Orient - The Official Magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore - Issue 67 July 2018 - Page 33 IN FOCUS: Karen Loon, Partner and Asia Pacific and Singapore Diversity Lead, PwC a global HQ, look to localise them and make them relevant within your company culture. Gather as much data as you can to understand the working environment, and where the pain points and drop-offs in career paths are, to avoid making assumptions or letting unconscious bias lead you to the wrong decisions.
In a Singapore context, bringing different cultures and ethnicities to work together can be more of an effective driver than focusing all of your attention on just the gender statistics of your company. Inclusion is a 360 degree issue and your employees will not provide honest feedback without having confidence in speaking up first. We launched the “Lunch with a Stranger” programme to encourage employees to learn from each other, mixing cultures, seniority levels and business sectors to break down barriers. This has proved especially popular among our new employees.
What are your hopes for the next generations and how they approach these sensitive issues?
Over 80% of PwC employees are millennials and we find that there are increasing expectations that companies should have demonstrable purpose, and understanding this is important to attracting and retaining talent. People want to add value in their work and organisations need to align this with their corporate objectives to find a balance that retains talent. Corporates need to decide their future strategy and recruit accordingly.
There is a risk of focusing the purpose message on one or two individuals within the company who passionately drive diversity and inclusion but without fully embedding the message at all levels of the company. If those people move on, the good intentions can leave with them if the senior management structure has not “bought into” the value that inclusion can bring at a business level.
It takes time for these initiatives to make a difference and to change a corporate culture, so patience and commitment will be vital until inclusion becomes the norm within the company.