The day before he was due to join PwC, Chris Keogh broke his neck in three places playing football. “I was rushed to hospital, where I was operated on for six hours, and woke up paralysed from the waist down,” he says. “A few days later, my surgeon told me and my family that I would never walk again. My world felt as though it was crumbling around me. My future was uncertain, to say the least.
“But the next day, my dad received a call from the director of my team at PwC to say no matter what happens or how long I would need to adapt to my new life, a job was waiting for me. It’s hard to put into words how uplifting that call was.” Nine months later and in a wheelchair, Keogh joined the firm as a relationships manager, working within the firm’s priority client programme in the banking, capital markets and insurance sectors. He says PwC’s commitment to inclusion and diversity as an organisation has helped him succeed. “[That] environment allows you to be confident to bring your full self to work.”
The benefits of building diverse teams are well established. They’re more innovative, more creative, and more in tune with customers’ changing needs. Research has found inclusive teams make decisions twice as fast and deliver better results almost every time. “There’s definitely a business imperative,” says Anne Hurst, inclusion lead at PwC. “But it’s also the right thing to do.”
Nevertheless, finding an organisation where inclusion and diversity (I&D) is prioritised can still be challenging. A recent survey by McKinsey & Company of more than 2,000 people found that 39% have turned down or decided not to pursue a job because of a perceived lack of inclusion at the business. “That just really shows how important this is for people thinking about who they want to work for,” Hurst says of the findings. “There’s a huge amount of I&D activity you can do, but not all of that activity drives change.”
Hurst has worked at PwC for 21 years, but has focused specifically on this area since 2011. She’s seen a step change over the past decade, with the firm focusing its inclusion and diversity strategy around a five-point plan. Inclusive leadership programmes aim to train leaders at all levels to drive inclusion in the business, and senior leaders are made accountable for delivering on publicly disclosed targets for gender and ethnicity representation at all levels of the company. There are progression coaches to sponsor the development of diverse talent, and a commitment to fair work allocation so that everyone gets a chance to work on high-profile projects that will enable them to progress. The firm also publishes its gender and ethnicity pay gap information each year.
In an attempt to recruit diverse talent, PwC banned all-male shortlists in 2018 and actively seeks to target people from different backgrounds. Job ads are reviewed to make sure inclusive language is being used, and recruitment agencies are encouraged to submit diverse shortlists for interview. The firm also aims to tackle misconceptions about the type of person who works at PwC by asking a range of employees to share their stories and investing in social mobility initiatives to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
During the pandemic, much of that outreach to students has been done via a virtual park, which has enabled the team to reach three times the number of students they would usually have been able to. “We know from our research that when people look at organisations, they’re looking to see whether there are people they can relate to,” says Hurst. “If they don’t, they’re going to draw the conclusion it’s not the place for them. We want to make sure we’re attractive to the best talent that’s out there.”
Ravina Kang, a digital marketing and CRM specialist who works in PwC’s employer brand team, recently became involved with the ColourBrave network to support open conversations about race and ethnicity issues in the workplace. She says: “While George Floyd’s death was a stark reminder of how far we still had left to go in the fight against racism, it was my own reflections of smaller, subtle acts of discrimination and disadvantage that drove me to become a ColourBrave advocate.
“I reflected on the many job interviews I’ve been on and realised I’d only ever been interviewed by solely white panels; I reflected on being the only person from a diverse background in meetings and seeing all eyes come to me whenever the subject of diversity came up,” she says.
“By becoming a ColourBrave advocate, PwC has given me a platform to talk about topics that are important to me. For example, I recently designed a ColourBrave session about name-based microaggressions and the importance of being mindful of mispronouncing names. It was so rewarding to have a platform to talk about my experience and I was surprised by how many people got in touch afterwards who have had similar experiences.
“A lot of workplaces talk about the importance of inclusion and diversity, but being at PwC is the first time where I’ve felt like my voice is being heard and I’m actively contributing to building the inclusive and diverse workplace I’ve always wanted to work in.”
PwC is home to 12 people networks, covering everything from different faiths, ethnicity and disability, to social mobility and sexual orientation. The experiences of those members are key to PwC’s Everyday Inclusion campaign, which focuses on raising awareness of a different topic each month. There’s also a Staff Diversity Council, which was established last year to supplement the Partner Diversity Council. It’s a forum of members representing the different communities across the firm who provide insight and challenge the I&D strategy and supporting actions.
And there is progress. In 2007, 10% of the firm’s partners were female and 2% were from a black or ethnic minority background. That’s now increased to 22% and 10% respectively. “We’ve still got a way to go,” Hurst says. “But that’s why we’ve got targets, so we can measure our progress.” In 2020, PwC was ranked the top UK employer in the Social Mobility Employer Index for the second year in a row, and continues to progress through the Disability Confident framework. Looking to the future, the firm is rolling out a new package of racial awareness training shortly and is mindful about keeping inclusion front of mind, as the firm adapts its work practices post-pandemic.
Hurst’s advice to leaders looking to improve inclusion and diversity within their own organisations would be to start with the data. “It’s also about making sure that you engage the business on this,” she adds. “This isn’t an HR issue, it’s a business issue. We’ve all got a part to play.”
