RBC Wealth Management has used a variety of strategies to make its corporate values a meaningful part of its business operations. Here is a sampling of the ideas that work, including examples of how they were implemented.
- Make diversity and inclusion a priority of executive leadership
- Provide employee development and opportunities for employees to contribute
- Get clients involved
- Support worthy causes in the community
- Demonstrate commitment to environmental sustainability
Nearly 95 percent of RBC WM’s 40 senior-most leaders are engaged in efforts to drive the firm’s diversity strategy and execution on a daily basis. Executive involvement includes active leadership in the firm’s employee resource groups, service as executive chairs for our diversity growth strategy teams and advisory councils, and involvement on the firm’s Diversity Leadership Council.
Demonstrating support of our corporate diversity and inclusion strategy is not a box our employees check off on their annual performance reviews, but rather, is a part of our daily life. Through our three employee resources groups—Women’s Association of Financial Advisors (WAFA), Multicultural Employee Alliance (MEA), and Gay, Lesbian, Allied and Diverse Employees (GLADE)—our employees actively demonstrate our shared diversity and inclusion values throughout the year.
Throughout the year, we host a variety of unique events for our current and prospective clients. At our “Women, Wine and Wall Street” events, clients learn from a local female wine expert who talks about wine appreciation, as well as a female RBC executive who talks about current investment opportunities. Our speaker series on Latin America and the global economy held at the University of Texas at Austin invites clients, prospective clients and community members to learn about globalization and the challenges that Latin American countries face in achieving.
RBC Wealth Management partners with many external organizations that share our common goal of inclusion and raising awareness. Through these relationships, we elevate our brand profile in the community and help develop relationships with prospective employees and clients. In 2010, RBC Wealth Management contributed more than $3.2 million to charitable organizations through foundation grants, employee matching gifts and charitable sponsorships.
We are committed to a path of environmental sustainability. This means reducing our environmental footprint, promoting environmentally responsible business activities, and offering environmentally responsible products and services. The RBC Blue Water Project is an innovative, 10-year, $50 million (Canadian) global commitment to help foster a culture of water stewardship, so that people in communities and cultures across the world have clean fresh water, today and tomorrow.
RBC Wealth Management’s top diversity goals in 2011 include leveraging the leadership talent of women through our Women’s Growth Strategy; focusing on strengthened internal and external communication about diversity initiatives; and laying the groundwork for a Minority Growth Strategy.
