How do we go from talking about diversifying your workforce to making it happen, and what policies and procedures work best? This session explored equitable hiring processes, utilizing bias-interrupting technology, addressing biases, specific recruitment strategies, and how to position your organization to attract candidates from diverse backgrounds.
This session is the first of a three-part Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Belonging (DIEB) Series, as part of the Board’s commitment to building more inclusive workplaces and cultures. The series focuses on a multi-pronged process of recruiting diverse talent, creating a positive and inclusive work environment and having accountability tools for the long-term. Our goal is for participants to know how to get candidates through the door and into a culture of positivity, openness, and respect. Future sessions will explore strategic planning for fostering equitable work environments after the recruitment phase, workplace accountability, and considerations for small businesses.
Speakers
- Erin Stein, Vice President, Global Recruitment, RBC Royal Bank
- Colin Druhan, Executive Director, Pride at Work Canada
- Mark Harrison, Founder, Black Talent Initiative
- Moderated by: Sophia Dhrolia, Director, Diversity & Inclusion & Employee Engagement, Toronto Region Board of Trade
Speaker 1: Shouldn't he be playing basketball?
Speaker 2: Stick to basketball.
Speaker 3: Do they even have ice in China?
Speaker 4: Women's hockey is just boring, okay?
Speaker 5: Who wants to watch girls play?
Speaker 6: Go back to where you belong.
Speaker 7: Go back where we belong? This, this is where we belong. (silence)
Speaker 8: From customers to employees, see how we create extraordinary experiences for the people who matter most to your company.
Sophia Dhrolia: Hi, everyone. Thank you all for joining. My name is Sophia Dhrolia and I'm the board's director of diversity, inclusion, and employee engagement. Welcome to today's webcast. The first in the board's new series on diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging.
I want to start the session by acknowledging that many of us are on the traditional territory of many nations across Turtle Island. We broadcast from Toronto, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
As we talk today about building more inclusive workplaces, reconciliation must be an element of that discussion. I'd also like to make some quick housekeeping notes. Today's webcast is presented by RBC Royal Bank. And this new event series is supported by SNC-Lavalin and Accenture. These amazing partners enable the board to do what we do as well as our principal sponsors the The Globe and Mail, Scotiabank and the University of Toronto. As well, this webcast is being recorded and you can watch it or any of other sessions a supportbusiness.bot.com under webinars and videos. If your video is lagging, you can select “click here” to switch stream, to view at a lower bandwidth. And for any other technical issues, click “request help” in the bottom rate corner of your screen. Finally, to ask our panelist a question at any point, you can do so through our Q&A feature to the right.
With that, we begin this important new series and a timely one at that. Over the past few years, discussions around inclusivity, diversity, and accountability have been thrust into the public sphere, specifically on social media, from social justice and education to sports and entertainment. People are identifying very real gaps in the way that specific communities are treated. The workplace is no different. And fortunately, many businesses, both big and small want to be part of change. Companies of all sorts are announcing new commitments about the people that they hire, the employees they promote and the culture they want to cultivate. But these pledges can raise many valid questions. How do we go from talk to action? What policies and processes work best? And are there universal best practices or do we cater to specific industries or communities?
The board has discussed these issues before, including during our Workforce and Talent Summit earlier this year, where we underscore the social and economic benefits of drawing on diverse talent. Now, we're getting practical with this series, giving you tangible advice for building better, more inclusive workplaces. Today, we're focusing on how hiring and how best to find and attract candidates from diverse backgrounds. Our amazing panel will discuss the development, training and enforcement of equity based policies, inclusive hiring, including reviewing resumes and addressing biases and tips around job postings, all very good topics to address. And again, issues we wouldn't have the opportunity to highlight without our presenting sponsor, RBC Royal Bank. To share greetings from RBC is their vice president of commercial financial services, business markets in the Greater Toronto region, Eric Turner. Let's play Eric's message now, please.
Eric Turner: Hi, everyone. My name is Eric Turner and I'm the vice president of business markets in Greater Toronto. I'm honored to be here with you today and ready to talk about one of the most important topics of our day, diversity. This year, RBC ranked as the second most diverse and inclusive companies in the world. For us, diversity and inclusion is a core value. We take great pride in knowing that our organization is built by employees who have a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and walks of life. Most importantly, we live and breathe a culture that is welcoming to all. That is why today we are thrilled to be the lead sponsor of the diversity inclusion, equity, and belonging series.
Last summer, we announced actions to address the inequity and systemic bias that have disadvantaged many groups in our communities for far too long. As part of this plan, we've committed to 40% of our summer opportunities to BIPOC youth and are investing 50 million in areas like skills' development through RBC Future Launch. We're strong believers that diversity can help us achieve our greatest potential and we want the leaders of tomorrow to have equal opportunities today. Thank you, Toronto Board of Trade for helping bring this important conversation to life. Enjoy the session. Bye for now.
Sophia Dhrolia: Thank you, Eric, for that message and RBC for coming to the table on this priority issue. Now, it's my pleasure to introduce our experts and get the panel started. Joining us today is Mark Harrison, founder of the Black Talent Initiative. With over 30 years of experience in sponsorship and marketing, Mark founded the initiative to create more opportunities for young black Canadians in the workplace and as a returning board speaker, we're so glad to have him back. Welcome back, Mark.
Also, with this is Colin Druhan, executive director of Pride at Work Canada. Colin is a business strategist who helps companies retain and support 2SLGBTQIA+ employees. He's also board chair of Volunteer, Toronto Canada's largest volunteer center and was named a 2020 DiverseCity Fellow by CivicAction. Great to have you, Colin. But before I move on, I also want take a quick second to congratulate Pride at Work and Colin as Pride at Work was named best nonprofit employer for diversity, equity, and inclusion by Charity Village. And Colin was one of the finalists for Best Individual Contribution to DEI. Congratulations.
Finally, rounding out our great panel is Erin Stein, vice president of global recruitment at RBC. Erin's been with the bank for over 20 years and currently leads their talent acquisition and learning delivery teams. She helps place the right talent faster and drives an exceptional candidate and hiring manager experience. Welcome, Erin.
Thank you all for being here. Now, let's jump right into the questions. And remember, audience, you can submit yours to the right on your screen. So start with Erin and Colin. So I'll start with Erin. So today is all about inclusive hiring, but I'm wondering, what foundational steps an organization needs to first take before they can think about recruiting more diverse candidates?
Erin Stein: Thanks, Sophia. And we heard a little bit about it from Eric in his opening comments, but I really believe it needs to start with the organization's culture. At RBC, as Eric mentioned, diversity and inclusion is a core value for us and we're committed to making our workplaces, our culture and our communities inclusive and welcoming for all. And we don't view inclusivity as an option, but rather it underpins our culture at RBC. It helps us to attract top talent. It drives innovation and growth, and it fuels our ability to create value for our clients and our communities. And we believe that having a diverse workforce that reflects our clients and our communities has always been and will remain a competitive advantage for us.
We also know that in order to be an organization that focuses on and as a champion for diversity and inclusion, that takes commitment and it requires leadership to speak up, to take action, and advocate for D&I to truly drive the change we need to see. And we know that representation matters, especially when it comes to reflecting the clients we serve and the talent we want to recruit, we want to develop, and we want to help support in their advancement. And you're right, Sophia, when you mentioned that we can't have a strong recruitment foundation if we don't have those building blocks, that makes RBC a great place to work and it needs to be the core value and it needs leadership buy-in, engagement, and really part of our DNA across the broader organization to enable recruiters and our ability to successfully attract great diverse and inclusive talent.
Sophia Dhrolia: Thank you, Erin. That was great. I think that covered a lot of topics. Colin or Mark. Do you have anything to add?
Colin Druhan: Yeah. Thanks very much, Sophia. And thanks so much to the board for having me here and to my fellow panelists for working with us all today. I think thinking about kind of starting off, I think Erin made some really excellent points. She really spoke to the RBC's kind of rationale for the work that they do around diversity and inclusion. I think that's a really good starting point for any employers, to really articulate why you want to start doing this work. You know, is it to leverage diversity for business performance, or is it because people are kind of talking about it and you've, oh, I guess we should maybe do something on this because everybody's keeps talking about it and we should probably look at this somehow? Because honestly, you're going to be as successful as you are serious. It's like any other business area, if you're not serious about it, and you're not setting some goals, you're never going to know if you've achieved success, right? So you actually have to focus and articulate why you're moving into this space.
And then in terms of next steps from that why, I think understanding who your workforce is really valuable and then even thinking about who your stakeholders are. Erin mentioned wanting the workforce at the bank to really reflect the customers that they're serving. So I think if you look at your stakeholders, if you look at your customers and ask, are there demographics that are represented there that you don't seem to see in your workforce? Because that could be really helpful in creating some targets and some goals for yourself. There's also looking at the evidence related to your industry. Is there evidence that certain demographics experience barriers entering your industry? Because that could also be another place to start, a way to set yourself apart from your competitors in whatever industry you find yourself in. But those are my thoughts on kind of getting started.
Sophia Dhrolia: Thank you. That was great. Mark, did you have anything to add there?
Mark Harrison: Yeah. If I get to add to that and I'm going to keep building. I think when we think about the challenges that big organizations and small organizations and for profit, not for profit are facing, that question of why, as both Erin and Colin talked about, on one hand, you could just say, “Well, we need to do it because it's morally the right thing to do.” On the other, we could say big companies and small need to do it because quite frankly, corporations, industry, ventures are the voice and they are able to innovate and advance maybe faster than governments or other civil institutions.
But if you really want to just take a really purely sort of material, almost capitalistic approach, just think about it this way. 25% of our workforce in Canada is going to retire by 2030. So for every organization, large or small, the talent war that existed pre COVID. Now, we throw this bizarreness of COVID in this disassociation with work. If your organization wants to compete, you are going to have to be a welcoming, safe, constructive place for all types of people, no matter what they look like, no matter what they sound like, no matter where they came from and all types of diversity, not just racial, gender, or sexual orientation, but neurodiversity, different forms of physical and intellectual capabilities.
So there's a lot of different arguments. I suspect that those of us in this panel and many watching, we all know it's the right thing to do. We all have personal reasons to do it, but for those, and there are unfortunately way too many doubters out there. And I'm sure we can get into that. There are racists and bigots and people that have all sorts of prejudice. If they don't want to change, then my simple appeal to the change is the pocketbook.
Sophia Dhrolia: That's a good point, right? It's a business imperative. And if you're really not investing in the talent now, you're going to be left behind from a business perspective. That's a really good point.
Let's move on to, in terms of now let's talk about attracting talent. And so Mark, I'll start with you. What do organizations need to do to change their job descriptions or even where they share them in order to broaden their talent pool and draw in more diverse applicants?
Mark Harrison: Yeah. I'm going to actually take a step back from before I blame the job descriptions or people in culture department. If I had a mirror, I would hold it up. On the day George Floyd was murdered, I employed 75 people full time. One of them is black, and that's me. So literally, the place to start is to be ... You know, people use the word intentional, but it's not just a fancy word. It's literally, I'm going to be purposeful and you have to drive that through. And I would almost argue, people like to use the term equitable and equity and we all have different definitions for it. I think the pendulum, the way to do it is you have to swing the pendulum farther. You have to go, we're going to make the choice based on ... We're not going to tick boxes. We are going to give opportunity. We're going to give access to people that maybe we never saw before.
One of the things I know that, and not steal anything from Erin, but I know in the last few years, RBC has gone from a few campuses to every campus and college and university and college in the country. I'm sure they do the same in the States. How do you go even step beyond there? How do you go to the underemployed 40-year-old? How do you go to the person who might have been incarcerated? How do you go to people we were talking in our [inaudible 00:16:36] about the military?
So for me, it's a really personal thing and I've tried and we're working on taking things like college university degrees requirements off of our job postings. I think that I, as a person, black person who is not willing to speak up, by speaking up, I'm sending a message to people across organization. And one of my companies, somebody who was bipolar, who was rejecting that diagnosis finally spoke out on LinkedIn because he didn't want people to think that he was not strong.
So I'm going to sum up and say, we can think about these big policies and processes. I would say, think about how you as an individual and the interactions you have with the five or six people around you, because that will go out. Because you can create a policy, but until I change, then nothing's going to come.
Sophia Dhrolia: Hundred percent, yeah. I agree. I think that piece that you said right in the beginning, holding the mirror up to yourself and asking yourself and being purposeful and intentional, I think that you're right. That's key. And so talking about being purposeful and intentful. One of the things you mentioned was taking college and university degree requirements out. When I used to do work in the disability space, we had to remove some of the language that was very broad. If you're saying, two to five years experience, it could be interpreted as, I need to have five years, but I have four and so I won't apply. So some things like that. And so Erin, I'm going to turn this to you, do you have any other advice in terms of just job postings? Like when you're trying to attract a diverse pool of talent, what are some of the key strategies that employers should use?
Erin Stein: Yeah. Thanks, Sophia, great question. And Mark, I love what you said about being intentional and purposeful and really looking in the mirror about our own accountability. If I get to some of the operational aspects of it or some of the tactical pieces. If we're looking at position descriptions, and I'll touch that, but I know Sophia, I'll talk about a couple of the other things, but just quickly on that too, because yes, we'll have recruiters work closely with managers and we try to make sure that those postings are not full of language that may detract individuals from applying to those roles and also we manually check for bias. But we knew that wasn't good enough because as much as you might have great intentions, speaking of intentions, it may not always work. So a few years ago, we did introduce some technology to help our position descriptions go through this process to determine if there's any bias in the posting before we even get started.
But as you mentioned to Sophia, there's lots more that organizations can do. And if I think about two things in particular, we have built an inclusive recruitment team at RBC that focuses solely on sourcing diverse talent. They work closely with our recruiters, they work closely with our leaders, and we host a number of events. In fact, last year, we did a number of things, both for our internal talent. We conducted and deployed unconscious bias education for over or a thousand RBC hiring managers, to raise awareness and better prepare for interviews. We expanded our outreach by hosting a number of listening sessions with our students. This summer, we had over 1,500 students, but we really wanted to hear from them to better understand what some of those barriers are to them applying for roles or to think about their future and better opportunities to engage and attract a great talent.
And most importantly, we believe in the power of partnerships. We can't do this in isolation. And if we think about even just today, with all of you here, we have developed some really strong partnerships, those here on the panel with us to help us in the attraction of a diverse and inclusive talent at RBC. You would've heard from Eric at the beginning, we had a goal that 40% of our students would be BIPOC. We reach closer to 50% and we couldn't do that without our internal partners, but more importantly, our external partners and our academic institutions, as Mark mentioned, it's part of reaching across Canada and across the globe. But I think, as Mark mentioned, we need to be intentional and we need to be action oriented to make those changes.
Sophia Dhrolia: You're right. That's really what it is. It's being intentional and taking action versus just performative. Because there's performative, allyship, and then there's active. And so that's really what we're moving towards and ensuring we're in those spaces. And I think Mark, you had mentioned going to the colleges and universities and ensuring that you're there, that you're seeking out and you're being active and intentional. Colin, anything to add to that before I move on?
Colin Druhan: It's really, really great points from Mark and Erin. And I think that I would just add that when we look at audit studies around resumes and applications, if your resume or your application outs you as 2SLGBTQA+ person, you're about 25% less likely to get invited for an interview in Canada.
So I would just add that it's great to look at the postings and it's great to get those postings on specialized job boards, but before you invest a whole bunch of resources in fixing your postings, maybe just make sure that you're hiring process isn't putting up barriers. Because you could be attracting a ton of candidates that are never going to make their way to an interview because of the biases in your screening process. We get a lot of questions at Pride at Work Canada about, “Well, what's the one, two things that we can change in this posting?” And then we try to step back, kind of like Mark said, talk a little bit more about what does the overall process look like?
Sophia Dhrolia: Is there something specific in the process that you would say, you know, you really should focus on this part? So let's take the posting part aside and Mark, you had said that as well. What in that process should employers be looking at?
Colin Druhan: Sorry. Was that for me?
Sophia Dhrolia: Yeah, yeah, that was for you, yeah.
Colin Druhan: Yeah, sure. I think it's just about getting feedback. I think Erin talked a lot about external partners. There's no substitute for actual meaningful connections with people from communities where you're trying to source talent. Like I said, we get a lot of questions like, “What's the one, two things that I can just quickly do?” If there was one or two things that you could quickly do, we probably wouldn't be having this event right now, right? So it's really about, I think trying to develop those networks and supporting managers and supporting hiring folks to develop their networks, making that a part of their job duties, where a part of their work needs to be connecting with external organizations and getting the kind of granular feedback. You sometimes need to target very specific communities.
Sophia Dhrolia: I think that's a good point. And I think all three of you said it, just getting the feedback and ensuring that you really understand the community that you're hiring from and really talking to them and getting that feedback. I think that's important.
Now, I have this question in terms of there's this notion or this perception in many industries that it's often who you know, not what you know. And so what should organizations do to correct this and create a more equitable hiring process? And again, this goes back to that process oriented, back to it needs to be removed in terms of who you know, but ... I'll start with Colin because you started with that process. So how do we create a more equitable hiring process and correct this notion of it's who, you know, not what you know?
Colin Druhan: Yeah. It's a great question. We hear from lots of really busy managers, who they don't have time to make those connections and it's easier, it's quicker for them to just source from their network, which is why I'll just reinforce. I think it's really important to make building that effective network. Part of their role is to build that network, so they do need to recruit really quickly. They're doing it from a broader and more diverse pool. But also working in diversity and inclusion, I think we're often grilled on the business case for the work that we do. Maybe less so now over the past two years than previously. But we're asked what's the business case for this? Why should we expend resources on it? Well, I would like to know what the business case is for being a hiring manager who hires only their friends and acquaintances. I don't know how that benefits the business at all. It certainly benefits that manager. And if they're saying that, “Well, I hire based on, you know, people with the right experience.” I just don't really buy it if you're only hiring people from your personal network.
So I think sometimes too, when we're creating arguments for change, we have to find new uses for those familiar narratives. So approach those conversations with people who want to hire from their network with the same skepticism that they might display approaching a diversity and equity and inclusion initiative. What's the business case to forego a fulsome search for the right person and how does this individual you want to hire improve performance in such a way that it's not even worth considering other candidates, it's not worth taking the time to look at who else is out there and really flip that scrutiny back on them and ask them what their business case is.
Sophia Dhrolia: Yeah. That's a good point, asking the critical analysis questions. Like just flipping it, I like that, flipping the switch. That's really good. Mark, anything to add there?
Mark Harrison: I'm with Colin. And when you think about this, hiring your friends, one of the terms that we took away from all of our team is, I don't want to hear anybody tell me we're hiring Erin for cultural fit. Because all that means, respect with Erin, one brick fell off the wall and we put another brick in that looks just like that brick. So I'm going to go back again, I'm a small business entrepreneur and I wake up every day and figure out how much money do we have in the bank and how much do we sell. I'm going to go back to talent. If you ask a company today, what is their single biggest issue or their top issues? Well, there's more capital in the marketplace than we ever could imagine.
As the banks will tell you, there's a lot of wealth out there. I'm sure they'd like people to spend more to unlock it, right? There's a supply chain issue, but there's a talent issue. There's a talent more. So for me, I think that we should think about HR, people, and culture, whatever you want to call it, as the sales engine of your company. And if you are in sales, if any of these hiring managers that Colin was referring to were in sales, when their friends and family aren't buying, they would go find new customers. They would say, “Here's our target customer. Here's our ideal customer. Here's the most valuable, profitable customer we can find.” That's the approach we have to take with talent as a small business owner, as a big organization like RBC, somebody like Colin, who's facilitating this world. There is a talent war on like we've never seen and is just going to get worse. So the company that has the best employer brand and the best sales effort to entice people to come and join is going to do the best.
Sophia Dhrolia: Yeah, I agree. And then that comes down to really that of diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging. It's really that piece of inclusion and belonging. Are you creating those safe spaces for individuals to come in and it speaks for itself. The brand speaks for itself because you have your staff who speak and sort of advocate for you as well.
We've actually had an audience question come in that sort of fits with this, but it talks about actually foreign-trained professionals and recruiting foreign-trained professionals. How do you, in your job descriptions, make it more inclusive for foreign-trained professionals? Like what are some strategies? So Erin, I'll start with you.
Erin Stein: A great question. And we have many of our team members and employee resource groups also for focused on newcomers to Canada. And we look at it from what Mark was suggesting and saying earlier too, was from a business angle, newcomers to Canada, how can they also be, newcomers to Canada, but employees as an example for RBC? And so how do we put the same rigor into how we look to attract new clients in the same way that we look to attract candidates? And some of the things that we're doing just internally to focus on the diversity of our workforce and taking out some of the bias in building a network that looks and thinks like you, that's not going to be advantageous to anyone and it's definitely not going to be advantageous to the bottom line.
And so yes, it's the right thing to do and it's morally right, but it makes good business sense. But one of the things that we ... And we have the benefit of being a large corporation, we invested in some technologies that has helped us. As an example, on average, we hired about 20,000 a year. It's a combination of internal and external and we get over a million applications a year. So up to a few years ago, and this was something a bit of a surprise for me when I came into the role, I was surprised we didn't have technology to help us review those resumes. And so we built an AI to go through and scan. So in the past, could we say that we reviewed every resume? Absolutely not. Does artificial intelligence help us do that? Yes, it does. Does it help remove the biases? Yes. But do we have to check for biases in those tools? Definitely.
So it's not proof, but it is helping us get to a broader audience with broader skill sets. And we look at the success of those individuals within role, but we also check for biases because if, similar to what Mark had mentioned earlier, we could be hiring based on what leaders felt was successful versus looking at bottom line outcomes. So we're focused on that as well, but I think that's been a really big change for us. We have screening, we also conduct assessments before it even gets to the recruiters and working closely with our leaders. So we believe that's making a difference. And we hope by doing so, it will be more inclusive for newcomers to Canada, but for a broader diverse workforce as an outcome for us.
Sophia Dhrolia: Thank you, Erin. And I love that you're not just relying on the technology to do it, that you're still, looking for more biases because the technology is only as good as a person who's built it. And we know if a person's built it, there's definite inherent bias built into that AI. So that's great. I'm glad that RBC is taking that approach.
Okay. Now, let's say, we've made a new hire, we have a new hire. Let's move on to inclusion. And so when a new hire is made, what are the best practices for an inclusive approach to orienting and onboarding a new employee? So I'll start with Colin.
Colin Druhan: I think it's really important to message the organization's values, but I would caution that, that tends to be very abstract and kind of removed from an employee's day to day. And we've all seen the CEO or an executive come up and say, “We love, we embrace diversity here. And you know, we're all about inclusion.” And they say all the right things, and then a lot of the their colleagues go back to work and they don't really know what that means in terms of their behavior or what should change about their day to day. So you don't have to make it heavy, or punitive, or you better be inclusive or else, but you do need to be pretty clear.
A lot of organizations, they don't provide employees with enough information about what barriers they tend to be putting up. So the question about employing folks who are new to Canada is a great one. I'm mentor with an organization called Jumpstart and it's an organization that's run by refugees. And part of the Welcome Talent Canada Program that I'm a volunteer with is it matches people in Canada with refugees who are looking for work in the similar industry. And what I like about the program is that both the mentors and the folks who are participating in it, we learn from each other. As an employer, I get to learn. Every time I'm matched with a new person, I get to learn more about what they're facing as a job seeker and what they're hearing from employers about, “Well, you know, we're looking for people with Canadian experience.” This often heard line. And you get to really understand what the challenges are for that person.
So not only as part of that program am I helping that person find a job, I'm also learning as an employer what we need to do at Pride at Work Canada to bring down barriers. Because a majority of the folks that we employ at Pride at Work Canada were actually born outside of Canada. So that program has helped me as a professional and then our organization. So I think helping make those links for employees about what their behavior or what types of things they can do in or out of the work environment to be more inclusive and giving them examples. That's a lot more helpful than just the flowery, broad, abstract language.
Sophia Dhrolia: I agree. And it comes back to the action. I think that's a similar theme that we're hearing. It has to be intentional. I could say like at the board when I was onboarded and I was onboarded virtually, it was scary because you don't know anyone and you're like, “How is it going to work?” But it was amazing because they set my entire week, my first week, the calendar was full with different meetings, with different people, ensuring I met everyone. I had my training set up, my diversity training set up and it was just so thoughtful in its approach. And I think that's the key, is being intentional and thoughtful in how you onboard new employees. Mark, any other thoughts on intentional inclusion when you're onboarding employees?
Mark Harrison: Well, pre-pandemic, one of the things we had looked at was, how do you onboard the millennials? Think about it, three years ago, all we talked about were millennials. One of the studies that we read was that the most important day for a millennial in their entire tenure at your organization was the first day. And so I loved what you were talking about how the board has morphed with this change, doing it virtually, et cetera. It is something that worries me, but I'm actually going to pivot my answer to an anecdote. And the anecdote is, since we've become more intentional about our hiring, and I'm going to get very literal and tactical here. So we hired a black woman. So that was amazing. But her reaction when we hired the next black woman was really amazing.
And I think when we think about different communities, so this week we had our first intentional neurodiverse hire. We've actually got a consultant helping us. They will meet weekly with their manager. I mean, we're a small company, but I think that the whole notion of be what you can see and creating and opening up. And now that we are really trying to force that, and I'm using the word force in the most positive way. But again, I know it's not necessarily a strategic answer, but boy, oh boy, I think that if somebody wanted to join RBC and the first person they met, nothing against straight white males, is straight white male versus a young woman meeting Erin, there's just a completely different reaction. I know it sounds ridiculously simple.
And the other thing I would say, if you don't have an internal sponsor or a mentor or somebody, we talked earlier about partnerships, find somebody who can be external, but internal, and it was great to hear Colin talk about doing mentorship, but I think there's ways around. But for me, just seeing these people connect and all of a sudden ... Like within the black community, like black is not one color. So my family are escaped slaves, but we've got a couple people that are from the islands. They look themselves as very different than us, and they've had a very different black experience. I know they're tactical. We can't put them on a policy paper, but they're just the things I'm seeing.
Sophia Dhrolia: Yeah. I agree. It's the creating those connections and fostering those connections. I think you're right. I love what you said about the millennials. It's the first day and you're right. I mean, I'm the tail end of the millennial, I'm the old millennial, but you're right-
Mark Harrison: Can you prove that? Can we get some proof? I want to see some paperwork
Sophia Dhrolia: My wallet's downstairs, but you're right, that first day is so critical. That first impression of an organization and do I feel like I belong at this organization? Erin, anything else to add in terms of onboarding and creating that inclusive experience when you're onboarding a new hire?
Erin Stein: And I love what both Colin and Mark had to say. I just think it resonates whether it's mentoring or making your first day great. That's something that we looked at too. We had someone, one of our senior leaders, come in and look at onboarding and we wanted to look at it end to end because we knew that we definitely had challenges. And so I think the initial thought is we'd have this Cadillac version and then it got to the point of, let's just keep it simple. Let's make your first day great. And let's hope that your technology works within the first week. Let's get that right and then we can build on it.
And so, yes, I think that's going to be incredibly important. And then the other piece too, that both Colin and Mark alluded to was really that support group of employees. We've got over, I want to say 30,000 employees engaged in these employee resource groups across the enterprise. We have 51 of them, they're employee run. And it's really to build strong community links beyond their leaders or beyond the network that they're going to be working with day in and day out. It helps bring awareness and understanding to help members develop personally and professionally, but it really just creates a sense of belonging and provides them with another outlet to stay connected.
In fact, just before this call, Colin mentioned that he's going to be meeting with many of our ERG groups. I think that's the beauty of it. We can bring in also partners to work closely with, but it's, how do we really get our new hires in front of communities that they want to work with, partner with, mentor with, and be connected to beyond the day to day? Because we really believe that makes a difference in our ability to retain and engage our employees and our workforce. So that peer mentorship is incredibly important. And having employee resource groups to support onboarding, I think really helps build out that inclusivity, which employees are looking for.
Sophia Dhrolia: Yeah. I love that. I think what I'm hearing is that it's looking beyond the tasks of the individual and looking their jobs, but really looking at the whole self like, what is this individual bringing? You know, their entire identity. Not looking at their day to day, but you know, how can we connect them to what's purposeful for them and how do we create these connections and foster those connections? So that's amazing.
Now, Colin, I have a specific question for you. I'm wondering if any of what we've talked about changes when it comes to queer and trans talent. I know in some cases, candidates are unsure about how and when to self-identify to their employers. What advice would you give to organizations on this front?
Colin Druhan: Thanks for the question. I think it's really important to recognize that for queer and trans and two-spirit people, often folks from the communities that we serve at Pride at Work Canada, it's very rare for people to be out in every sphere of their life. So a lot of people make choices about where to be out, where to disclose their orientation or their identity based on their sense of safety. This can really be important for people who face other forms of discrimination and marginalization, people who face racism, or xenophobia, ableism, or ageism as well. So you have to understand how that sense of safety plays into how much folks are going to disclose. People might be really comfortable coming out at work, but they live at home with mom and dad and mom and dad can't know that they're bisexual, for example. Or people might be really comfortable being out at home and with their place of worship, but they hear the way that people make comments or the way that their manager talks about queer people at work and it's just not going to happen for them.
So I think when we think about creating a sense of safety, a lot of employers need to look beyond those really easy, visible signs of support because the communities that we work with are becoming a bit jaded by the rainbow logos and the passing of the rainbow bracelets and things like that, which are great, visible signs of support. Love the pronouns and the email signatures and all that stuff. All of those things are really important parts of a broader strategy, but you have to understand as an employer, that if you don't have those other more meaningful pieces around the hiring process or having employee resource groups, or ongoing training from your managers about inclusive management practices, you're not actually going to see any change and you actually run the risk. If you just put out those visible signs of support, if you just roll out that rainbow carpet, and then you're actually attracting people to an environment that's not inclusive, you're going to really damage your brand as an employer. Because they're going to be given the sense that they're welcome and then they're going to come and realize that they're not. And then you've just wasted a whole bunch of resources on your pride campaign and your hiring process, because it's going to be a revolving door for some folks.
It's also really important to recognize again, who faces the greatest barriers to employment from the communities that we look at? It's people who are trans, people who are non-binary, people who are otherwise gender diverse. Like I said, people who also face racism and ableism and other forms of discrimination. So if you are trying to create a strategy around queer and trans communities, you have to look at the folks who aren't currently in the employment environment. If you just rely on the people that you already have in-house, they got through those barriers. So they might not reflect the profile that you need to be focusing on when you're trying to diversify the talent that you're drawing from, which is where I introduce the plug for Pride at Work Canada, because we are a membership agency and we provide that support year round.
So having that connection with organizations like ours or others that focus on other dimensions of diversity, really important to kind of make sure that you're hitting those marks, not just on the observances and having the brand pieces for those observances and pride and all that kind of stuff, but some of the more meaningful HR measures that you might have to take.
Sophia Dhrolia: Thank you, Colin. You made a really key point there. It's like going beyond who your staff, but really going beyond that because you're one, two, five, ten trans individual, trans, non-binary, queer individuals, they have different perspectives, but they're not the only perspectives. And I think that's really key because, and I think Mark, you alluded to this too, like, I mean, one black individual is not the voice of all black individuals, all of us ... It's a diaspora and there are different perceptions and experiences that everyone experiences.
I'm going to ask one final question that came in through the audience and it's sort of along the same lines in terms of different experiences. What about for hiring strategies for people over the age of 50? Any recommendations? I'll start with you, Mark, and then I know we have to wrap up shortly. So I'll start with you with that question.
Mark Harrison: Yeah. We were talking earlier about diversity and ageism, it could have weeks and weeks of this one conversation. And so I think that I've been harping today on this battle for talent. I would say that one of the secret weapons I would say is look at the people that due to the fact they've got some gray hair and no hair are being biased against and look beyond the fact that they happen to have a five or a six at the start of their age or a seven, and realize they might be as current and innovative as the 28-year-old. And by the way, they might be a whole lot more loyal, they might have a whole lot more experience, but absolutely. Last night, in a competitive squash match, I beat a 12-year-old when he told me before the match that I was much older than his father. I said, “Well, you know, you're going to experience some reverse ageism young man.” That guy is going to come back and get me. But moral of the story is I did not beat him physically, I beat him with strategy.
Sophia Dhrolia: That's what the gray hair brings is the years of strategy and experience. I agree. Any final thoughts, Erin?
Erin Stein: You know what? I love what Mark just mentioned. As someone that's been at the organization close to 25 years. I feel like I still have tremendous more to offer and I know you can't beat experience, right? And so when you're looking at your teams, I really encourage you, whether you have technology or not, think about the experiences on your team and what that individual will bring. Diversity of thought, diversity of experience is incredibly important, and you can't discount the experiences that someone 50 plus like myself have. I believe that adds tremendous value. And then I also encourage myself, one of my best learnings as a people manager was someone that was much more junior than I, because I picked up different skill sets. So I really think there's a win-win for both. I look at it as reciprocal mentoring or reciprocal learning experiences. Especially as we're looking to hire, we're looking for experiences and it's dependent upon role and it's dependent upon your broader team makeup, but I think definitely keep putting your hand up. Those skills are important and they're important for any organization.
Sophia Dhrolia: Yeah. Thank you. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have. I feel like we could keep going on about this, because there's so much important and valuable information to share. So thank you, Erin, Colin, and Mark for sharing your insights and taking our audience questions today as well. Overall, what we've discussed today, I think the key things I've picked up is it's so important to be intentional and create real action, foster connections. Day one matters, especially for millennials, but day one really matters. One key point that Mark brought up was 25% of the workforce is retiring in eight years. And so it's a war on talent. So it's really important to get on that and be intentional in your efforts. And diversity of experience and thought are extremely important.
And so I wanted to wrap up and also remind everyone who is watching that today is the first of three events. The next event is scheduled to take place in early 2022. That's not that far away from now. It's scary how we're already in mid-November. That will focus on what happens after the hiring stage and how we help diverse candidates thrive in the workplace. So follow us on social media to see when registration for that event goes live or visit bot.com/events to view all our offerings. Thank you again for watching and have a wonderful day.