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We are proud of our workplace culture at Experian North America. Today, we released our third annual inclusion and diversity “2019 The Power of You” report. We encourage our employees to bring their whole selves to work and have created a culture of inclusion that helps to fuel our continued product innovation. Our Power of You movement began in 2017 to raise awareness about our efforts around inclusion and to provide employees with greater transparency of the initiatives that are part of this program. Progressive policies across a wide range of initiatives such as pay equity, paternal leave, flexible working arrangements and corporate social responsibility help to make our employees feel proud, committed and empowered to work at Experian. “Diversity of background, of experience and of thought bring new ideas to our organization which foster the innovation that helps to improve the lives of consumers every day. Our culture of inclusion and diversity underpins our business success which, underpins what our brand stands for,” said Craig Boundy, former CEO of Experian North America. “With the launch of our ‘2019 The Power of You’ report, we are excited to share how our inclusive workplace is helping to drive our culture of innovation.” Some highlights of our 2019 report include: We have 1,200 women in STEM positions 47% of new hires are women and 44% are non-white Women and men are promoted equally We created our newest ERG, Aspire, which focuses on mental health and physical disability awareness and caregiving We have a total of eight ERGs with 1,200 active participates Employees participate in events including charity walks, fundraising events, and toy and food drives, among others Events recognize International Women's Day, Veteran’s Day, the Lunar New Year, National Coming Out Day, Cinco de Mayo, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Black History Month, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Hispanic Heritage Month and Diwali, among others Employees spent more than 12,000 hours volunteering With the support of our employees, we donated more than $10,000 for California wildfire relief to the Red Cross Employees packed a total of 65,880 meals volunteering with Rise Against Hunger locations in Costa Mesa, Allen and Franklin, California We currently have 38 clubs with 800 members We rolled out a new Paid Family Care Leave Program, expanding on our existing Paid Parental Leave Program Additional programs include the launch of a new, enhanced Employee Assistance Program, which offers a greater level of resources and benefits for mental and behavioral health for employees and families and the Experian Hardship Fund, launched in 2018 to help employees who are facing financial hardship. We continued our Humans of Experian video series, which highlights the stories of employees who have unique backgrounds that enhance the diversity of our company. We also had hundreds of our employees from throughout the organization volunteer to personally evaluate Experian Boost™. Employees participated in this program because they believed in the product’s potential to help millions of Americans. At Experian, we continuously foster a culture of development and growth and we have various forms of mentorship, career paths and leadership programs to support our employees. Our commitment to creating an inclusive workplace has also received numerous accolades. We were named one the 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2020 and one of the Best Workplaces for Diversity in 2020 by Fortune and Great Place to Work. Additionally, for the second consecutive year, we were awarded a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2020 Corporate Equality Index. Experian was also named a Top Workplace in 2020 in Orange County, Calif., by the Orange County Register for the seventh consecutive year, and one of the world's most innovative companies by Forbes magazine for five years. A copy of this year's report can be found here.  

If you asked me how I’d feel about taking a personal finance class in school when I was growing up in a small town near St. Louis, Missouri, I probably would’ve told you it sounds better than trigonometry and chemistry on the list of classes I had to take. They weren’t my best subjects.  Now that I’m a few years older, and I hope a bit wiser, I can promise you I would answer that question a lot differently if asked today.   I now know there are some instances in life where it makes sense to learn by making mistakes, but money is not one of them. Like many people, I had my first experience with credit and money management when I took out a student loan. I was the first person in my family to go to college, so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. Unfortunately, I learned the impact of poor borrowing habits and high interest rates the hard way – for many, many years.  Learning about money, and especially credit, by making mistakes can lead to long term damage to your financial health, which is one of the many reasons I’m passionate about financial education in schools today. Effective financial education programs will help young adults be more successful older adults.   We know that if a young person has a basic understanding of how credit works, they tend to be less likely to overextend their credit card use. It’s one of the reasons Experian was the first in its industry to invest in youth financial education, as a founding partner of the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy two decades ago. Over that time, we’ve continued to support the organization.   Eleven years ago, we launched the Jump$tart National Educator Conference that offers teachers around the country tools and information about personal finance to take back to their classrooms. Last year, more than 350 teachers attended the conference. This year alone they will teach more than 48,000 students across the country about personal finance. It's been a very powerful partnership.  While we’ve made a lot of progress in educating our youth about personal finance, there is still a lot of work to do. As of this year, 21 states across the U.S. require high school students to take a personal finance course, an increase of 4 states since 2018, according to a recently released report from the Council for Economic Education.   This report also reinforced the idea that students who receive financial education borrow more sensibly. They tend to look at low-cost over high-cost financing options and they are more likely to apply for aid, receive grants and accept federal loans, which all tend to be lower interest forms of borrowing. Applying for grants or low-cost financing options could have made a serious impact on my financial health as a young adult. Considering student loan debt has now reached $1.56 trillion, it’s time we all start paying more attention to the positive impact financial education can have on our young people as well as our economy.   Not only is financial education in schools the right thing to do, we know it’s something students want. We recently surveyed a group of more than 500 high school graduates to learn what they want when it comes to finance and credit education. Some key findings include:   49% of Gen Z consumers surveyed said they found financial topics to be somewhat interesting or very interesting—and 11% of them even said they loved learning about them.  Only about one-third—36%—of Gen Z consumers said they had taken a class on a financial topic, and among that group, many of them still had looming financial questions.  Of the 64% that had never taken a financial education class, 43% reported wanting to learn to save money, 38% wanted to learn how to manage their expenses, and another 36% said they wanted to take a class that taught them how to file their taxes.  A large majority—76%—of Gen Z consumers said that they thought their high school should have offered a class on managing finances.  So, what can we do to help ensure our young people grow up to be financially healthy adults?   If you’re a parent and want to find out if your children’s school offers financial education, head to https://checkyourschool.org/. If your school is not on the list, learn how you can become engaged in this initiative by working with JumpStart.   In the meantime, you can also find free, educational resources on our website to help teach your children about personal finance and credit. We have prepared a simple lesson plan, presentations and online brochures that are free to download, and you can find answers to commonly asked questions about personal finance, credit, fraud, identity theft and more on our Ask Experian blog and our weekly Twitter Credit Chats.   

At Experian, we value a workplace culture based on inclusion, innovation and the diversity of perspectives that each of our employees bring to work every day. In recognition of this commitment, we are extremely proud to be named to Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in 2020” list.   Each year, Fortune recognizes the 100 best companies in the U.S. to work for and examines company programs as well as opportunities for innovation, among other factors. To determine the list, Great Place to Work oversaw the country’s largest ongoing annual workforce study. The organization analyzed the feedback from 4.3 million employees in the U.S. to more than 60 survey questions describing the extent to which their organization creates a “Great Place to Work For All.” The ranking accounted for the experiences of all employees including women, people of color, members of the LGBT community, older team members, and disabled employees.  At Experian we aspire to have a truly diverse and inclusive workplace that fosters innovation, and have created a variety of different programs to achieve this goal. As part of this, we celebrate our diversity through a range of fun, engaging and informative cultural events, including those supported by our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).  Employees can also join one of our many social clubs to share interests with colleagues, or volunteer with nonprofit organizations to give back to the communities in which Experian operates.  Our culture of inclusion is truly something to celebrate, and that’s because of every single person who makes up the Experian family and brings our brand to life every day.  All of this is supported by our culture of continuous innovation; from the way we work to the solutions we create. This commitment to innovation has helped us create a workplace where our teams across the world have a desire to help change the lives of millions for the better.  The diversity of thinking across Experian, and the way in which we harness it, helps fuel our innovation and ultimately our ongoing success as a business. This makes our work relevant to our consumers and clients, adding more value in their own lives – creating a better tomorrow for them.  As a result, we continue to have a positive impact on consumers, businesses and the economy. We do this with our products, technology, and innovation — from finding breakthroughs around better utilizing data, to identifying ways we can make access to credit faster and simpler for millions around the world.   At Experian, we are dedicated to making our workplace more just than a business. It’s a community that supports all our employees and promotes a culture where people can be comfortable being their authentic selves. And because of that commitment, we’re proud to join the ranks of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For in 2020.”    

To quote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, ‘water, water everywhere, / nor any drop to drink.’ I think the same can be true of data. While organizations have more data than ever before, very few are able to capitalize on this resource and actually leverage it for insight. There is no question on the value of data. It is viewed as a key competitive advantage, and in some instances, a strategic financial asset. However, translating data into meaningful insight is a completely different task to storing and managing it from a regulatory perspective. We see many companies investing in all sorts of data initiatives, like analytics, machine learning automation, data governance, customer insight, etc. Yet, most companies still report they are not sufficiently data driven. Each year we conduct a global study of data usage and data management practices. This year, we surveyed over 1,000 practitioners on how they want to leverage data. The research dug into some of the obstacles they face and why so few are able to leverage data for insight. We found three key areas emerge. First, there is a large degree of distrust in information. The average professional looking at data does not understand how that data got there, when it is useful, and what state it is in. While data can lead to increased agility and better decision making, a significant level of distrust often causes leaders to fall back on making decisions by gut instinct rather than by informed data insight. In fact, we have consistently seen over the past several years that people believe almost a third of their data is inaccurate. Second, we are seeing a rising level of data debt. Data debt is a lot like technical debt. You have a set of data assets that aren’t necessarily fit for purpose or have a high degree of inaccuracy. Unless you take the time to fix that information and govern it properly, you are always going to have a suboptimal data operation. In turn, poor quality means many companies are not fully seeing the ROI or expected benefit from some of the investments they are making. Finally, there is a data skills shortage. This doesn’t just mean data professionals, like data analysts, chief data officers (CDOs), and data scientists. There is also a general lack of understanding around data within the broader business. We see a growing number of companies talking about enabling wider usage of data across the business and wanting to do more with data insight, but very few people across organizations are truly data literate. Our survey results indicated a tide changing where now most companies report that data literacy needs to be a core competency of employees over the next five years. To generate the level of insight needed to fully leverage data as a valuable asset, organizations have to start to tackle issues around inaccuracy, trust, and certainly data skills. Without fixing these components, organizations will continue to be surrounded by all of this useful data that doesn’t actually provide them with what they need. To learn more about these challenges and our new study, please download the report at https://www.edq.com/resources/data-management-whitepapers/2020-Global-data-management-research/.

As part of the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, Experian is celebrating Lunar New Year. This article is by executive co-sponsors of Experian’s Asian American Employee Resource Group (ERG): Dacy Yee, Chief Customer Officer and Jimmy Cheung, SVP of Information Security and Compliance. Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, is celebrated in various Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and others. For some cultures, it’s a 15-day long celebration filled with symbols and traditions that have different meanings. 2020 is the Year of the Rat, which is the first of all the zodiac animals. The Rat is seen as a sign of wealth and surplus in Chinese culture, and those born on the Year of the Rat are optimistic, energetic and likable by all! See the table below to determine your zodiac animal. In our families, the preparation for the Lunar New Year celebration starts a week before the New Year day. We clean the house thoroughly to remove any bad luck from the preceding year and decorate the interior with red objects—a color often associated with good fortune, wealth and longevity in the Chinese culture. Back when we were young, our parents would buy us new outfits to make sure that we looked presentable when visiting friends and families, and would also allow us unlimited access to sweets and treats, as it symbolized a sweet year ahead. The holiday has always been about more than just the coming of a new year. Lunar New Year meant spending time with loved ones, indulging in a delicious Asian feast, and partaking in age-old traditions that gave us a sense of pride and adoration for our culture. These are just some of the things that make the holiday so special to us (that, and receiving hong baos—red envelopes with money—from our elders). This year, our Asian American ERG worked hard to put on an outstanding Lunar New Year; it's our group's largest annual event! Experian enjoyed a diverse cultural showcase of seven different countries, a Chinese sleeve dance, Tinikling (Filipino stick dance), a Taiwanese aboriginal dance, a catered lunch and more. Tinikling is a traditional Philippine folk dance that involves two people tapping and sliding bamboo while dancers step over and in between the sticks. Our Asian American ERG performed tinikling for us today during our #LunarNewYear celebration! 🧧🐀 pic.twitter.com/JiwfzXp3wq — Experian (@Experian) February 6, 2020 We are also proud to announce we partnered with the Center for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF) and hosted a donation drive to assist in their commitment to ending domestic and sexual violence in Asian Pacific Islander (API) communities. Many of us started the Lunar New Year on a positive note, and we want to ensure that’s true for those in need as well As always, we are so grateful to Experian for providing an environment where we are not only allowed but encouraged to bring our whole selves to work every day. Through various events hosted at Experian campuses across the country, we were able to impact 1,500 employees and expose them to the wonderful cultures of Asia. It is an honor to be able to share this part of our lives with our colleagues and show them how beautiful and rich various Asian cultures are. We look forward to a healthy and prosperous new year. 恭喜發財! Gong Hay Fat Choy! Jimmy Cheung Co-Executive Sponsor Asian American Employee Resource Group Dacy Yee Co-Executive Sponsor Asian American Employee Resource Group Photos taken by Nhan T. Nguyen.