28 PROFILES
Diversity
@
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
PricewaterhouseCoopers( PwC) understands that any organisation that seeks to be the best can only be as good as the people that actually work for it. Diversity is intrinsic to achieving our goal of business success. But how does PwC commitment transfer this commitment into practice? Like many other organisations, its starting point was a policy, but the building blocks to move beyond this have included: n Leadership
Commitment to diversity at PwC LLP, is led by the highest level, it is led and understood by its Chairman, Kieran Poynter:“ First it is just plain right. Behaviour that discriminates on any grounds is inconsistent with our core values of Teamwork, Leadership and Excellence. But managing diversity is also about gaining competitive advantage in the marketplace by maximising the capacity of our teams to develop innovative business solutions and services.”
n Ownership
PwC’ s UK Management Board Member for People, Paul Cleal has ensured that diversity is intrinsic to our People Strategy. Explaining the rationale for his decision Paul says:“ Managing people well equates to managing diversity well”. A key measure that Paul has introduced to ensure that diversity is everybody’ s responsibility within the organisation is featuring it in our new Balanced Scorecard, which everybody will be measured against.
Paul Cleal, UK Management Board Member for People n People Networks
Our People Networks have been set up in positive recognition of the differences between our people and to provide an effective means by which connections can be made across the business. Paul, the former Chair of the Ethnic Forum, highlights the importance of networking in an environment like PwC:“ Networking plays an important part in professional success- making contacts and developing professional relationships are vital to business success.” And on purely business level, our People Networks are an effective way for the firm to engage with a cross section of our staff. We currently have ten in total including:
• The Ethnic Forum
• PwC women
• The Female Partner and Director Network
• GALE( gay lesbian and transgendered staff)
• The Parents Network
• The Special Needs Child Support Network
These networks are further complimented by a range of Faith networks:
• PwC Muslims
• PwC Christians
• The Hindu network
• The Jewish network The networks typically organise a range of business focussed and social events. Topics have included:” Sex” which promoted gender