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Announcer 0:01
Welcome to the CXR channel, our premier podcast for talent acquisition and talent management. Listen in as the CXR community discusses a wide range of topics focused on attracting, engaging and retaining the best talent. We’re glad you’re here.
Chris Hoyt 0:25
Alright everybody, welcome to CXR’s expertise. I’m Chris white president CareerXroads, I am bringing to you this rapid fire delivery of industry leaders and experts. Now the idea is, each week we’re going to host a guest who will share with us lessons that they’ve learned their biggest victory failures, or walk us through step by step how to do something challenging in our space. So the kicker is that this is just a 15 minute, hence the tease aspect of the segment title expert tees expertise, you see what we did there. Now, each of the sessions will have a focus topic topics that were voted on by the industry in a survey CareerXroads did earlier in the year. These were areas that leader said were big concerns for them moving forward into 2021, for instance, college recruiting automation, DE&I, ethics, etc. It goes on and on. So we encourage everyone to add questions to the chat area of our broadcast throughout our talk. And at the end of the segment, we’ll take a question or two if you’ve got them. And if we’ve got the time. And then we’ll move the rest of the conversation online to the new talent talks open and public exchange you’ll find at www.cxr.works/talenttalks. So today, I am excited to kick off the weekly series with the topic of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion specifically on the challenge of increasing female representation in leadership roles. And to do that we have invited Terra Doyle, the people and culture leader at Roche, and who we’ve been friends with for quite some time. So Terra, welcome. And thank you for being our first guest.
Terra Doyle, Roche 2:03
I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Chris Hoyt 2:06
So, so talk to us about why and how Roche has taken up a banner and sort of pushed forward to put more women into key leadership roles.
Terra Doyle, Roche 2:16
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the journey started quite a while ago, even prior to me joining the organization. So if you look back in 2011, they took a hard look at what they deemed to be their senior leadership, which for us is Director level and above. And just wanted to take a look at the representation. They just they didn’t feel that they really had exactly what they’re looking for, in terms of spirited discussion and an outside in perspective and things that come when you have diverse pools of talent role. At that time, sadly, our senior level leadership for a few more representation was at 11%, which is incredibly low. Since that time, of course, a lot of factors have come into play. And I’ll talk to you about what those events. But now very proud that as of last year, we ended at 38% of our senior leader levels. And if you really even now take a look at top down. So the most executive level, which still hovers over 30%, you know, minus one, we’re close to 50%. So it’s been a substantial journey in stride, and the right way to go. And the really cool part is about you know, these kind of focus areas and elements, they can be taken really more broadly across all areas of diversity, right, you talk about all sorts of whether it’s veteran hiring or, or people of color, but it really conceptually they apply across all groups. But it was something that they took a look and said, hey, look, we want to make a focused effort, we’re going to focus in these key pillars, it has been a journey and will continue to be something that we focus on.
So if I mean, I’ll go ahead and get started by maybe just sharing some of the things that we found that were really important, we all put them in three main pillars or categories. The first is commitment from the business because you just you can’t get anywhere, if you don’t actually have buy into what your strategy is and the importance of it. You know, for us, we do that in a variety different ways. One was to create, you know, our business resource groups, some call affinity groups, but basically like minded individuals that really can help sponsor and develop and provide a safe forum for groups to get together. And the women and leadership Business Resource Group is the largest that Roche has. In fact, prior to even joining the company, when I was doing my diligent research on Russia’s organization, what they kept talking about in all of these magazines and the articles and the awards that organization one kept talking about their women and Leadership Initiative. So you know, then it turned into a whole branding element, which is a separate conversation I’m sure you’ll have. So I think that has tremendous impact and continues to really provide a lot of value realization. Secondly is also focusing in on all levels. So you know, when you talk to the leaders, I think sometimes there is a likelihood to say Great, well, let’s focus on ringing smiling for talent and you develop and you move, which absolutely is a strategy I believe everyone should have. But it takes a while right to climb that proverbial corporate ladder. And so not only do you need to have app and you need to have intentional focus and efforts on, you know, all different levels of mid level individual contributors to manager or even senior level. So, I think it’s also a commitment to really ensure that you’ve got all those areas covered. Now, I think you need to take it in bite sized steps. But and remember, this is an eight year journey for us. So we’ve kind of developed along the way. And last, but certainly not least from the business is sponsorship programs, we have found them to be tremendously beneficial. And sponsorship can mean anything from Hey, we’re going to take a group, a small group of individuals, and quite literally bring them up the ranks or maybe it’s we’re just going to sponsor the development these areas. You know, I think there’s some cautionary points there. Even on the talent discussion that we had with CareerXroads was last week or the week before, you know, we’ll talk about the formality. Sometimes if you have too much structure, to a degree, they could implode, like how how do you actually have someone opt in? Or is there just I’m going to hand pick and now there’s a selection differential. So I think companies have to do what works for them. But if you have something that at least provides an avenue for, again, this cohort or sponsorship of development, it just really shows that the business has buy in. So those are some of the things that we focused on from the business standpoint. Secondly, I would say engagement in the community, just as important for you to be seen as a thought leader, whether it be in your industry, right? So we’re in biotechnology space, that we’ve got really strong leaders in the business. And of course, with this initiative, now we have strong female leaders and representation. But in addition to that, there’s also a giveback element. So, you know, I’ve always said from the TA side, it’s not always what you want, but we want to hire, we want you to join us, but it’s what can we give back, that’s just as important. So we really have allowed and really helped to promote and engage our leaders to get in the business and be board members be active members of like the WIL board, which you hear it really it’s a national group, but really big representation, Indianapolis, that now we’re seen as kind of the go to so now people who may not even be in our industry, you might say, Hey, I think that they know what they’re talking about. This looks like a great place to visit development of, of talent. And I think I want to be a part of that and it just opens up conversations in a more organic way.
That has been tremendously helpful plus his organization. But we have a very large giveback culture. So just from the personal side, and that has been tremendous. So again, that’s the second pillar for us. And lastly, is good old fashioned talent attraction strategies. So it’s really going in with an intent to make a difference by focusing in on the talent that you want to hire. So whether that’s again, the certain networks that you associate with, where you go to post for jobs, how you build your pipelines and your networks, if you know, if you just kind of hold post and pray methodology just doesn’t work, you really have to go where the talent sits to be able to make the impact. Otherwise, you’re talking about just like little incremental, you know, percentage points here and there. But to make, you know, 300 plus percent move, you really have to do it differently. So it’s good old fashioned going back to basics. So the only other thing I would say on that is using data. So for us, it’s really important to also bring data to the table, because it’s one thing to say, here’s what we want. But what also does the market have? And where do you have to go to get it? And if you want to represent the patients you serve, what is that patient population look like? What is the talent? How are we represented now? How do all three of those work together? And how do we specific target to make the difference? So those are some of the things that been helpful for us. And again, I think that it’s we’ll continue to grow. And now we’ll continue to use these other areas of diversity as well.
Chris Hoyt 8:59
I love that I love baby steps. I love data and and the giveback culture, right that you guys are supporting. Let me ask you if if I were in an organization, and we didn’t have anything set up yet, and this was something we wanted to do, whether it be in the area of equity for females and leadership, or whether we move it to the veterans like, how would this be something we’d get off the ground? What would what would be the one thing you tell me to sort of get this started?
Terra Doyle, Roche 9:24
First of all, I would say don’t recreate the wheel. Like there are so many great things happening out there. So it’s, it’s all about who you talk to a no. So make friends, get to know people find out what’s working well, and then see what concepts work for you. And I think you have to be aligned with your business. Again, whether it’s a very large business with a number of stakeholders, or whether you’re just a small organization that may only have 20 people make sure you’re all headed in the right direction. And you know the why behind the what so if you align with that you can build a strategy and don’t try to boil the ocean at once does do take those baby steps but make sure that you know how to measure it.
Announcer 12:57
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