2017 Catalyst Award winner BMO Financial Group shares their diversity best practices

2017 Catalyst Award winner BMO Financial Group shares their diversity best practices
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For 30 years, the prestigious Catalyst awards have recognized exceptional efforts that help advance women in business. This year's ceremony took place at the New York Hilton Midtown on March 8, 2017, International Women's Day. Initiatives from 3M, BMO Financial Group, and Rockwell Automation were honored as winners.

“Intentional change requires bold leadership, which these companies embody. This is how diversity, inclusion and gender parity come to life in the workplace. It’s incredible to see these Award-winning initiatives changing minds, changing behaviors and creating more opportunities for women,” said Deborah Gillis, CEO of Catalyst.

In an interview for our documentary film, Catalyst's former President and CEO Ilene Lang had shared with us that, "Due to unconscious biases, companies promote men for their potential and women for their performance. Gender inequality isn't a thing of the past. Women in the workplace are expected to be more supportive and less leader-like. This is why only 5% of the CEO's in USA are women even though American colleges have graduated more women than men in the last 30 years."

Companies like BMO Financial are changing this narrative. Between 2012 and 2016, the bank met its five-year goal of 40% women’s representation among senior leaders in the United States and Canada, with women in these roles increasing from 33.0% to 40.1% and women of color and visible minority women increasing from 4.4% to 6.5%. Within the same time frame, women’s representation has increased from 7.7% to 31.3% among executive committee members and from 32.2% to 35.2% among senior managers and managers overall. Finally, women’s representation on BMO’s Enterprise Board of Directors has increased from 30.8% to 36.4%.

We sat down with BMO Financial's Chief Inclusion Officer Sonya Kunkel to learn from their team's success. In Sonya's words:

1. Know what you're solving for.

Every company's journey is different. You need to be honest in self assessment and analyze whether you're solving for hiring, retention, employee engagement or some other challenge. Once you identify your problem areas, it's important to track your progress so that you can over time assess and alter your initiatives.

2. Show individuals their impact on the collective.

My team has created tools to show managers the impact that their individual hiring decisions have on the whole company's diversity stats. This helps managers understand the power their decisions carry and how these add up at the company level.

3. Shared governance is key.

It's every leader's responsibility to foster an inclusive culture. We make sure that the head of every business line is held accountable to enabling diversity and inclusion within their orgs. We foster a culture of sustained accountability at executive level, manager level and individual level.

4. Tie to business impact.

We need our workforce to represent interests of our diverse client base. Studies have shown that diverse teams lead to greater innovation and better client service. It's pretty straightforward for us. Increasing diversity leads to better business.

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