David Noel.Eduardo Lima/The Globe and Mail
David Noel, senior vice-president of global HR services, Bank of Nova Scotia
In order to boost Black representation among employees at Bank of Nova Scotia, executives realized they needed to cast a wider net.
At the entry level, the bank expanded the pool of universities, colleges and community groups it taps to recruit summer students and junior staff. It no longer asks summer students or other applicants for résumés. Instead, they fill out an application form and behavioural assessment to gauge their competencies and strengths, rather than past experience. The bank also partnered with Plum, a talent assessment platform that seeks to strip away bias, which helps match candidates with roles for which they’re the best fit.
“Summer students have limited experience, résumés are loaded with bias, and by removing the résumé from the process and focusing on students’ skills, their areas of interest,” said David Noel, Scotiabank’s senior vice-president of global HR services. “When you go on to look at having a pipeline of talent for future executive roles, it all starts with the initial recruits, such as what we do with the summer program.”
At more senior levels, Scotiabank had more than 60 staff participate in the first two cohorts of its six-month Black Management Accelerator Program, which includes digital courses, group projects, networking and mentorship. A third cohort is planned this year.
“That’s the program I believe is really going to help us build the pipeline for our future executives and increase the representation of Black employees at the executive level,” Mr. Noel said.
So far, these and other initiatives show signs of paying off. From July, 2021, until now, the proportion of Black employees at Scotiabank rose from 4.5 per cent to 4.8 per cent, and the proportion of Black executives climbed from 2.1 per cent to 2.5 per cent, according to data provided by the bank.
Rob Davis.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Rob Davis, partner, chief inclusion and diversity officer, chair of the board of directors of KPMG in Canada
Before the Canadian arm of accounting and consulting giant KPMG signed on to the BlackNorth Initiative, 3.2 per cent of its employees identified as Black. One year later, by July, 2021, that ratio had edged higher, to 3.3 per cent. Over the past year, that Black representation climbed even higher, reaching 3.8 per cent – an increase of nearly 50 Black employees in less than two years.
The payoff comes largely from a sharper focus on diversity in KPMG’s junior ranks. Its recruiters have built ties to Black student associations at universities where it hunts for talent. It now has a recruiter devoted to finding Black employees, and another dedicated to finding Indigenous recruits.
KPMG has also partnered with outside organizations, including ICON Talent Partners, to create internship and scholarship opportunities for students.
In KPMG’s executive ranks, however, it will take longer to make progress, said Rob Davis, a partner who serves as chief inclusion and diversity officer and chair of KPMG’s Canadian board of directors. The company has established a one-year Black Senior Manager mentoring program that gives participants three sessions with executive leaders, matching each with a senior partner as a mentor. When the program finished, the mentoring relationships carried on, Mr. Davis said.
“I think we’ve struggled as a Canadian society, we’ve struggled as a KPMG Canada firm, to get Black leaders into the front line,” he said. “In order to see that good representation of Black professionals at the partnership, at that executive level, we clearly need to punch above our weight at the employee level.”
Olatomiwa Asaolu and Melanie Murzeau.Duane Cole/The Globe and Mail
Melanie Murzeau, diversity, inclusion and accessibility specialist at the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and Olatomiwa Asaolu, acting director of communications
Setting up an internal employee diversity census has been top priority for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. But getting employees to participate in such surveys is a much bigger task that starts with building a culture of trust, says the AGCO’s diversity and inclusion specialist, Melanie Murzeau.
Many companies haven’t tracked racial metrics, and among those that conduct diversity surveys, many report low participation rates or slot respondents into a single “visible minorities” category.
After two years of planning with an outside organization, the AGCO will launch its first employee census at the end of 2022 that will capture diversity and inclusion metrics – including the number of Black employees and executives. It will also track career progression.
The commission wanted to listen to employees before asking them to reveal personal information in a survey.
“Diversity and inclusion is not something a company is instantly going to achieve right away. It’s like running a marathon – not a sprint,” Ms. Murzeau said in an interview.
Olatomiwa Asaolu, acting director of communications at the AGCO and a member of its diversity council, said employees must be comfortable enough to “self-identify with their culture at work.”
During a company-wide management summit, Mr. Asaolu shared his own African heritage by wearing attire made from Ankara fabric and a traditional Yoruba hat known as a “fila.”
“In a recent company survey, more than 90 per cent of our employees feel they can bring their own selves to work,” Mr. Asaolu said. “We don’t want people to shy away from their own identity.”
Last year, the AGCO added a whistle-blower hotline for reports of suspected wrongdoing, including anti-Black racism in the workplace. It also updated its holiday calendar after employees said they wanted to see more diverse celebrations, along with religious holidays already listed.
Mohamed Ibrahim.Duane Cole/The Globe and Mail
Mohamed Ibrahim, vice-president of merchandising and category management, at Sobeys Inc.
Shortly after the death of George Floyd, Sobeys Inc. launched an internal listening series featuring live online sessions of Black employees who voluntarily share their experiences of living in the Black community and facing systemic racism.
“George Floyd’s death was such a difficult moment for us to see and we knew our Black employees were feeling a lot of emotions,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, vice-president of merchandising and a member of the grocery chain’s diversity committee.
“We want to open that door and allow our employees to share their own personal experiences with others in the company. Hearing those courageous stories – which are not just about corporate challenges, but also touch on the struggles within the Black community – prompts individuals to become a part of the many discussions around diversity that we all need to be having.”
For Sobeys – which has more than 5,000 employees – the culture of listening is starting to spur progress. The proportion of Black employees has increased to 1.52 per cent this year from 1.27 per cent in 2021. During the same period, the number of BIPOC employees (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) has jumped to 17.5 per cent from 15.8 per cent.
The company will continue the Black listening series this fall, which so far has had 70 Black employees participate in six sessions. The series will also include similar sessions for other minority groups.
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