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. By addressing climate change, we move closer to fulfilling our mission and giving our customers the confidence to plan for the future.

This includes how we manage our operations, how we make investment decisions, and how we develop and offer financial products and services.

Manulife’s Climate Action Plan

Our Commitments

In 2021, we released our Climate Action Plan. Since then, we have made progress across all three pillars of our plan and released our Climate Action Implementation Plan Report.

Our Operations:

Reduce emissions to lessen our footprint

We are developing solutions to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 40% by 2035, with an immediate focus on decarbonizing assets we both own and operate.

Our Owned Investments:

Invest in a sustainable future

We are mapping out a pathway to a net zero General Account investment portfolio by 2050 and working to achieve near-term improvements to our carbon footprint in line with science-based pathways for key asset classes.

Our Products and Services:

Build solutions to climate challenges

We are creating investment products that solve investor needs and contribute to a more sustainable future. We are enhancing the resilience of our life and health insurance products in light of climate change and are evaluating necessary steps to better understand the impact of climate on morbidity and mortality.

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 more information on the report, please visit Manulife Investment Management Nature Disclosure
• In addition, we are signatories to the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, supporting the development of appropriate metrics and stewardship activities for of asset manager commitments to protect biodiversity and reverse nature loss. By signing onto the pledge, we have committed to collaborate and engage with companies on biodiversity and assess our own biodiversity impact.
• For additional information and reports, including Manulife Investment Management's Nature Statement, please visit
  Sustainable Investing | Manulife Investment Management

As part of our Impact Agenda, we are dedicated to advancing positive, measurable social and environmental change to build a better business to better the world.  Through our community investments, and aligned to our Impact Agenda, we work with organizations to foster healthier, more equitable communities across our three interconnected strategic focus areas: empowering sustained health and well-being; driving inclusive economic opportunity; and accelerating a sustainable future.  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 the 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
• Our approach takes many forms, including direct funding, volunteering, which leverage skills-based activities, and employee giving and matching programs

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

Access to financial products and services, and education that supports financial literacy, can have a profound impact on people’s lives and their ability to prepare for their future. As articulated in our Impact Agenda, driving inclusive economic opportunity is a key area of focus as we seek to accelerate the upward mobility of underrepresented groups and make financial solutions more accessible. Manulife’s objective is to extend the scope of our products, services and partnerships to traditionally underserved populations by assessing accessibility, affordability and the unique needs of the specific markets we serve. 
 
 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 nine 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 that benefits us all:

• 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.
• Community investment and financial education programs, that seek to make a social impact by promoting financial well-being to underserved populations. We engage and partner with external organizations and projects to support and enable global access to financial products and services. We aim to: 
• Enable Behaviour/Attitude Changes by: Increasing awareness and action to set short-term and long-term financial goals that meet individual needs and expectations, and 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, and 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: 

• Ensuring all products and services are reasonable designed, developed, and reviewed with a view to meeting the needs of identified target customer groups
• Conducting a target market assessment when designing and developing products and services, including determining which customers the product is and is not suitable for as well as a robust consideration of scenarios in which there might be poor customer outcomes in order to inform product disclosures and sales and training materials
• Developing and marketing products in a way that pays due regard to the interests of customers
• Providing customers with clear information before, during, and after the point of sale
• Providing product distributors the requisite licensing, skill, knowledge, training and understanding of the products 
• Monitoring distributors to reasonable ensure that sales practices are ethical and compliant with relevant laws and regulations
• Ensuring the sales process is driven by customer needs and only suitable products should be presented to the customer, reducing the risk of sales that are not appropriate to customers’ needs 
• Training distributors of Manulife products and/or services on product features, risks, and target markets; as well as on the compliance with Manulife’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics
• Reasonably ensuring that any advice given is of a high quality 
• Dealing with customer complaints and disputes in a fair manner 
• Protecting the privacy of information obtained from customers 
• Managing the reasonable expectations 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 to our mission, and are treated with equity and dignity.

A diverse, equitable and inclusive culture nurtures innovation and attracts and retains the best talent, which helps us deliver better customer solutions and a greater impact on the world. Our global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) aspiration is to cultivate a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace in which all employees are inspired to bring their authentic and whole selves to work. We are passionate about this initiative as it enables employees to thrive personally and professionally while also providing the best service to our customers, business partners and communities. 

Our DEI strategy focuses on four pillars: 

• 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
• 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 DEI strategy is led by our Global Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, the Global DEI team, and our Global DEI Council, who collectively guide, support, and facilitate its implementation.

Chaired by our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer, the Global DEI Council is made up of executive leaders who drive business impact through our global DEI strategy and play a key role representing business functions across the organization, with specific DEI 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 

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). ERGs play an important role in implementing the Workplace pillar of our DEI strategy by providing valuable insights, creating connections within our global organization, and raising awareness. They provide insight on DEI issues that are top of mind for employees, identify opportunities where we can play a stronger role, create safe spaces for employees, and hold us accountable to our DEI commitments. They are voluntary, employee-led networks that provide members meaningful, personal, and professional development opportunities and are fundamental to achieving an inclusive and equitable workplace.

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.
• 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 gender and racial pay equity and to providing all employees 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. Key examples of this include: 

• Robust leader training on unconscious bias and our annual compensation processes 
• Unbiased and performance-based salary and incentive guidelines 
• A detailed calibration of annual compensation recommendations to ensure an equitable distribution across gender and across those in our workforce that identify as racial minorities. 
• A multi-layered review and approval of the outcomes of our annual compensation cycle 

We work with third-party subject matter experts to routinely review our compensation programs and maintain our compliance with all legal and regulatory pay equity requirements. Along with those partners, we also continuously monitor the external environment for developments related to pay equity and pay equity legislation. 

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

Using this analysis, we have set annual goals to maintain average compensation for women and average compensation for racial minorities between 99% and 101% of compensation for males and non-minorities. The results of our year-end 2023 analysis showed that, on average, the pay received by women globally was greater than 99% of that received by men, after accounting for factors such as role, performance, tenure, and geography. It also showed that the pay received by members of racial minorities within North America was greater than 100% of that received by non-minorities, after accounting for factors such as role, performance, tenure, and geography.

Learn more about DEI here: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion | Manulife

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.

Manulife’s commitment to supplier diversity is embedded in its Procurement practices, actively supporting diverse owned businesses. This commitment aligns with our Impact Agenda and is the Business pillar of our DEI strategy.

Learn more: Supplier Diversity

Talent Attraction and Retention

Talent attraction and retention: To find the talent we need to deliver on our strategic objectives, our core approach to talent attraction is focused on building enhanced talent networks to entice top candidates in the market. We are focused on delivering innovative ways to engage candidates with personalized experiences. We strive to show candidates that we are committed to helping ensure they can bring their whole selves to work and to help them imagine what they can achieve as a Manulife employee.    

Training and Development

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

• 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 Appraisal 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 our most important priorities at Manulife is supporting the health and well-being of each one of our employees around the globe. We strive to create a culture of well-being that supports the diverse nature of our workforce. Supporting our employees’ health, safety, and well-being means:

• Protecting the health, safety, and well-being of our employees, including ensuring compliance with legislative requirements
• Providing employees with flexibility when it comes to their benefits and wellness choices
• Supporting the evolving needs of our employees

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
• Extra Personal Days for employees to use during each calendar year
• Mental health support and benefits
• Family friendly benefits for families of all kinds and family planning
• Adoption, fertility support and surrogacy financial support
• Maternity, parental and adoption leaves above statutory requirements, including paid maternity, parental and adoption leaves, in certain geographies
• Adoption and surrogacy benefits that reimburses for eligible expense to a maximum of $20,000 per child adoption per year and $20,000 per surrogacy per year.
• Designated breastfeeding facilities 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
• 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
• 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.

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 employees 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 employees, 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, to use the Joint Health and Safety Committee, Health and Safety teams, and Employee Relations if the issue(s) remain unresolved. 

Our workplace policies and programs prioritize prevention, monitoring of our health and safety procedures, and training. This includes procedures to investigate work-related injuries, ill health, diseases and incidents. 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, and hazards and risks are addressed. 

We provide employee education, including health and safety training, first aid training for health and safety committee members and training on our Global Discrimination, Harassment & Violence Policy. Occupational Health & Safety criteria are included in procurement process and contractual requirements. We prohibit retaliation against employees who report workplace health and safety concerns, injuries, or illnesses or who participate in health and safety-related investigations.

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.

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.
• We offer four behavioural insurance programs: Manulife Vitality and Manulife Vitality Group in Canada; John Hancock Vitality in the U.S.; and ManulifeMOVE, delivered through the MOVE app, in select markets in Asia.