At ERM, we know that creating a diverse and inclusive work environment is essential to us becoming a leading global business and to making our company a great place to build a career. Diversity strengthens our environmental, social and governance performance as well as our ability to recruit great talent, retain our employees, innovate and build client relationships – all of which helps us create better solutions for our clients.
ERM condemns any and all forms of discrimination – be that on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or any other dimension. We are committed to diversity, equality and inclusion within our company, and we seek to work only with clients, contractors, suppliers and peers who share these values. Of particular note, we support our colleagues who are Black, indigenous and people of color, and everyone standing up to end racism and inequality. We believe that our actions, both individually and collectively, can make a difference.
We are working hard to make sure ERM continues to be recognized for being a truly inclusive company. We have a multi-year approach that is organized in three categories:
- Adapt: weave diversity, equality and inclusion into every aspect of our work, making sure that all our internal and external processes and approaches are as inclusive as they can be;
- Learn: encourage curiosity around inclusion and provide learning and development opportunities; and
- Engage: ensure all levels of the business are actively involved in our inclusive culture and that everyone feels they belong.
Open the links below to learn about ERM's accomplishments in each of the three categories.
- Implemented global guidelines on inclusive recruitment; ongoing engagement with recruiter community to understand application and challenges.
- Ran pilot of Women@Work podcast and webinar series to surface and work through challenges or barriers women face in the work place; developed an approach for further support of women’s career progression for implementation in FY21.
- Created intranet resources for LGBT+ business travelers on travel risk management.
- Sourced the Centre for Global Inclusion's "Global Diversity & Inclusion Benchmarks" to audit our performance and inform our plans for continuous improvement. Defined with input from more than 100 experts from around the world, the benchmarks examine performance across 14 aspects of an organization's operation. Each of the 14 categories has a series of benchmarks across 5 levels of good practice: from inactive to best practice. ERM conducted is first audit using the tool in FY20. Based on the results, we set companywide diversity and inclusion FY21 target and longer-term goal to improve our performance.
- E-learning on inclusive leadership and unconscious bias made mandatory for new and existing employees. As at December 2019, more than 80% of all employees completed the training.
- Inclusion integrated into ERM's flagship learning and development programs and inclusion "playlist" created on ERM Academy, providing increased learning and development opportunities for all employees.
- Conducted a webinar with ERM’s Senior Leadership Team on inclusive leadership, increasing leader engagement and commitment to action.
- Hosted an inclusion-related breakfast discussion at the 2019 New Partner Integration Meeting with the new class of Partners.
- Launched three Employee Resource Groups: Women, LGBT+ and disability to provide employee-led communities and surface important issues; posts and engagement in these groups among highest of all groups on ERM's internal social media site.
- Ran a hugely successful and well-received Global Inclusion Week in October 2019, bringing the entire business together around the topic of inclusion and being an ally. Reach and engagement among the highest of all internal communications campaigns in FY20.
- Led a global communication campaign in support of Pride, with offices in more than 80% of ERM’s offices around the world.
- Shared frequent communications on Yammer and Minerva, including our diversity calendar (and associated posts) and revamped our intranet site. Inclusive Culture content sees above-average reach and engagement; internal social media posts rank consistently among top-performing in thread impact, message likes and message contributors.
- Recruited new Global Advisory Group members to replace members rolling off the group; 135 applications for 8 positions.
- Provided diversity and inclusion input to multiple proposals and tenders to support client requirements for winning work.
- With all the above in mind, we are proud that we increased favorable employee sentiment by 12% on 2017 levels on inclusion question in global Employee Survey.
