Royal Bank of Canada’s commitment to women and minorities and their climb up the corporate ladder has earned the bank international recognition as a recipient of this year’s Catalyst Award for diversity.

Today, women comprise nearly 40 per cent of executives at RBC, with 54 per cent of management roles held by women. Visible minorities account for 14 per cent of executives and their representation in management roles has doubled from 13 to 26 per cent in the last decade. The global organization has diverse operations with 77,000 employees who speak over 100 languages, serving 18 million clients across Canada, the U.S. and 53 other countries.

RBC president and CEO, Gordon M. Nixon will accept the Catalyst Award on behalf of RBC for outstanding diversity and inclusion initiatives that advance the representation and influence of women and other diverse groups in business.

Catalyst is the leading nonprofit membership organization working globally with businesses and the professions to build inclusive workplaces and expand opportunities for women and business.

“Clearly, supporting diversity is the right thing to do, but it also represents incredible business potential. To ignore the value offered by huge parts of the workforce and the markets we serve would be to miss a significant business opportunity. The link between diversity and the success of a business is clearly there,” says Nixon.

“The question is not whether we want a diverse workforce — it’s already here — but rather how to attract and develop the best talent which happens to be diverse. There’s a lot of hard work required to move from simply having diversity to unleashing its full potential,” Nixon adds.

RBC’s winning initiative includes many components to ensure employee success, including reciprocal mentoring that matches employees of different backgrounds and different levels so that they can learn about diversity from each other; specific staffing goals, coaching and development plans for women and visible minorities; and supporting Employee Resource Groups, which enable and expand the diversity discussion across the organization.

RBC has also integrated its strategies across employees, clients and communities, one feature of the company’s approach to diversity that attracted the attention of the Catalyst organization.

IE