Governance and disclosures

As a business, we are stronger when people and the planet thrive. Manulife recognizes the threats posed by climate change to our business, public health, and the livelihoods of the communities in which we operate, and the urgent need to preserve the quality of our natural environment. This includes how we manage our operations, how we make investment decisions, and how we develop and offer financial products and services.

For implementation details on Manulife’s Climate Action Plan, please refer to Manulife's Climate Action Implementation Plan Report

Preserving our natural resources is critical to the well-being of future generations. Nature is at the heart of a healthy environment, and we believe in safeguarding forests, wetlands and natural habitats where biodiversity thrives.

Asset ownership 

Nature is considered among various factors in General Account's evaluation of overall environmental risks and opportunities during the underwriting and monitoring of our investment portfolio, assessed when deemed material.

Asset management

At Manulife Investment Management, we view nature as our business. The forest and farms we manage are ecosystems, and our job is to keep them healthy and productive over the long term. We operate in a way that responsibly manages land and protects sensitive lands and biodiversity through stewardship practices. In our real estate, we have been actively engaging in initiatives to support nature and biodiversity within the built environment for several years.

One tool we believe to be invaluable for tracking progress on halting and reversing nature loss — as well as for informing decisions that will make this possible — is natural capital accounting. Moreover, it is a key component of our evolving approach to nature. Our approach entails construction of a natural capital asset register and materiality assessment, followed by valuation of natural capital assets and liabilities using a combination of internal company data and publicly available research.

Manulife Investment Management was a member of the informal working group for the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), working to develop the scope of that endeavor to deliver a risk management and disclosure framework for organizations to report and act on evolving nature-related risk. As the world’s largest institutional asset manager of natural capital, we have prioritized issuing our TNFD-aligned nature disclosure to further demonstrate our commitment to nature and our support of the framework. 

For additional information and reports, including Manulife Investment Management's Nature Statement, please visit
Sustainable Investing | Manulife Investment Management

In 2022, we launched our Impact Agenda, which articulates our commitment to building a better business to better the world.

Accordingly, our approach to Community Investment was updated to align to the Impact Agenda and its respective pillars—empowering sustained health and well-being, driving inclusive economic opportunity, and accelerating a sustainable future.

During the year, we informed our stakeholders, people, and partners, both internally and externally, about our new approach and continue to work to align our portfolio of Community Investment organizations to our new areas of focus. Our strategy prioritizes investments to organizations that:

• Share a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, particularly through representative leadership and targeted programming to historically underserved communities.
• Drive community-centered solutions, working collaboratively across sectors, aimed at innovative and scalable initiatives.
• Demonstrate a holistic approach to many aspects of well-being, including mental health, to improve and sustain positive outcomes over the long-term.
• Utilize data to measure impact with key performance indicators and a commitment to reporting on progress.

Investment Focus: We focus on removing barriers and empowering people in the communities where we operate. With humanitarian and natural disasters happening around the world, we are committed to helping communities respond effectively with resiliency and recovery resources. We consider funding strategically aligned project or program specific grants, as well as capacity building grants or general operating support to organizations whose missions are highly aligned with our investment focus areas. In addition to programmatic funding, we also fund research and innovation to support cutting-edge ideas to understand, address, and promote sustainable change.

For more information, please visit:

• Manulife Canada Community Investment
• John Hancock Community Investment
• Hong Kong Community Investment

In line with our mission of making decisions easier and lives better, we support customers in their financial resilience journeys and prepare for potential challenges which lie ahead. Through our impact partners, we prioritize building financially resilient communities by providing access to opportunities for training, funding, and capacity building to community members. As a global financial services company, we look to extend the scope of our products, services, and partnerships to traditionally underserved demographics by assessing accessibility, affordability, and the unique needs of the various markets we operate in. 

Our commitment to financial inclusion is reviewed as part of Manulife’s Executive Sustainability Council (ESC)’s mandate. The ESC consists of our Global Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) along with eleven members of our Executive Leadership Team (ELT), including our Chief Executive Officer (CEO). 

We leverage our expertise and resources to advance financial inclusion and literacy, which empowers individuals, families, and communities, to lay the foundation for economic prosperity: 

• We offer a number of specialized products and services that make our offerings more accessible, such as affordable critical illness and health insurance products, digitally enabled insurance products, and mobile banking solutions. We strive to innovate, expand on and assess the affordability of applicable products and services available to underserved communities. 
• Through our community investment and impact strategy, we support financial education and capability programs that seek to make a social impact by promoting financial well-being to underserved populations. We engage and partner with external organizations to support and enable global access to financial products and services (i.e microfinance). 

We aim to: 

Enable Behaviour/Attitude Changes 

• Increase awareness and action to set short-term and long-term financial goals that meet individual needs and expectations 
• Empower individuals to design and pursue career pathways 

Increase Skills/Personal Effectiveness 

• Increase an individual’s ability to manage personal finances and/or help them gain new qualifications/skills 

Improve Quality of Life/Well-being 

• Improve a sense of belonging, resilience, and greater social connections 
• Enable individuals to maintain meaningful employment in their industry of choice, increase their earning potential, and/or protect their financial security 

Guiding and Enabling Policies 

Our Conduct Risk Framework outlines best practices that our business should follow in all phases of the product and service cycle, including those regarding the fair treatment of customers.

We live by our mission to make decisions easier and lives better. Foundational to our success is ensuring that all our employees, customers, and stakeholders are respected, feel connected to each other and our mission and are treated with equity and dignity, until each one of us belongs.

Our inclusive culture aims to inspire employees to bring their authentic selves to work, enabling them to provide high-quality service to our customers, business partners, and communities. We aspire to create an inclusive culture and brand with diverse talent that drives high performance. We understand the key to making a positive impact is embracing inclusion and leveraging it to create a stronger, more resilient organization. We take pride in setting ourselves apart from our competitors by placing inclusion at the heart of our efforts through four strategic pillars: Workforce, Workplace, Community, and Business.

• Our Workforce – We aspire to have diversity at all levels in the organization that is reflective of the communities we operate and serve.
• Our Workplace – We aim to create a workplace that is a safe and inclusive space, where everyone feels respected, valued, and heard.
• Our Business – We incorporate an equity and inclusion lens to the development and delivery of products and services for our customers and communities.
• Our Community – We invest in the community and organizations with an explicit focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion aimed at long-term positive impact towards marginalized groups, and partner with strategic organizations, who provide a layer of expertise on diversity-related subject matter.

Our global strategy is led by our Global Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, the Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team, and our Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, who collectively guide, support, and facilitate its implementation. Chaired by our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer, the Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council is made up of executive leaders who drive business impact through our strategy and play a key role representing business functions across the organization, with specific initiatives applicable to their respective functions. Council members meet as a group on a quarterly basis and act as advocates in their respective divisions and functions.

Employee Resource Groups 

Our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are voluntary, employee-led networks that provide members with opportunities to connect with one another. They provide a space for them to build networks, share experiences, and contribute to our global inclusion efforts and are open to all colleagues. 

Globally, Manulife has 15 Employee Resource Groups with 40 chapters and over 14,000 members:

• Ability – building a positive and inclusive environment for colleagues of all abilities
• AMP (Association of Multicultural Professionals) – promotes cultural awareness, cultivating talent and creating meaningful growth opportunities for multicultural professionals.
• EMBRACE (Where Employees of Manulife Bridge Race, Culture and Ethnicity, to celebrate and uplift each other) – create an environment where communication and cooperation help members bridge race and culture and support each other in fully living their identities at work and beyond.
• Family – a safe place where you can share your family experiences and get support.
• GenerationNEXT – a community that helps to bridge the generation gap in our workplace by connecting colleagues who are looking for networking, career development and volunteer opportunities.
• GWA (Global Women’s Alliance) – supports and encourages the recruitment, development and advancement of women throughout the organization.
• IPTA (Indigenous Peoples and Their Allies) – aims to better enable Indigenous colleagues to advance professionally, have open and honest conversation while increasing the awareness of Indigenous Peoples.
• LatinX – promote cultural awareness about Latin American diversity; and encourage inclusion through recruitment, development and career management for individuals representing this important community.
• Male Allies – passionate about men and women working together to promote gender equality and the advancement of women.
• MiLE (Military Employee Community) – a group for all employees who are current service members, veterans, and their families and supporters.
• PACES (Pan-Asian Community for Employee Success) – strives to build the presence, influence and leadership potential of Pan-Asian employees at Manulife.
• PROUD (Professionals Reaching out for Unity and Diversity) – promotes an inclusive workplace for LGBTQ+ employees to promote their full and unencumbered contribution to Manulife.
• Shalom – mission to create an inclusive environment for Jewish colleagues and allies, as well as a forum to celebrate and share Jewish heritage and identity.
• Sustainability Hub – a forum created to engage colleagues and help them learn about sustainability, both personally and through the lens of Manulife.
• VIBE (Valuing the Inclusion of Black Experiences) – aims to better enable our Black employees to advance professionally, support the aspirations of potential employees and increase awareness of various Black cultures.

 Pay Equity 

We are committed to pay equity and to providing all colleagues with fair and equitable pay opportunities. Our commitment starts with our unbiased job evaluation process and global job architecture around which our compensation structures and programs are designed. These foundational pieces are central to ensuring work across the organization is valued fairly using a consistently applied methodology. We have created a pay-for-performance environment where everyone’s compensation is tied to the impact they have on the business and to their performance, including both “what” they achieve and “how” they achieve it.

We take ongoing steps to identify and mitigate the risk of unconscious bias in our pay practices and to ensure equitable compensation outcomes for our employees.

To track and measure our pay equity success, we conduct detailed quarterly comparative compensation analyses to ensure that compensation across gender, racial minorities is equitable after considering differences in job level, job families, tenure, specialized skills, and individual performance.  

Manulife is committed to a steadfast approach to responsible procurement by incorporating environmental and social practices into our sourcing decisions to help the organization buy better. Manulife aligns with vendors who share similar values, including vendors who are committed to maintaining continuous stewardship in environmental and social sustainability within the entire value chain.  

Manulife's Global Procurement and Third-Party Management Standard provides guidance on delivering the best value with all third-party purchases, and that all dealings with third parties are conducted in a manner in line with Manulife’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. This standard enables procurement to maximize the provision of products and services and minimize risk while upholding our high ethical standards in working with vendors.

Our updated Vendor Code of Conduct sets clear guidelines for our vendors, with key clauses that reinforces our commitment to fostering a supply chain network that prioritizes environmental protection and the wellness and fair treatment of their employees.  

Ethical business practices and good governance are integral to our legacy and long-term success. We support businesses owned by underrepresented communities and minorities as part of our effort to reflect the diversity of the communities in which we operate.

Talent Attraction and Retention

To find the talent we need to deliver on our strategic objectives, our approach to talent attraction is focused on building inclusive talent networks to attract top talent in a highly competitive market. Our focus on delivering innovative ways to find and engage candidates centers around personalized experiences enabled by leading technology and capabilities. 

AskHR

Employees can call, email or chat directly with a live agent through our AskHR website with any questions relating to HR policies and benefits programs, or to raise concerns. With representatives located across our global footprint, AskHR is always ready to support employees and managers globally.  

Training and Development

We are committed to creating a workplace that offers unlimited opportunities for employees to realize their career goals. Employees want to work for an organization they believe cares for them, values their perspective and contributions, invests in them, and gives them flexibility to deliver great work. Whether it is working abroad, exploring a new career direction, or simply progressing in their chosen field, we help our employees reach their full potential through focused development programs and online resources. We provide employees with opportunities for learning and development at all stages of their career. In addition to on-the-job training, mentoring, coaching, in-house programs, and online learning resources, we often subsidize the cost of continuous learning and examinations as employees pursue their learning and individual development plans.

Our vision is to provide a high-quality learning experience that empowers our employees to learn anytime, anywhere. Manulife focuses on offering employees learning opportunities to enable them to work more innovatively and collaboratively and to accelerate our ambition of being the most digital, customer-centric global company in our industry.

On an annual basis, all employees must participate in the following mandatory training courses: Code of Business Conduct and Ethics Training and Certification, Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Training, Information Protection Training Preventing, and Discrimination, Harassment and Workplace Violence.

Engagement and Recognition

Our ability to engage the best, diverse talent is critical to retention. As individuals are focused on working for organizations that align with their values, we believe our culture gives us a competitive edge. Listening to our people, and understanding what’s most important to them, are key components of our approach to building engagement. We facilitate employee listening through a variety of platforms and channels. 

• Engagement Survey: Our annual engagement survey is an opportunity for all our employees to tell us what we’re doing well and what we could enhance to help everyone feel connected, empowered and supported. Our full employee engagement survey, which is run in the Fall, is designed to focus on the topics that have the greatest impact on employees’ engagement. We also run a short pulse survey in the Spring as a check-in on action planning progress, as well as additional topics that might be an area of focus. Grounded in the model of Share-Plan-Act, there is a strong focus on sharing survey findings and taking action at the team level so that everyone is involved in building a more engaging workplace. Our target as an organization is to have top quartile engagement as it relates to the Gallup Finance & Insurance companies database.
• Recognition Programs: Recognition is a key driver of engagement and as such we have two globally adopted recognition programs: Podium and Stars of Excellence. Podium is a digital recognition platform that allows employees to recognize one another for day-to-day contributions and their service anniversaries. Stars of Excellence is our premier annual recognition program to recognize the top 150 employees for achievements in the previous calendar year.
• Performance Enablement Program: Our annual Performance Enablement process uses a Management by Objectives approach which includes Goal setting, Mid-Year and Year-End Check Ins, encourages discussion and documentation of performance against determined objectives/goals, development plans, and agreement on deliverables, development needs, career aspirations and specific training actions and timelines. We have a performance enablement system to enable the exchange of feedback, create and update goals, and document performance reviews for all employees globally. An emphasis on feedback and conversations is core to the performance enablement program. Feedback is encouraged through different mediums and exchanging feedback anytime throughout the year is made possible through our systems. This Ongoing check-in approach keeps leaders and employees connected throughout the year on their set goals and development progress. To stress the importance of leadership, their annual Leadership goal is auto assigned in our systems for all people leaders globally. The goal can be updated to allow for greater personalization of specific actions and success measures by individual people leaders. Both Mid-Year and Year-End reviews are completed and acknowledged by the employee and people leader.  

One of Manulife’s key priorities is protecting and supporting the health and wellbeing of our colleagues. We strive to support the diverse nature of our workforce, and we prioritize their health, safety and wellbeing through the following means:

• Providing colleagues with a comprehensive benefits package that supports them and their families
• Flexibility when it comes to their benefits and wellbeing choices
• Supporting the evolving needs of our colleagues and enhancing our benefits and wellbeing offerings
• Ensuring compliance with legislative requirements

Our employee programs cover a wide array of benefits plans with options that employees can tailor to their individual needs. Our benefits and wellness programs vary by region and may include:

• Health, dental, vision, short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance coverage
• Retirement savings plans
• Care and support for employees with cancer
• Mental health support and benefits
• Extra Personal Days for employees to use during each calendar year
• Family friendly benefits for families of all kinds and family planning, including fertility support, and financial support for adoption and surrogacy
• Maternity, parental and adoption leaves above statutory requirements, including paid maternity, parental and adoption leaves, in certain geographies. In North America we offer:
• 20 weeks paid parental leave for the primary caregiver, and 12 weeks paid parental leave for the non-primary caregiver
• 12 weeks paid adoption leave for non-birth parents
• Adoption and surrogacy benefits that reimburses for eligible expense to a maximum of $20,000 per adoption and $20,000 per surrogacy.
• Designated breastfeeding facilities and parenting rooms in many of our corporate offices
• Emergency childcare and eldercare subsidies
• Ability to expense childcare through a flexible wellness account via employee benefits, up to the available maximum
• Our U.S. and Canada colleagues have access to 20 days of back-up childcare per dependent per year at employee subsidized rates
• Gender reassignment coverage in many jurisdictions
• Flexible work programs and working hours following a human-centered approach, so employees can manage their time and personal schedules
• Some positions offer part-time contracts
• Some positions offer full-time remote work, or a hybrid working from home arrangement
• Access to industry-leading expertise and financial products to help employees optimize their own financial planning
• Healthy workspaces, including healthy food options in cafeterias and amenity spaces supporting wellness at several locations.
• Onsite fitness facilities with group fitness classes including yoga at several locations
• Ability to expense fitness equipment, gym memberships and fitness app costs through a flexible wellness account via employee benefits

Our Global Health and Safety program embodies its commitment to providing a safe and healthy workplace in compliance with legislative occupational health and safety requirements. This commitment to health and safety is an integral part of our operations and involves the co-operation and support of every individual within the Company. 

All employees have a responsibility for fostering a healthy and safe working environment: 

• Our global Working Better Program helps guide how we manage work schedules and connect with each other to boost our effectiveness.
• Senior management is responsible for enforcement of Manulife’s Global Health and Safety Policy and for ensuring that Health and Safety Committees are established as required by law. Leaders are held accountable for the safety of employees under their supervision. This includes ensuring that equipment is safe and that employees work in compliance with established safe work practices and procedures. 

Our Global Health and Safety Policy recognizes that everyone in the organization has specific responsibilities for Occupational Health and Safety integrated into everyone’s job. This includes: 

Encouraging all colleagues to comply with all company operating procedures pertaining to health and safety and empowering them to take ownership of their safety and report any concerns.  

Encouraging colleagues, supervisors, and senior management to raise and resolve health and safety issues as part of their daily business duties. Referring items to senior management if the department manager/supervisor is unable to correct the issue and encourage use of the Joint Health and Safety Committee, Health and Safety teams, and Employee Relations.

Our workplace policies and programs prioritize prevention, monitoring of our health and safety procedures, and training. This includes procedures to investigate work-related injuries, illnesses, diseases, and incidents. For instance, if a slip and fall occurs, there is an emergency procedure followed to appropriately attend to the individual. An employee incident report form and an incident/ hazard investigation form are completed to help ensure any deficiencies are corrected. Our workplaces have emergency response plans to identify risks and to plan for emergency situations to premises and employees, and we identify actions required to prepare for, and respond to, emergency situations. Internal inspections including health and safety workplace, security, and real estate/building operations are completed. Hazards and risks noted during inspections are escalated to the appropriate teams, and issued remediation works are monitored to track completion.  

To develop a culture where employees value the health and safety of themselves and others, we provide employee education, including how to report health and safety incidents, health and safety training, first aid and mental health first aid training for key individuals, and training on our Global Discrimination, Harassment and Workplace Violence Policy.

Customer Experience and NPS: Delivering great customer experience starts with listening closely to our customers, learning from their signals and cues and responding quickly with action. Through our Net Promoter System (NPS), enabled in all of our business globally, we collect real-time feedback from customers at all key moments of interaction. This transactional feedback is delivered directly to the teams that are empowered to take steps to fix or change the customer experience. We are continually maturing our NPS system, ensuring we have the best coverage across key touchpoints and the right people in place to act on real-time feedback.

Customer complaint resolution: We are committed to providing high-quality service and products to assist customers in making better financial decisions. If customers have questions or concerns, we see it as our responsibility to respond promptly, accurately and with the utmost courtesy. Our websites outline complaint resolution processes in each region. The Audit Committee annually reviews the procedures for dealing with customer complaints.

When customers lead longer, healthier lives, it benefits them, their life insurers, and society as a whole. As a life insurer, retirement plan provider, and asset manager, we are well-positioned to help our customers achieve a healthier, longer life underpinned with financial resilience to enjoy life to its fullest.   

Behavioural Insurance: We are at the leading edge of behavioural insurance, a shared value approach to life insurance that encourages customers to take small steps every day towards living longer, healthier, better lives.  

• When customers live longer, healthier lives, it is good for them and for their life insurers, while society benefits as a whole — it is a primary example of bringing the principles of shared value to life. 
• Whereas traditional insurance policies are priced based on a limited snapshot of a customer’s data (e.g., age, smoking status, gender, basic health indicators) at the point of purchase, this new type of insurance provides financial protection and rewards customers with premium savings and other benefits when they make healthy lifestyle choices.
• Through our behavioural insurance products across Canada, the U.S., and select markets in Asia, we support customers in living healthier, more active lives by rewarding them for making healthy lifestyle choices. We offer four behavioural insurance programs in Canada (Manulife Vitality), the U.S. (John Hancock Vitality), and in select markets in Asia (ManulifeMOVE).

Life and Health Insurance: Manulife aims to be at the forefront of analysis of the impacts of climate change on products and underwriting for life and health insurance. These impacts range in severity and complexity, from acute illness to chronic stress.

Our approach includes an interdisciplinary team of Manulife professionals that undertake research to understand the human impacts of climate change, build awareness of human impacts across the business, and engage with external experts on relevant initiatives. Our focus is on research and data collection to inform products, product pricing, underwriting, claims, and actuaries as we learn more about the impact of physical climate-related risks on morbidity and mortality rates.

Our changing climate has an impact on human health. Every country and individual will be affected, with vulnerable populations at greatest risk. We believe that the work undertaken by our business benefits Manulife’s ability to manage climate-related risks and opportunities and respond to client needs.

Our guidelines and customer pricing are based on historical data, and we continuously seek to understand how changes in our environment may impact our customers through shifts in incidence rate or severity of certain conditions. We have frameworks in place to study the experience and inform decisions that lead to changes. We have a country classification process that requires us to analyze risks associated with each country where we sell products. We include environmental risks factors as part of the scoring, and we refresh the scores every three years to allow us to take into account any significant shifts in experience. Our claims experience together with the results of the country classification process are then reflected as adjustments to products, underwriting guidelines, or pricing.

Aging is also a key consideration. We understand that each age group comes with different risks, and we underwrite according to those risks. The elderly population has unique risks, which we have covered in our proprietary underwriting guidelines. We consider factors such as mobility, cognition, weight loss, and complex co-morbidities and generally require that our most experienced underwriters review these cases. We often require older age exams specifically designed for the older ages.

Manulife has a proprietary life insurance manual that is managed and maintained to reflect multiple risks including environmental impacts, obesity, emerging health issues, and other topics. We have a steering committee comprised of medical directors, chief underwriters, research underwriters, risk managers, actuaries, and others to ensure we stay abreast of changes. Our experts review publications in all major medical journals and our internal experience from claims to make informed decisions and update the manual.

Financial Resilience

As people around the globe live longer, building financial resilience becomes even more critical. Financial resilience is the ability to navigate and bounce back from the financial obstacles that occur throughout our lives, such as debt, healthcare costs, emergencies, and unexpected life events. Longevity brings with it a new wave of obstacles and decisions people must face, from managing family care, housing, healthcare, and education to the services, products, and technologies that they’ll require as they age. We help people around the world confidently save and invest for their longer lives through engagement, education, and advice. We support and promote digital engagement to help individuals take control of their longer financial lives. We provide financial education to help them build the knowledge and confidence they need to navigate this new territory. And we help individuals through their working and post-career years with access to advice and financial education.