Could you explain your work, which offers external diversity, inclusive culture and equity consulting services to international organisations and the private sector in addition to internal efforts at PwC?
In a nutshell, we support organisations defining the “S” of ESG – their social engagement. We help our clients developing their people strategy with a focus on diversity and inclusion (D&I), we assess their maturity against peers and benchmarks, and support our clients with analytics and tailored training for their leadership and employees. Since 2017, we have partnered with the EQUAL-SALARY Foundation to provide equal pay and equal opportunity certification services.
The advice we provide to our external clients is equally important to us as a firm. This is why I have a dual role and lead our D&I work internally within PwC.
The combination of my external and internal focus allows me to bring good practices to PwC, and I can test new ideas internally before we bring them to the market. As for any organisation, it’s important for us to be internally and externally consistent and to “practice what we preach”.
Why is teaching organisations diversity and inclusion important?
In today’s post #metoo, George Floyd and COVID world, D&I are not just nice to haves anymore. Shareholders and key stakeholders ask organisations for more transparency around their D&I efforts. This is equally true in the private sector as well as in international organisations. Employees expect organisations to be responsible corporate citizens and want to work in organisations that are purpose-led and value-driven.
Studies have shown that diverse organisations can be more innovative and productive. Today, most organisations are diverse, this is a given. However, to make diversity really work and reap the benefits of diversity, you need an inclusive mindset and an inclusive culture in the organisation. And this is where we help our clients.
What have been some important breakthroughs in your work that have advanced diversity and inclusion?
There have been many important developments in the past years: the development of our D&I Maturity Model assessing an organisation’s D&I efforts along the value chain, our PwC Diversity and Inclusion Insights Dashboard, which supports our clients in evidence-based decision making and our partnership with the EQUAL-SALARY Foundation. More recently, we are working on a virtual reality (VR) solution that brings the awareness and learning experience to the next level. What makes me most proud, however, is when we receive feedback from our clients and employees that we helped them creating a work environment where people feel they belong, and are more productive and innovative.