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Nothing says more about sincerity and dedication to the issue of diversity than an organization that wins a prestigious award and simply considers it “a pat on the back.”
Which is how Scotiabank views the 2007 Catalyst Award for its Advancement of Women Initiative.
 “I think what the Catalyst Award really, really does for us is just verifies we’re doing the right things, we’re pointed in the right direction,” says Janan Youshia, director of workplace strategies. “And I think it provides the fuel to continue doing it.”
The AoW Initiative to recruit, develop and advance women was started by the bank’s most senior female executives who realized that as they retired, the women coming up behind them had to be encouraged to compete for those vacancies.
“This isn’t about handing women jobs,” Youshia says. “At the end of the day, we are all very, very passionate and agree, it’s the right person for the job, it’s the best person for the job.”
The results of the AoW Initiative have far surpassed the government benchmarks relating to the advancement of women and speak for themselves: the number of women at all senior levels at Scotiabank—vice president and up—nearly doubled between 2003 and 2006. But, as Youshia points out, it doesn’t end with the Catalyst Award.
“For us to sustain and, more importantly, grow the results that we have achieved,” she says, “we can’t let our foot slip off the gas.”
Trudi Saulnier, Scotiabank’s director of staffing and planning, admits that “finding good quality talent is getting tougher and tougher.”
 “It really is more and more becoming ‘growing our own’,” she says, “getting people from colleges and universities, getting them to work on co-op programs, internships, so that they can really develop within Scotiabank because we have lots of opportunities.”
In other words, get them while they’re young. Scotiabank has recruiters across Canada and maintains relationships with the country’s post-secondary institutions. With aboriginal youth, the bank starts preaching the party line while they’re still in high school, encouraging them to finish their education, to stay in school, and then consider a career with them. But, as usual, it doesn’t stop there. The pot is sweetened by a $250,000 gift which has created the Scotiabank Master of Business of Administration Bridging Program at the University of Saskatchewan, as well an annual $10,000 scholarship, for aboriginal students.
To date, the bank is in 50 countries around the world, and has approximately 1,000 branches and between 30 and 35,000 employees in Canada alone. But, as always, its thinking remains outside the box. Youshia says Scotiabank has set its sights on being a “global employer of choice.” In fact, it’s rolling out the AoW Initiative to seven pilot countries.
If Scotiabank has proved anything, it’s the buck doesn’t stop with its last great idea.
“We definitely at Scotiabank are very much encouraged as an employee to have a voice,” says Saulnier. “The voice of everyone is heard. The employees are definitely listened to. So I think when we get those unique perspectives because of (our) diversity, it is valuable and how we move forward as an organization and how we’re successful.” |
