#1 

#1 

#1 

Transparent and genuine 

To be added in FY2022 

Diversity, talent and wellbeing 

Gender diversity4 

Board 

Senior Executive (excluding Executive Directors) 

Managers 

All employees  

Gender pay equity gap – Managers 

Gender pay equity gap – Employees 

Staff satisfaction 

33% 

33% 

37% 

44% 

16.1% 

2.1% 

>30% 

>30% 

>40% 

>45% 

N/A 

N/A 

>30% 

>30% 

>40% 

>45% 

<14% 

<5% 

Employee satisfaction (Annual engagement survey) 

79% 

N/A 

80%+ 

Wellbeing and targets to be added in FY2022 

Create a positive impact 

Building energy ratings 

NABER energy rating 

NABER water rating 

Green Star rating 

Sustainability rating 

4.5 stars 

3.0 stars 

Unavailable 

Unavailable 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

5.0 stars 

4.0 stars 

5.0 stars 

5.0 stars 

3 All items noted ‘N/A’ in the below column reference that a rating was not set for FY2021. 

4 All gender indicators are for the year 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 (in accordance with the Workplace Gender Equality 

Act 2012 reporting requirements). 

24 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Netwealth Impact Fund  

Workplace giving / fundraising 

Netwealth contribution  

Our people involved in workplace giving 

Banqer5 

Number of students 

Number of schools 

Other 

$1,190.46 

$20,000.00 

0 

8,586 

179 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

$25,000 

$25,000 

30% 

10,700 (25% growth) 

225 (25% growth) 

Amount disbursed to not for profits (from the Netwealth 
Impact Fund or through direct fundraising) 

$142.00 

Set up fund 

$20,000 

Employee volunteering hours 

21 hours 

N/A 

1,000 hours 

5 All Banqer indicators are for the year 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020 (in accordance with the school year). 

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26 | netwealth   Corporate Sustainability Report     August 2021