Keeping Diversity Top of the Agenda When it’s Out of the News | with Catalina Hernandez & Matthew Jeffrey

Foreign.

Well, hello and welcome to the shortlist. It is Wednesday 17th February as we're recording this and for, well, myself in the northwestern part of Europe, it's becoming springtime. We're starting to see the signs of spring. It's getting brighter. But but again, if today you're waking up in Texas, you're looking at absolutely arctic conditions and freezing cold. So maybe you're not so optimistic about spring as we are here in Dublin where we're recording the show. But you're very welcome. We've got a great show planned. We've got two fantastic guests joining us today to spark a conversation, hopefully get some of you who are listening perhaps live to join in with your comments and questions. We as always would love to hear from you. For those of you listen to as a podcast recording, you're very welcome. We'll have any links that we discuss here shared in the show notes those listening on podcasts don't forget this is a live show that does broadcast. If you'd like to join every Wednesday at 4pm UK time on YouTube and also on LinkedIn on my profile Johnny Campbell I am the CEO and co founder of Social Talent. If you want to find me, you can dig into LinkedIn and find me. For those of you watching live, you can listen to this as a podcast. You'll find it on Spotify, Apple or where you find your good podcasts. And if you'd like to find out a list of our upcoming shows, our previous shows, or anything else about the shortlist, you can do so@socialtalent.com the shortlist so let's get into the show. So this week what I want to talk about is exploring diversity, equity and inclusion, and particularly talking about how do you keep this top of the agenda when it's out of the news, like we're recording this in 2021, 2020, we've ran several shows. It was top of mind for a lot of people. But then organizations go into a new cycle of strategy and planning and we start a new year. If you're running the fiscal year the same as the calendar year, and maybe it isn't as high in the agenda, or maybe it is, but you feel that in your organization it isn't quite been given the focus it was perhaps in the second half of last year, I think we'll all agree it's rightly moved from a nice to have for certain organizations to an intrinsic necessity for every organization to be able to attract talent, retain their talent, and attract and retain customers critically. But it makes for better workplaces. It makes for better bottom lines. We all understand both the business case and the ethical case for it. But sometimes it feels like it takes an atrocity like we had last summer for diversity to be fully highlighted. And to talk about that, we thought we'd invite two people to join us from a firm who have been working on this for quite a long time. I know it's an organization I've admired from afar as to how they've been dealing with these topics, often quite ahead of their peers and ahead of many organizations around the world. My organization is eye. And joining us from the UK Ireland business in EY today, we have Catalina Hernandez, who is the assistant Director of Diversity and inclusiveness. And we have Matthew Jeffrey, who is the talent attraction and Acquisition director for UKIE at ey. Catalina and Matt, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for joining you.

Well, I was wondering maybe starting with Catalina, you could tell us a little about yourself, your role, maybe just some background in terms of your history, how you ended up with working in this space and working with ey. And then, Matt, I'll ask you the same question.

Sure. So personally, I was born and raised in Colombia in South America in a really small town. And I immigrated to the US When I was little. And throughout my younger years I thought I wanted to be an attorney. And after graduating from university, I realized I didn't want to do that and I went into recruitment and that's where my career started. And through recruitment, I. I started experiencing the common workplace microaggressions. Things were said about my background. The way we spoke about diverse candidates and hiring for diversity just felt really problematic to me. And I started speaking up more and talking about diversity in the way that we recruited. And that's really where I saw my passion. And so I started my career in recruitment, but slowly and surely started focusing on diversity more and more. And I moved to the UK last summer and, or actually summer 2019 and started focusing on it completely. And so I started at EY as the diversity recruitment lead for experienced hire recruitment and have since transitioned to a role on our central DNI team, focusing on all of our efforts and how we support our business through this journey that we're on ultimately. And that's how I met Matthew.

Excellent. I won't go into how I met Matthew. That's going to be a much longer conversation. But Matthew, maybe tell us a little bit your journey and how you managed to join ey.

Yeah, my sort of journey is that after coming from Agency background. I moved into Electronic Arts, a video games company, spent eight years there, head of studio recruitment for emea, and then became their global employment director, one of the, the, the first sort of roles that encompassed employment brand many years ago. I then spent two years at Autodesk heading up Amir and global employment brand for them. And in the last seven years I've been SAP again, working with the employment brand team and the global sourcing team. So great. Seven years there. So now at EY and focused on UKI and yeah, working with Catalina to try and make a difference in diversity and really take some bold initiatives to get us ahead of the pack.

So we can tell a lot these days on a zoom call, our broadcast from a person's room, we can see Mat's surrounded by football memorabilia and wearing his Man United shirts. Catalina, you've got your treadmill and your peloton in the background. And just before we went live, I was giving out to you for not having left your home for four weeks. That's a whole other discussion about mental health and everything else we need to get you out. But I probably don't advise you visiting that room full of football memorabilia that Matt is in. As many of you may know, I'm not a sports person that really follow any football teams, but I do see the symbol in the back hanging on your door, Matt, which makes me very proud. And, you know, I don't know if either of you know this series of books. I think it's little people, big ideas. There's a series of books they're originally created for kids. You know, the math and the original kind of 30 titles were all kind of more brilliant. Female leaders and artists and poets and scientists and they've, they've slowly maturely expanded and let some male kind of representatives in there. But the big, big focus was trying to teach kids about female leaders. And now it's kind of just, you know, a broader, broader sense of, of different, different artists. But this year they added a brand new artist to their title and that was Prince. So I bought the Prince book to add to our collection for my kids. And we've been playing Prince a lot in our house these days. Matt, you'd be glad to hear I'm proud of you.

I have that book as well.

Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. Anyway, that aside, as we do on the show every week, what I want to do is start with just jumping into some kind of topical live news articles. I'm going to ask Niall in the back room to start us off with our first news item this week. First piece of news has come from People Management. It's published in the UK by an author called Remy Baker, who is herself managing director of a firm that work with organizations around culture and diversity and inclusion. And it's, it's titled it's up to Businesses to Keep the BLM Movement Alive. And obviously referring to Black Lives Matter and the movement that was kicked off last summer with the unlawful killing of George Floyd. And this is kind of a. It's a ratty cry that goes into then what Remy describes as kind of three core points or three ways to keep, keep the movement alive. Want to get your opinion both on, on this article. You know, do you feel, first of all, do you agree it's up to businesses to keep this? And second of all, you know, what are your thoughts on Remy's points on methods to do this?

Yeah, I would agree. And I think, you know, it's not just up to businesses, it's up to all of us to keep the, the messages alive. And, you know, I remember back to the atrocity with George Floyd last year, and the impact on the business was absolutely. It just went like a shockwave through the business, you know, speaking to colleagues on the team, colleagues who went very quiet and they really felt what had happened and the impact of that death. And it was, again, talking and listening and it was just amazing. The sense that we needed to do something as a company and, you know, as we look at things today is I always say to our team, it shouldn't take an atrocity to keep things alive. We need to live diversity 24, 7. And we're doing this for the next 2, 3, 4, 5 years to bring in and make the company more inclusive, to bring in that sense of belonging. So I think, you know, as a leader of the recruitment function in UKI recruitment, you know, I feel it very personally that our team can make a massive difference to the company in who we seek to attract and how we make people belong to the culture we have. So, absolutely, the whole team shares this commitment and we're not waiting for the next atrocity to come up, which will come up. We are continuing to live and breathe this and we want to show the results that we have as we go along. So, Catalina, I know you share this passion and you live this daily as well.

Yeah, definitely, Matthew. And I think in reading the article, the author highlights these three specific points around. You shouldn't shrink away from conversations and you should be intentional about educating yourself and treating diversity and inclusion as an imperative. And I think both of all of those points are incredibly important. But what I think is missing when sometimes people read these articles is they, they say they absorb that and they're like, oh, okay, yeah, I care. And, but then what's, what's next? And I think that's the most important part is you can't just read this thousand word article and assume that you've done enough, that you've done the reading. The educating yourself comes in many different ways. It often comes from being told that you're wrong and from making a mistake and saying the wrong thing. And so I think articles like this are important for starting a conversation, but it shouldn't be the only thing that somebody consumes A word I want to.

Pick on there you use there is intentional or intentionality. Catalina reminds me, and I've used this quote before, comes from a friend of mine, Joe Gersten, who I admire his work and the way he speaks around inclusion and diversity, but he likened D and I to exercise. He said, we all agree that being healthy and doing exercise is the right thing to do. We all agree that we should keep fit and we should be out there and eating well. He said, but agreeing with it and supporting it doesn't make you fit. To get fit, you got to get on the treadmill, you got to pound the pavement, you got to do the miles. You actually have to put the effort in. As soon as you stop, you stop being fit. And that, that's, you know, I always love that analogy around this topic because it does require daily or weekly activities, intentional activities to actually keep this momentum up. It isn't enough to agree, it isn't enough to be aware. It does require action. And I think it's probably just fair to say that after you have such a big event as last summer, there is in human nature, you're going to have this apathy as we set settle back into maybe what people consider to be a more normal world where there hasn't been a big headline. It's kind of normal for people to just revert backwards, isn't it? And if so, how do you basically try and force them to, you know, not slack off on the exercise, so to speak.

Yeah, that whoever said that is a person after my own heart because I was in a meeting yesterday where I used basically the exact same analogy and I said it's a muscle and it needs to, to be exercised. And I don't know, Matthew and Johnny, if during the height of this past summer everyone was talking about all the anti racism books that you need to read. And everyone was picking up books and buying them and doing all the things. And the other day my husband and I were reading before bed and he turned to me and he's like, oh, what are you reading? And I'm reading an anti racism book called Mediocre. And he was like, oh, I thought you'd kind of done that. And I said, no, it kind of needs to continue. It wasn't just in July when I'm reading the books, I need to do it now. And sometimes I'll pick up a podcast or listen to an audiobook or something. It has to continue. And to your point, Johnny, it's a muscle that needs to be exercised.

I'm going to jump to our second article. I think this is a nice continuation of the conversation. This comes from Forbes and this is a really interesting survey and it's an inside look at the sentiment of black and brown professionals in corporate America. So if you haven't checked out the article, it's on Forbes, it's called Exclusive Survey, An Inside look at the Sentiment of Black and Brown Professionals in Corporate America. And Forbes described this as their inaugural survey that they're hopefully going to run this regularly. But you know, unfortunately, unsurprisingly, it doesn't make for comfortable reading. You know, it's a really important read because it highlights the, the, the real reality of the situation. For I think it's 750 surveyed individuals who self describe as black and brown in corporate America. You know, were either surprised at the numbers and the stats here, and I'll call out some of them. 55% say employers are not transparent about DEI progress. 63%, it's nearly 2/3 saying they're not being given the same opportunities. Of white employees, 36% not comfortable bringing authentic self to work. Example given of two women who were interviewed saying they were comfortable wearing their hair and their more natural cultural style because they felt it highlighted their cultural difference. Do these stats surprise you, either of you?

No, not at all. Sorry, Catalina.

No, no, no, I agree with you, Matthew. I think it's reading the article like I've lived it, right? I've been on the receiving end, especially when I lived in the US and the Latin American community is seen as a very isolated minority. There's a lot of, a lot of microaggressions that get thrown your way. And I've experienced it. But I also very much recognize that I'm a beneficiary of white privilege. So I've also been in rooms where problematic things have been said about black colleagues or about the concept of diversity and inclusion in general. And hearing that, I have no doubts that this is happening and that these experiences captured in this survey are only just a tiny snapshot of what's being experienced in most corporate environments.

Yeah, and I think, Johnny, what we found last year at EY is we have something called a REN Network, Race Ethnicity Network. And we had a number of company calls in the uk, we invited leadership on and black colleagues came on and described their experiences and they were very emotional, very powerful experiences, you know, life at work, but also life out, you know, in everyday life as well. Talking about experiences of racism, microaggressions, etc. I think it really shook the company and it shook the leadership because when you really get into these stories and hear what's happening and what's happening in life and how people are feeling, it then gives you that agenda. We must do something, we must make a difference. And I think the key thing that we've been trying to do at EY is to listen and to learn and to self reflect and see what we can do. And you know, I've benefited obviously from white privilege, but now I'm in the role that I want to make a difference and I'm really listening. And it's great to work for EY that is working on a host of initiatives that we can, you know, share with the viewers as we go through. But I think the key bit of advice is for any company is listen to your employees, listen to the experience that they've been going through. And I think that when you start to listen that gives you the agenda for, for change and we're supporting them. And it's fascinating seeing that, you know, how we have these sessions last year and we continue to have them now and anti racism workshops, etc. And you know, colleagues reaching out to support and to listen to make a difference. So, you know, that's a key bit of advice today is just is listen and learn and then, you know, make a change agenda based on that.

So the last decade as I've been following EY UK Ireland, because again, I just want to call out EY whilst it has 300,000 employees, I think worldwide, it's a member firm where it isn't like a traditional corporate hierarchy where you'd have CEO or board and you make decisions around the world, you've got partners in different parts of the world and it's much more consensus. I compared Switzerland to the uk. You have to technically these are semi autonomous states. If you like, who can do their own thing, but they agree to cooperate. So it's quite a unique organization. And I know, my understanding is obviously not everything works this exact same way. There's obviously global guidance.

Yeah, definitely. I think Johnny is frozen there, but I can take the gist of what you were saying and I think when we talk about ey, I think the key thing to say is that particularly for us in the focus of uki, we're on a journey. We're not going to sit on this call today. And Catalina and I say with a benchmark, with the best practice, we're actually just going to sit and say we're very much learning, we're on a journey. We set out a series of measures and our goal is to improve and to become much more diverse as a company over the next two, three, four, five years and not stop. I mean, Catalina, there's a number of initiatives we could take people through. I don't know if you want to do that.

Yeah, well, I think Matthew, speak a little bit to that and to Johnny's point around us being a global organization, but also being very UK centric. I think when the, the events of last summer happened and the unfortunate murder of George Floyd caused this global conversation, there was a tension in the UK firm. And Matthew, tell me if I'm wrong but around does this apply to us? And everyone was a little bit nervous and, and it was to your point, around the listening and hearing and our black colleagues saying, yes, this does apply, we are hurting. This, this feels close to home. I know I watched a video and was shocked and I felt for my friends in the US And I immediately went online and started doing research around how relevant is this to my role here in the uk If I'm honest, I didn't have any friends here that I could ask or really any close colleagues at that point because I was relatively new to the organization and that listening and actually taking a moment to reflect and say this global conversation does apply to us and what do we need to do was really important. And so as a result, to speak to your point about initiatives, we released in July our seven anti racism commitments around the key things that we're going to do to tackle anti racism within the firm. And not saying that that's the end all be all, but it's definitely a start. And maybe perhaps, Matthew, we can look at some of those anti racism commitments that we made. I think that one of the big ones that we made is to train our population on race fluency and allyship. That's a big one. We actually just launched a big race fluency training module that's being rolled out across the firm that all of our people are completing to really understand what does a microaggression mean. I actually found that when I first joined the firm and I spoke to some of our recruiters, Matthew. I spoke about microaggressions, and someone stopped me and said, I don't actually know what that means. I've heard the term before. And, you know, that was a bit shocking to me. But you say, okay, well, this is an opportunity to educate. And so that's what we've been doing as a firm, and we're certainly using this as an opportunity to also speak about allyship, because anti racism is about dismantling systems of oppression. And that applies to other aspects of identity as well. It applies to ableism, it applies to sexuality, it applies to gender. And so those are all things that we're focused on in addition to our focus on anti racism.

Yeah, I agree. And I think what we've probably found hardest of all is, as we go out to. Hi, Johnny, good to see you back. What we found hardest of all, Johnny, is, you know, this is such a difficult area for people to feel, you know, free to speak. So when we have team meetings, we talk about microaggressions and anti racism, they're very well received. And I think the difficulty is that there's a nervousness of people saying their opinion because they don't want to say the wrong thing. They. They want to, you know, be part of what's happening. But there's that fear to really say something again. That's something that we're trying to create that safe space that people feel free to, you know, offer up their opinions and their experiences and what we can do to help. But we recognize that it's a very, very difficult subject for. For people to speak out of at the moment.

I'm going to jump in, if you don't mind, because I had to, unfortunately, get cut off for four or five minutes due to a power outage in the home.

We kept you going, oh, he's gone again. So, yeah, Catalina, that's very much a real experience for us, isn't it, in terms of people creating those open spaces and feeling free to speak out.

Yeah. And I think we saw it, Matthew, over the course of the summer, as we were having some of these dialogues, people slowly getting more and more comfortable with having the conversation. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes a little while. And it also takes leadership like yours, for example, where you've said, this is a priority, we are going to speak about it. And you've shown up to all of the conversations and contributed and asked people questions. And that I think is really important. That top down view from leadership saying this is important and then everyone else from the bottom up saying, we care as well. Let's meet in the middle and let's work on this together.

Yeah, I agree. And for people watching on the podcast and you know, afterwards as well, I think, you know, what are our sort of the pillars of our commitments? What are we trying to do? And I think we're trying to create three pillars. And the first is to create that culture of belonging that everybody feels part of the company. There's a safe space and everybody. Yeah. Has that sense of belonging. The second is having a differential focus on race and gender. So we're looking to double the proportion of our female partners and have 40% females in place by 2025. July 2025. And again, we're looking to desegregate the term BAME down, but just as a generic here, we're looking at 20% of our partners being BAME partners by July 2025 as well. But in the third part of those pillars is creating and being a leading and disruptive voice on dni. So making sure our leaders, you know, making them feel accountable and open to talk freely and really empowering their teams. And, you know, keenly from a recruitment point of view, you know, one of our key areas is to make sure that we bring in a more diverse workforce and make sure that they can flourish and have the right support systems and structures in and training and develop to be able to reach their potential and moving forward. So I think those three pillars are the sort of things that we're focused on are EY. And I think with our 80 racism commitments, we could break that down even further, can't we?

Yeah, yeah. And all of the work that we do falls underneath those three different pillars. I see, Matthew, that there was a comment that came through from James. It says when discussing diversity, do we need to be more specific and say the actual words like gender, race, neurodiverse, et cetera? Is the term diversity itself too vague? Do you have any thoughts on that? I know I do, but I'd love to hear your.

No, you go. You go first.

Well, I think the term diversity is too vague and sometimes we fall into the trap. I know I fall into the trap and I'm trying to not do it is to say things like a Diverse candidate. There is no such thing as a diverse candidate. Diversity is a group attribute. And we need to be very specific about what we're trying to do. And we are focusing on our black colleagues, for example, or our Asian colleagues. We have a South Asian community, for example, at ey and we need to be very specific. And we can't shy away from saying black. And that's not a bad word. It's an aspect of identity that people are proud of and that we should be proud of and that we should embrace. And so I definitely think that companies need to be very specific about what they're doing and to be openly discussing and using terms so that you are targeting the exact thing that you're trying to, to work towards and the exact aspect of identity that you're trying to make more comfortable at your organization. And we certainly have a lot of work to do at EY when it comes to helping out, for example, our non binary colleagues. We've been collecting data on this, but we don't have enough data to really say what initiatives do we need in place to make them feel more comfortable.

Yeah.

At the top of the hour, Catalina, you were saying about asking questions being so important and discussing these yourself as well. Matt and I know that we had a good friend of ours, Salma Awadani, work with us recently on launching Allyship training. And one of the things that she shared with me and our audience when she was on a live event we did a few months ago was that there's a lot of uncomfortableness around language and people don't know what to say or what label somebody wants. What's the right term to use? And her advice was ask somebody. It just starts by having a conversation. You know, it's okay to be ignorant, you know, once, so to speak, but if you, you know, if you find yourself not sure, go ask somebody in, in a, in a respectful way and you'll get an insight. One is, of course, don't assume that with that, that that person speaks for everybody that might be of the same color, gender or background. But it's, it's about engaging and about being comfortable to have those conversations and ask somebody, what are you comfortable with what you know, you know, does this word make you feel uncomfortable? Should I use that? Should I not? What's your experience? That's how you kind of break down these barriers, I think, is being comfortable to have these conversations.

Yeah, I agree with you. And I think, you know, Selma is absolutely a real force in the industry and we turn to her for advice as well from an EY perspective. And you know, Catalina and I have had her on calls. I think she know she's a really tower of good and the advice we're getting from her is magnificent. So if anybody doesn't know her, certainly look her up and reach out to her. I think she's a brilliant force for good in this industry.

I'd love to ask you both a question, if I don't mind me bringing up some history of what I know of EY's recruiting processes and policies. Several years ago I did an interview, but it was a small pub in London with Dan Richards, who previously held the role you hold today, Matt. And he had shared with our audience how EY in the UK in particular had done something that was quite unexpected and different, particularly for the big four audit firms, which was to change the policy around the way that individuals were hired on the so called milk ground or out of college process. And just to give those from outside the UK a bit more color. You know, it would have typically been somebody with a certain level of degree, 2111 been the equivalent of a GPA high score average in the US or elsewhere. That would have been a cut from certain universities, would have been typically how professional services firms hired. And if you're from that university with that grade you're in and you can apply for the process. And EY were I think, the first professional service firm that I knew on scale who changed that and opened up the process to a lot more candidates with a very deliberate intention of having individuals from very different backgrounds being able to apply who were excluded. And I know in the early years that was bearing great fruit in the increased diversity even in the first year's cohort that were hired in that group. I wonder if maybe Matt, you could speak to that process and how it's evolved over the years and maybe Catalina, to perhaps some of the results that the firm has seen in terms of increased diversity amongst different angles across the firm since then.

Yeah, and I think, I mean you hit it the nail on the head. We used to be a very Russell group focused, you know, very focused on those core universities going there competing on campus against the rest of the big four and other companies. And we really wanted to turn that whole process on its head. The best candidate can come from anywhere and we wanted it to be a blind process by blind not knowing where they come from and what their experience was and who they were and putting them into our application methods and through our assessment systems and really seeing who the best people were. To come out of that again, you can imagine that we've got people coming from different parts of the uk, different educational backgrounds, different social, economic backgrounds and different cultures, but we're still maintaining quality of the people that we want to see. And when you start getting people from those different backgrounds, you're changing the culture of the company because you're not coming from those set universities and those set individuals. That becomes very familiar. I think that we're, you know, we're on that journey and it's still a journey that we're looking at. We're constantly looking at the way we assess our candidates. I think that we are debating about some of the more, you know, rigorous tests that we have, particularly our NRT and our maths tests, about how do we look at more about potential, how do we assess on potential, which again, will help those from different backgrounds as well. So, you know, it's a constant evolving path in the way that we're recruiting and, you know, Catalina happily talk about, you know, the effects in diversity.

Yeah, well, and I think, Matthew, that's. That's a really important point that you made in terms of evolving. Right, because we did that a few years back and we've seen good success from it. So we've increased our ethnic minority population with the highest increase being at 5% at junior levels, which we're very proud of. But we still recognize we have a significant way to go. And when we break down data at each stage of the recruitment process, we do still have some stops. And so those are ongoing conversations where, to Matthew's point, we're looking at our tests, we're looking at the way that we assess candidates, not just for specific competencies and what questions are we asking? And those are all really important things that I think every organization needs to do is it's great to do a brand new initiative, but how is your initiative performing and how can you consistently refine that initiative to ensure that it's actually achieving what you want it to achieve? And I think that's where we're at right now. We're at a key inflection point where we need to do some good reflection and thinking. How can we push the needle even further?

One of the ways that I read recently that you're looking to push that needle further and continue, as you say, to evolve the policy is the commitment, which I believe begins in 2021, to hiring, I think, 30% Black for internships and 30% Black from that normal graduate intake, if I'm not mistaken. Can you talk me through the reasoning behind that, why those numbers and you know, what the timeframe expected it to be. And then if I can ask one further so question, what are you doing to try and ensure you hit those goals critically?

Yeah. So I'm happy to speak to this. So I think, Johnny, what you're referencing is that one of our seven anti racism commitments that we made this summer is that we're going to offer at least 30% of the work experience places in our Smart Futures, our futures program to black young people in the next five years. And we're hoping to use that as a pathway into making sure that at least 30% of black young alumni from these programs actually enter EY. And so to give you a bit of background, these programs are done through the EY foundation, which is a registered charity that EY had started. And that's actually something that is ongoing conversations around how do we make this happen and how do we ensure that not only are we increasing the black young population that enters these programs in the EY foundation, but then ensuring their success when they get into ey? And if I'm honest, this, I think, Matthew, I don't know how it's been for you, but I think this has produced a lot of dialogue at EY into how do we make this happen. I know in the past months, I've been in several brainstorming sessions with EY and EY foundation with leaders all across the firm really saying, okay, let's think differently about the way we traditionally do things and let's push ourselves beyond what we've traditionally done. And if I'm honest, it's been actually quite exciting and such a breath of fresh air to have people say, like, let's scrap everything we used to think was a barrier and let's push ourselves. And so part of why we've said that we're starting that in FY21 is because we still needed that little bit of ramp period around figuring out how we were going to accomplish this. And I'm really excited to see what we can do.

Yeah, I think, Johnny, it doesn't take much is that there's also the challenge here of looking at the talent pool and how we make sure we grow it. So, you know, anybody can leap on here and use Google and have a look at, you know, the number of black partners in EY or any of the big four, then they can look at any of the big tech companies as well. And then, you know, in a simple way, you could have said in the past or go head hunt. So Go and map out the rest of the Big Four and try and attract across, go and look at some of the other big players that you want to recruit and try and do that. But there is still that scarcity of talent at that level that we can do. So it's again, how do we grow? How do we attract more talent into ey, what are the traditional ways that we've looked at attracting talent? And again, we're forming new relationships with different networks, with black networks as well, to try and bring in more talent and grow within and do that. So the old recruitment book that we used to have is sort of out of the window as we look at new networks, new ways of recruiting, new ways of growing from within, new ways from bringing people in and giving the right support structures and the right training and development and encouragement to be the best they can. And that's the best way forward that we can go for, you know, in a market where there's not that sort of seniority of talent that's currently in place in amongst the Big four or amongst some of the big leadership companies.

Speaking of those processes. Oh, sorry, Karina.

Oh, no, I was just going to say I think one thing is we speak about this and we speak to recruitment. And I have noticed that this happens quite a bit across several organizations where they say, okay, we have a diversity issue. And they immediately look to recruitment and recruitment isn't the solve to everything. And so that's one important thing that I just want to highlight is that although we're talking about some of these things that we're doing to attract talent and, and to bring them into the organization, that is all coupled by extensive processes and data analysis and conversations to look at the way that we progress and promote those individuals and retain them ultimately. Because if you, if you're not looking at that and you're just solely focused on recruitment, you're missing, you're missing something here and you're. We even had the conversation over the summer where we noticed that our black employees didn't have the same experience as our white counterparts. And so we're not going to go out there in the marketplace and say, come join us. We're the best place to be because that's not authentic. We need to do some work on the inside. So just do think it's important to highlight that it's not just a recruitment thing. It's about the entire employee lifecycle as well.

I think that speaks to a question one of our listeners has asked. Abhishek Sharma is asking. Hi, Catalina. Matthew, what are EY practices to ensure commitment to inclusion while recruiting hiring, and is this practice consistent at your global site? So I think maybe it's speaking to the specific examples of what you do to ensure that commitment to inclusion. To your point, Catalina, of it going beyond the initial hire.

So one of the things that comes top of mind to this question that we've been focused on quite a bit over the last few months is around inclusive leadership and how you assess inclusive leadership and how important it is that all of our people be inclusive. And we're trying to take that to the next step by actually making inclusive leadership as a core competency that gets assessed in the interview process so that our candidates get asked, how are you bringing other people along? How do you currently create a diverse team in the way you work and making all of these. The answers to these questions just as important as their commercial value and how much they're bringing in in their current firm. And that's been a big one that we use to, to ensure the commitment to inclusion. Another one is that we're having a lot of conversations, Matthew and I, with our recruiters around challenging non inclusive feedback. Right. Sometimes people have reasons for not wanting to hire someone and they may not put them all in their feedback or they may say, this person's not a fit. Well, we need our recruiters to ask, what does a fit mean? What's the background behind a fit? Are you hiring based off of a preference? Are you hiring based off of tradition? Because if so, that doesn't sound like a job requirement to me. That sounds like you have affinity bias or like you're choosing people based off of what you know to be success and not what the firm actually has deemed to be success. And so those are some of the ways that we've done it. We. When I first joined ey, I basically dissected the recruitment process through each stage and I we've sat down with the recruiters and said, these are all of the tiny little things that you need to to do to ensure that inclusion is kept at the forefront of everything that we do from a recruitment perspective.

Question for you, Matt, As a leader in the firm, when you take that topic of inclusive leadership that Kathleen's mentioned as a competency coming into the firm in the last year, how have you seen that play out in your own team? And personally, what kind of, what differences do you notice in your own style, if any, in the last year, being in a firm that actually calls that out as a value and requires it of its leaders, what do you find yourself doing differently or thinking differently, or how do you find yourself acting differently in your leadership style, in your routines?

And I think the key thing there is, again, just being inclusive and trying to make that sense of belonging for the team. So listening to every voice in the team, and, you know, there was a lot of hurt and a lot of emotion and there was a lot of anger surrounding George Floyd. And that anger hasn't gone. It's still there, but that's turning that anger into the passion to make a difference. So I sat down with the team, and we formed a diversity committee. And it's formed in a number of areas, looking at a whole host of things that we as a team do to make a difference. And we're still coming back with new ideas. And again, we're not saying that we are the benchmark. We're on a journey. We're learning. And I think as a leader, normally you feel you've got the answers to everything, and this is an area that is. You don't. You have to absolutely listen and include everybody in the team and listen to those voices. So I've made sure that I've been much more open, spending time with everybody in the team, listening to their views. What would they do differently if they were a leader and my. In my shoes, what would they do? And listening to those suggestions has really made me take a step back. And again, I come, as was said earlier, from the position of, you know, benefiting white privilege. But I have to make a difference for my team. My team is not diverse to the levels that I would like it to be. So we're on a journey with that. We're on a journey with the company as well, you know, seeking to attract, you know, the very best diverse talent there is out there. And again, these are big challenges that, you know, we're on team, absolutely one team. We're in this together again. We get the results together. But that forms a difference in my leadership style that is much more inclusive, much more bringing and listening more than I have ever done in my life. And, you know, Catalina has been, you know, a real beacon to me of sharing material and books to read and, you know, in areas I'm not an expert in. And it's really made me step up to the plate and to really open myself up to learning where, you know, previously I would have thought, you know, I know it all, I can do it. What I've learned over the last year is how little I do know. And again, I'm very much on that learning journey. And you know, Catalina has been key in really helping me open my eyes up to how much I've got to learn as well.

It's been said many times before, sorry about you. Sorry.

I'm sorry, John. I just wanted to say like, you know, to give Matthew some credit in terms of inclusive leadership, I also think it's the little things. You know, you came in and you made it a point. You said, I'm going to meet with every single member of the team regardless of level over the course of my first few months. That's no easy feat, right? We're about 100 person team and you sat down with every single person. And that in and of itself creates a sense of inclusion for everyone at the firm. To say for everyone in the team, I mean to say I have access to my leader, I can tell them how I'm feeling. I can tell them what I'm thinking. That I think is a big one. Over the summer we were doing, and actually for several weeks we were doing bi weekly anti racism workshops and Matthew was dialed onto every single call, engaging with the content and telling people to attend. I've certainly been on teams before where the leaders say diversity, inclusion is important, but then they don't show up. And so that's, I think, the difference. Right? It's not just talking about it, but it's being about it. And, and so that I think, just to give you some credit of definitely you showing inclusive leadership in your day to day style, not just saying that you care, but actually doing it.

It's been said many times that, you know, you want to know what's important to a CEO, look at what she measures. How is it important that the business has metrics around this? And you know, what metrics do either of you see as being the ones that keep, keep us, keep the whole organization kind of on rhythm for this, you know, consider it like the bass drum in a band. It's like we constantly have to look at this whilst of course we're not doing it for the sake of a metric in anything. If you want to get consistency over things over time. Because lots of things just take time. They take years perhaps to fix or improve. You have to have metrics, you have to keep focused on those, go back to them. How are we achieving? What have you seen that's worked across the business? You know, I know Kathleen, you mentioned about how do you hold leaders accountable for being more inclusive? Like what's the measurement of that? Can you give me an example of what you've seen work Even in small parts of EY to date.

So data informs a huge part of our diversity and inclusion strategy. So we track everything. We track the way people are recruited, we track promotion, retention, all of those things that I mentioned. We also track the way people are feeling through surveys and their sense of belonging across the firm. And so that's been a big conversation recently as we have these, these global people surveys that get asked and there's a question in there around belonging. And we're consistently looking at that question from all the different aspects of identity and seeing how the scores are improving. And so that I think is a very simple one that any organization can do is just surveying your people consistently and seeing are your black employees feeling welcome? Are your non binary employees feeling welcome? How are they feeling about the policies? I was in a conversation the other day around I think there's a review that's happening in terms of our rewards and recognitions program and how are reconsidering the way all aspects of identity perceive that within the company. And you can really only do that if you're tracking data and having targets and measures. I will say though, that personally, I often find that people like to use data as a bit of a diversion tactic. So I would say to be wary of that because I have had conversations with leaders who say, oh yes, I'd love to talk about D and I, but at first I'd like to see the data and then we show the data and they say, but how about this? And then I start to realize that you're actually just turning me around in circles looking for data because you don't want to get into the nitty gritty of what I'm trying to tell you, which is that your people don't feel like they belong or you're asking questions that are problematic in an interview process. And so data is great, but it's not everything in some regards.

Matt, you've probably seen it in your dashboard as well, because I've seen it in the dashboards of many, many TA leaders in the last year, adding at least, at the very least, a diversity of slate metric in as one of the core top 5 KPI's in TA. Have you seen similar kind of positive metrics being used within hiring that have driven you and your team?

Yeah, and I think, you know, there's always going to be metrics in this area and always things for us to achieve. But I think echoing Catalina's point is there that it's about that culture that you're creating and that sense that it's somewhat difficult to measure and you can have employee surveys and things like that. But it's that sense of belonging that you're empowering the team to make a difference and you're having those different people coming into the organization and really challenging and make a difference. So again, with metrics, the number of diverse candidates on a short list and all of those sort of things, you know, are key to any organization. But I think it's again, the, the softer areas that you can't measure as much, which makes a huge difference. But you know, I looking at last a week ago we had a special student campaign week and it was focused on well being and these are very tough times for students and students of all backgrounds and all diversities. And you know, we introduced a raft of speakers and you listen to someone like Anthony Joshua and his story and the journey that he's been on and the challenges that he's had. You know, somebody we all look up to as, you know, a real physical character strength, but someone who's got there through hard work and training and sacrifice. And you hear about the challenges he's had to get to where he's at. And that sort of inspirational story is something that we as all companies should be amplifying. The success stories that we hear of celebrities that people look up to and I think simple things like that is that yes, all these metrics have a important part, but it's us as a company. How are we telling the stories? How are we giving platforms to people to give the amplification to their voice? So, you know, with Black History Month and with the commemoration of George Floyd, what can we as a company do to actually go back into the market and add value and give something different for people to listen to. And I think that's something we as leaders need to do as well as well as looking at those metrics.

I'm glad you brought up Black History Month actually, if you don't mind both just hang on for one more question from an audience member. So Jeronda Wallach is asking or she's saying, first of all, telling some background. Her company is new to building its DEI strategy. The focus has been on educating on BLM and bringing in a black owned firm to support with bringing the company along on the journey. Her question is her company has missed a great opportunity to celebrate Black History Month and it could be because they want to expand the focus on other diverse groups. But she'd love to get your thoughts on whether this could still be an opportunity. Is there still time and could they benefit from that?

Brilliant question. I would encourage. Yes, yes, yes. You know, you don't have to do something just to commemorate a certain month with Black History Month is that we need to continue to air and have different voices across the whole of the year. So, absolutely, I would say get out there and it doesn't matter if you didn't commemorate Black History Month, do it in any other month of the year, but you're doing something and you're keeping the message alive. And I think that's the key thing that we need to encourage.

Yeah, I would agree. And, you know, black history is our history. It's any country has an element of black history, and you don't need a month specifically to commemorate it. I will say that companies that are newer to building their D and I strategy are likely overwhelmed. Right. They have a lot of things to focus on. There is some tension in the system. We have to be really honest about it. Where we were focused so much on race this summer that other aspects of identity, people felt like they were being ignored. They were like, well, what about me? I also have experienced microaggressions, and I also feel excluded. And what we need to remember is that all of these efforts are ultimately dismantling systems of oppression that have kept us from being a truly inclusive organization or community or society. And so by helping one community, we are helping all communities. And so I definitely think that highlighting black History throughout the year and maybe if. If you feel comfortable to. To come up with something and say, you know what, I'm going to share this one thing. When we had Black History Month a few months ago here in the uk, there were some colleagues who actually created a Black History Month Advent calendar. They completely took it upon themselves. Nobody asked them to. And it was really nice where every day you could click on the admin calendar and get a new fact about Black British history. And that calendar circulated the whole firm. Just something that somebody did off the side of their desk. But it made a huge difference. And so it could just come from you, too, if you feel compelled, or if you have a friend or colleague that can help you and you could make a difference by doing that as well.

I'm conscious of both your time. You've been very, very generous with your time and also, you know, allowed for your host to drop off with his poor Internet today. And I thank you for both being amazing pros and continuing the conversation. I'm sure our viewers and listeners really respect that. So thank you both. But we're at the end of the show way past the end of the show normally. And it's time where I ask our guests who join us every week to please, perhaps add to what we call our shortlist, our shortlist of tips and advice from leaders who join us on the show. And I'm going to ask each of you perhaps to share with our audience a tip you can leave us with that's either something that you've garnered from your own career and experience or was handed to you by somebody else. And maybe I'll ask Matt to start and then we'll finish with Catalina. Your tip, Matt?

Yeah, my tip is just very simple. It's just listen, you know, go out to your teams and listen to their stories, listen to their views. You know, we are busy and, you know, even in the middle of a pandemic when we're working from home, workloads are huge. But carve out time and listen to everybody and really challenge yourself and expose yourself to new ideas and, you know, it really does make a difference and make you rethink and really learn. So just a simple one. Get out to your teams, listen to their stories, listen to what they say, and you'll absolutely create that culture that people are then with you and on that journey and moving forward.

Excellent. Thanks, Matt. Catalina.

So I think for me, the biggest one I would say is first, you don't need a diversity and inclusion title to be making a difference at your organization. I think a lot of people feel like, oh, we have a team focused on this and this isn't my role, but it's really up to all of us to be inclusive. And with that in mind, it's actually the little things that done consistently and thoughtfully that make the most difference. It doesn't have to be a massive initiative, you to move the needle on this. You actually, all those little things that seem insignificant in isolation when done together and done done well will actually really have a huge impact.

I love that they won't fix it. We will. Kalina, Matt, thank you both for joining me, for helping me get through the show despite my technical difficulties. It's been a real pleasure and I think both of you should be proud of the work you're doing with EY and your colleagues in particular should be really proud, proud of the work that the firm is doing. Again, no firm out there is trying to say that they're the best or they've nailed everything. But I have nothing but admiration for the hard work and effort. And if I could leave it, one comment is that I think EY is a firm, particularly in the uk, that has always added to the areas of diversity that the firm has been focused on. It's difficult to focus and I've seen the firm continue to add to the to the type of issues that it's trying to explore. Whereas it could be easy just to swap out one issue for another. It's hard work. I can only imagine the lengths you have to go to manage all the different types of areas you're trying to unravel and fix within the organization. But I think it's probably a case study for many. And if you want to check it out, I'm sure Kathleen and Matt, you won't mind anyone reaching out directly to ask you about ideas about what the firm has done and what you're doing as well, and that guidance. Thank you both for joining us. Wish you very well success with EY's Initiative 2021 and your targets. We'd love to have you back on the show to hear how they're going sometime soon.

Thank you so much.

So we'll be back next week, hopefully without technical difficulties. Thanks for your patience for my drop off this week. That's just one of those things. It hasn't happened to this extent before. It'll happen again. This this is life in the post pandemic world. But next week we're going to be joined by another great guest that's going to be a live broadcast next week on the Wednesday 24th February. Don't forget that's live on YouTube and LinkedIn but will be available on podcast by that evening. And we're going to be joined by Kevin Oaks, CEO and co founder of ifrcp. And Kevin is a fantastic author, speaker and expert who's going to be talking about company culture and how to ensure company culture doesn't become a casualty. Fascinating gentleman with tons of research and experience. Trust me, all of you will want to hear what Kevin has to say. His great insights and a pleasure to have him guest on the show next week. So please tune in, mark that in your podcasts or put that in your diary for 4pm UK Ireland time. That's 11am in the east coast, the US 8am on the west coast and you can Google where it is in your time zone if you want to catch us live. We always welcome your comments and thanks. And thanks to all of you who joined us live today with your comments and always a pleasure. Pleasure to have you. We love your live comments. They make a big difference on the show and we hope you will rejoin us next week for our next session on culture. Until then, have a good week.