Tony Bond, EVP, chief diversity & innovation officer at Great Place To Work, has an intimate conversation with leaders from EY & Nationwide as they explore how the “new normal” requires building and sustaining a great place to work For All.
Tony Bond:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to a For All Series panel conversation, and we thank you for joining us. My name is Tony bond, EVP and chief innovation and diversity officer at Great Place To Work. We would like to start by saying thank you to EY and Nationwide who are our co-presenters for this For All Series, including today's event.
Please note that this conversation will include inclusive language and be accessible via captions and a written transcript. Today's conversation is being recorded and will be available within hours so that you can share it directly with your colleagues and community. The on-demand video for this conversation as well as additional resources can be found on our recently launched For All resource site. Visit greatplacetowork.com, click on the resource tab, and choose For All from the dropdown to watch this conversation, read articles, and stay updated on this topic.
Now, I'm thrilled for you to hear from today's panelists. These two leaders demonstrate For All every day and the actions they take will get us started in an important conversation on what it means to create a For All culture that embraces diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
It's my pleasure to introduce our first panelists Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas vice chair-talent. Ginnie leads the Americas efforts to create exceptional and transformative experiences for 80,000 people in 31 countries. During her tenure with EY, Ginnie has worked around the world in several key roles, building and leading high-performing EY teams on three continents.
Throughout her various roles, Ginnie's commitment to building an EY in which everyone belongs and thrives has remained constant. She serves as the executive sponsor for College MAP, Mentoring for Access and Persistence, a multi-year group mentoring program focused on enabling and empowering students in underserved high schools so they can gain access to college and success seed in high education.
Ginnie also chairs the EY Americas Talent Executive Committee and is a member of the US Executive Committee, America Operating Executive Global Talent Executive and Americas Inclusive Advisory Council. We would also like to give EY and Ginnie an extra special shout-out for 23 consecutive years on the 100 Best Companies to Work For a list in 2021 and placement on the 2021 World's Best Workplace list announced on October the 19th. It is their eighth time appearing on this list, so congratulations.
We're also delighted to have Vinita Clements, chief human resources officer at Nationwide. Vinita's known for her strategic thinking, ability to build trusted partnerships, and focus on results. She has demonstrated the ability to build strong people and culture strategies, and her breadth of business and HR knowledge and leadership experience is extensive.
Vinita is a sought-after mentor and a coach due to her authentic and transparent approach to leadership. She invests in relationships at all levels of the organization and is committed to building a strong pipeline of future talent. Vinita has been recognized by Smart Business Columbus as a trailblazer, Who's Who in Black Columbus; and she currently serves on the board of the Columbus Urban League and previously served on the board for the Ohio Foundation for Independent Colleges.
She is a member of the senior HR Executives Council, member of the Ohio State University Fisher Leadership Initiative Corporate Advisory Council, and an advisor for All Women's Associate Resource Group (ARG) and a member of the African American women's ARG, AWARE. Vinita and the rest of the Nationwide organization had a lot to celebrate earlier this year when nationwide moved up 66 spots to number 25 on the 2021 100 Best Companies to Work For list. Another big congratulations. Vinita and Ginnie, thank you for being here.
So, before I jump into asking questions, I've mentioned For All quite a bit, so I want to share a little bit of background and context on what For All means for us here at Great Place To Work. A great place to work For All is one where everyone no matter who you are and what you do is having a consistent positive experience. Caring leaders foster an environment where everyone has purpose, can contribute new ideas, and has access to the resources they need to thrive within your organization.
Our leaders joining me today are exemplary role models of what we mean by a caring and For All leader. So, again, thank you for being with us, and I look forward to this conversation. So, I'd like to start with you Ginnie and ask you a global question, and I'll go to you, Vinita. Given the entire world we've been experiencing over the last year and a half a little bit more than that, I'm very curious. How has your organization changed, its culture changed or shifted over this last 15 months or so? And then as you look forward into the future, how do you anticipate it maybe changing as we move into a new normal?
Ginnie Carlier:
Well, thanks Tony. It's a great question. I think similar to many organizations, I mean, at EY, our key priority is and has been our people's really holistic, their holistic wellbeing. And we define that as physical, emotional, financial, and societal wellness. As early on as May of last year, our Americas Managing Partner Kelly Grier really challenged us to not just survive the pandemic but really thrive from the pandemic.
So, we've really been focused on our path forward as really understanding the importance of flexibility and the impact that that has on our wellbeing. And as we come out of the pandemic, we are focused on what we're calling the EY way of working and. Back to Kelly's ask over a year ago, we're really focus on harnessing the best of.
We've heard a lot of companies talk about how productive we've all been during the pandemic, but have we really been focused on what might have been lost as a result of that productivity? So, we're about harnessing the best of. So, we're looking at, what did we learn from the pandemic? What were the positive experiences and benefits we had? But then harnessing those with the best of what we were before the pandemic.
So, really our goal is to now provide tools and resources for our people so that they can thrive and be their best, not just professionally, but also personally. And, again, this is really moving forward and being balanced and intentional about predictable flexibility. And when we talk about predictable flexibility, it's not just about where a person works and where they do their best work. It's how they do their best work and making sure we're providing those resources and then creating meaningful in-person interactions, so not just being in-person to be in-person, but being in-person to be intentional and being much more meaningful.
I think also really embedded in our culture, not just wellbeing, but also around learning and development and how our people can thrive in their development through mentorship and apprenticeship and how do we bring those to life now in this more hybrid teaming environment? And then obviously inclusion and belonging, it's so important and is at the heart of the way we're going to work going forward.
So, a big factor in that is really helping our leaders really understand this shift to hybrid working and the impact that they can have on really bringing to life this inclusion and belonging and this element of learning and development for our people. So, it's really all about embracing the wellbeing of our people from a holistic point of view, making sure we continue to be focused on those learning and development opportunities, and then obviously bringing to life that sense of belonging and inclusion that is so paramount to the success of an organization.
Tony Bond:
Yeah. That's great, Ginnie. I love how you started with the wellbeing focus and then actually making sure that you're looking at all aspects of wellbeing and using it as a learning opportunity. That's really important.
Vinita, how about you at Nationwide? I know that you guys are doing wonderful things to make your culture stronger every single year. How has the last 15 or so months changed what you're doing?
Vinita Clements:
So at the onset of the pandemic, we moved everyone to work from home. I think our notion was to keep our associates safe, to think about their wellbeing in terms of their mental, emotional, physical wellbeing. And then doing that, we really did receive great comments from our associates saying, "Thank you for trusting us. Thank you for moving so quickly."
And now that we've gone almost two years in that environment, we now know that things will never go back to the way that they were before. So, there is a new sense of normalcy now. We have had to embrace and lean into additional flexibility. I will say at Nationwide, we've always had portions of our workforce that were work from home. Now it is even more so we've shown that we can be productive in this environment. Leaders are learning how to lead in this environment. It is one of the most productive years we've had on record. So, we know that this is working for us for our culture.
What we've learned though, and it is important to state that when you go through anything of this nature, it is so imperative to sit and reflect on the learnings and to make sure that we're hearing from our associates today on what is needed, because what got us here may not get us there. So, we all always are trying to understand what is on the hearts and minds of our associates. Our culture was built on valuing people and it will continue to keep the associate experience at the forefront. So, we do periodic surveys to ask people, "How are you doing? What more do you need from leadership? What more do you need from the company?"
And a couple of things I'd like to highlight. Number one, even though people want the flexibility in the hybrid workplace, they want to make sure that their careers are not forgotten. How will you make sure that I'm being talked about when it comes to promotions? How do I make sure that I'm top of mind even though I may be out of sight in terms of the locality of a physical building?
And number two, I think that there is much more conscious requirement from an organization to be employed in the social aspects of what's going on in today's environment. So, we have had to make sure that we are listening to our associates. Our associate resource groups are a big part of that, reaching out to our associates. We also have a social justice task force in which we have a multimillion dollar project to make sure that we're giving back into the communities to make sure our associates are feeling like we're aligned to the challenges, to the social aspect of what they are aligned to.
So, continuous learning in this aspect, but it is something that I would have to emphasize again. You ask your associates; they will tell you. It is our job to listen and to make sure we provide the adequate resources for them to do their best job every day.
Tony Bond:
Yeah. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Vinita. And I love how both of you are focused on this learning opportunity. Someone recently mentioned to me, if you focus on a goal of return, you lose the opportunity to transform; and it sounds like you've used this opportunity to really listen to your people, grow your culture, focus on wellbeing, and use learning as a big part of it. And you both have actually touched on, we know how it impacts everyone but at different ways. And so it's important to make sure that you have equity and wellbeing, equity and opportunity.
And you've touched on those things, which leads me to my next question. I'm really curious. You wouldn't be able to do the things that you described unless you've built a culture that's a For All culture, that you have alignment within your leadership team, and that you really have a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. So my question is, knowing that that's so important, how do you create alignment within your organizations, because you both have large organizations that you're representing? So, how do you create alignment around diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging where it's a shared aspiration starting at the very top, but it's something that all leaders can embrace? And I'd start with you Ginnie. Can you just share a little bit about how you go about doing that?
Ginnie Carlier:
Yeah. Sure. I think really first of all in order for us to continue this really important discussion around our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging strategy, we really need to make sure that we have a foundation of a purpose that our people can align around. And at EY, our purpose is building a better working world.
Then we take that one step further and we really encourage our people to invest time in figuring out their personal purpose and making sure that their personal purpose is aligned to EY's. And then that just creates, I think, a sense of connection immediately for our people and a commitment to want to invest in our DEIB strategy.
So, I think you need to start there first, so that's been a significant focus for us. And especially under the last two years under the pandemic, this was something that we accelerated. I also think we need to continue to encourage our people to focus on the contributions they make to an inclusive environment and how important that is to all of their experience, they're not only their individual experiences, but their team's experiences.
But you can't have a successful strategy unless you have the tone at the top, you have the transparency that our people and quite frankly, the external markets are demanding, and you have a way of measuring your success, a way that's meaningful to our people. So, this is really the foundation of our strategy and how we get people motivated around that.
And then more than ever, we're aligning our strategy to our new way of working and making sure that our people understand that with the new way of working, especially in this hybrid environment, that we are laser focused on the importance of making sure that we equip our leaders and our people understanding how they will continue to develop and lead inclusive teams and create this sense of environment when you've got people working in all different places. You've got people working on your teams who are remote, people at client sites, people in the office. So, we need to make sure our leaders and our teams feel supported in the way they go and execute on inclusive leadership.
I talked about the tone at the top and transparency and measurement; and at EY, one of the ways that we're trying to demonstrate from a leadership perspective is you mentioned in my introduction that I'm on the Americas Operating Executive. That's really the board for the Americas area of EY. We're very much laser focused on our commitment.
Actually, It's one of our key shared priorities that we talk to our partners and principals about and to our people and we measure periodically throughout the year in terms of what our priorities were, and we talk openly about our success towards that priority. We also ask our partners and principals to really support our roadmap. So, we talk openly about what our strategy is, and our partners are measured on this during the annual performance process.
Transparency, I think this is really important. One of the things that I'm sensing is our people want to know more. They want transparency around our success and our DEI strategy. The markets are demanding it. Our clients are asking, and so we committed to releasing our demographic information annually and what our programs and processes were relative to the success that we might talk about in our transparency report.
Also, we sent three- and five-year plans and really monitor ourselves around those plans and look at processes and ways that we can continue you to help our high-performing managers and senior managers really excel in the organization and move up the ranks to hopefully partner and principle.
And then we talked about measurement, and I think we've been measuring in various ways for decades now. But in 2020, we launched a goal global DNI tracker. And what was great about this tracker within EY is it really holds us all accountable and is transparent based on global metrics. And this report is released internally every year. The leadership team are measured on that tracker.
What's been exciting about implementing this tracker is that when we look year over year, we had more than a 50% improvement across all of our businesses on the different measurements that we had relative to diversity and inclusion. So, I think there's some very tactical ways in which we go about executing our strategy, but it's also that continued discussion with our people about the importance of being inclusive leaders and how that really helps organization drive.
Tony Bond:
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ginnie. A lot to unpack. I love how you started with focusing on the me and the individual leaders, and then you focus on the others. And the transparency is so important.
Now, Vinita, I'm very curious, because I mentioned in the intro that Nationwide has moved up 60-some spots on our 100 Best Companies to Work For list. And what we know is that our methodology was tweaked a few years ago to really embrace For All, and so that's a big part of what we're measuring. How do you do it at Nationwide? What are some of the things you've done to create that alignment and make sure that you're creating For All leaders throughout your organization?
Vinita Clements:
Well, I appreciate the question, and I can't tell you how important alignment is. So, I'd say a couple of things first. Our mission is to protect people, businesses, and futures with extraordinary care. People are at the forefront of that; and so when we think about people in our inclusive culture, it's first important to note that we've always had this culture of inclusivity and making sure that people do feel as though they belong. And there are many tactics that we've employed for years in this space.
But I think it's even more important now today to show it. So, it starts, excuse me, from the top to the bottom. Our board of direct very diverse at 27% diverse at our board of directors. Our C-suite is 25% women, 25% minority. People need to look and see that they are with a company that does care and is action-oriented in this space. So, I think that has paid dividends for us.
In doing that, the board of directors are very involved. They will talk about our people strategies. They will talk about how many diverse associates, where are we working to recruit, attract, to retain diverse associates. So, there is just this ongoing thread of dialogue that permeates throughout the organization around how important diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is to Nationwide.
In addition to that, I find that training, training is very important; and just the word training doesn't really get to the whole consensus of what this really entails. There is a lot of listening, a lot of vulnerability that goes along with these type sessions. We call them leader sessions. We can call them seat at the table. And it is where we, one, will mandate some training around unconscious bias, having our leaders really be open to understanding a different perspective.
These forums have worked really, really well in terms of just opening up a mindset for leaders who may not have thought in a certain way. So, we've done mandating in those senses. We have also created these leader sessions where it can be just as simple as a coffee chat. "How are you doing?" The ARGs, again, I can't tell you enough about how great they have been and instrumental in just opening up dialogue, because you need to understand what is important to each group of people.
And then once you're all sitting around the table and understand, then we can come to a commonality in understanding what resources we as a company need to afford individuals to make them feel like, "Yes, I belong here." Seat at the table I think does that in a way, because then you know, "I'm expected to be here. I'm expected to give some input."
And we are big on innovation, and you cannot have innovation without diversity of thought. That diversity of thought comes from having different cultures, different experiences. So, when we use all of that together in our culture, I think it really does continue to extend the great work that we've already done in our culture.
And I'd say this about the flexibility portion. One of the questions I would always get, because Nationwide is known for a great culture. And when we went to a hybrid environment, people thought, "How do we then continue this strong culture when people are working from so many different places that we can't just say it's Nationwide's culture because now it's extended into our communities? It's extended into the homes."
We're working through a campaign that's called, "We are the culture." And what we are saying to every single associate at Nationwide is that who we are goes with us wherever we go. It doesn't matter whether I'm working from home or I'm in the office or I choose two days here or I'm at a partner's office. Our values exist in our actions. We are the culture. And that is a way that our culture is extended, not just to each other, but to the partners and customers that we deal with every day.
Tony Bond:
Yeah. Awesome. I love the representation at the very top, the board level says a lot to the organization and all the things you're doing to engage leaders in learning opportunities to develop the right types of behaviors that are going to drive your culture, so really, really important.
I'd love to hear about, and either one of you can take this at the beginning and then we can just go to the next person. But these things can't stop at any one level. You have to look at the whole life cycle of the employee experience. So, it's a part of the onboarding experience. But if we're going to create an inclusive culture, it has to touch all those parts of the employee journey.
Any stories that you would like to share around how your leaders are having an impact within your employee base based on the different journeys that the employee goes through from hiring to developmental opportunities? Anything, stories you would like to share, because a story really puts a nice context around what you just described?
Vinita Clements:
So, Ginnie, I can take that first.
Ginnie Carlier:
Okay, go ahead.
Vinita Clements:
When you think about the life cycle of the associate, the example I would give you is one, we have combined our DE&I and our talent acquisition office. They are now together. And what we have found is that the partnerships have become even more stronger, when you think about the relationships that we've built with HBCUs from different colleges. So, we have been able to look at the life cycle from the time we attract and recruit to bringing them in, onboarding, and then their career advancement.
There are numbers of stories that we're starting to highlight because it matters to people that you were an intern at Nationwide. You were an intern that we brought in to be a part of any one of our organizations, whether it was technology, human resources, our Nationwide financial services, or P&C. You come in. You do an internship. We then stay in contact with you. You move into a position that we open up, having had experience with you as an intern. And then we actually monitor that for career advancement. So, we have had really good success rates in working with colleges, to bringing the people in, and then showing real progression in their career.
I would also say that our leaders understand the importance of just making sure our succession is strong. And to give an example would be myself. I am a person that came in Nationwide 18 years ago, worked under Gale King for 18 years, moved through different parts of the organization in preparation.
So, when it was time for her to say, "I'm going to move to the next chapter," you have people who are diverse individuals, who are people who have all of the experience ready, because we were thinking about that previously. So, I would think to offer myself as an example to how that can work for individuals here at Nationwide.
Tony Bond:
Yeah, beautiful story. And we really appreciate the partnership we've had with Gale, and we're glad that you were chosen to take that role.
Vinita Clements:
Thank you.
Tony Bond:
Thank you. How about you, Ginnie? Any stories you want to share about how this is actually living and showing up real leaders?
Ginnie Carlier:
Yeah. I think similar to what we just heard, where we've seen great success as where we start from the ground up in a person's career. As you mentioned, I'm the executive sponsor for College MAP, and that's really starting at the high school level with individuals and really talking about the advantages of different types of professions and really opening up their world view to what lies out there from potential opportunities, what resources are available to them to continue to develop.
And we take that into, we look at we have what we call EY Launch program and really focused on helping students of diverse backgrounds and introducing them to the potential of a profession in professional services. And it's been greatly successful in really opening the eyes to individuals who, for whatever reason, did not have exposure to an organization like EY until we reached out through programs College MAP and EY Launch.
And then that just has to continue. I think what's really important is recognizing that this can't be one and done, that this has to be something that we continue to invest in throughout the life cycle of an individual's career. So, we take that into during the first year. We provide opportunities for our black, our Latinx, and Asian entry level staff professionals, really to build relationship with their peers, develop mentoring relationships, and start to understand the importance of sponsorship and how diverse experiences are really going to enhance their career development.
This program is called EY Unplugged, and I'm happy to say we're celebrating 10 years of this program. What we see from this program is the retention and the engagement of our diverse professionals has significantly increased, as with this program continues to develop and mature. As I mentioned, this can't be one and done. We can't just stop at entry level.
Vinita talked about the ERGs; and at EY, we refer to these as professional networks. Again, these professional networks really create this safe environment for our diverse professionals. And really, the allyship of these professional networks has increased significantly under COVID.
I've often said that the professional networks were really almost our saving grace at the beginning because they really were the safety network people to really open up, to share their concerns and, and really have grown in a way of starting to develop our veterans, our women, our parents and caregivers, our black professionals, our Latinx professionals, our LGBT community. Our veterans, as I mentioned, was a great example just recently with the crisis in Afghanistan that really helped our people connect in a way and start to understand the impact that this has on our vet net community within EY.
So, again, I think it's all of these programs that are incredibly important throughout a professional's career to really continue to advance them. So, again, I think it's important to focus on really what I'll call the programmatic element of some of this, but also just the continued investment, and then also creating that allyship, so to help that awareness for the allies, as well as to create those sponsorship relationships that are so important for advancement and careers.
Tony Bond:
Yeah. This is awesome. I feel like the diversity, equity, and inclusion, belonging conversation is probably the greatest innovation challenge that we have. And I love the innovative ways that both of you and your organizations are approaching this, because you can easily create your own resource deficit by just doing traditional things when you try to attract talent and develop talent. And you're breaking through that with some really, really innovative things. So, awesome.
I'm very curious. Ginnie, I'll keep it with you, and we'll go back to Vinita. But 80,000 employees in over 31 countries, that's a lot of people. So, how do you create the space where... There's so many other things you have to focus on as an organization? How do you create the space where you continue to have the conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging? And it's not something separate, but it's just the core of who you are and how you do things? How do you create the space for conversations to continue?
Ginnie Carlier:
Well, it's a great question, and I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's really setting that tone from the highest level in the firm and encouraging those conversations that we talked about. I think over the last two years, if you think about some of the things that have come out from a social justice standpoint, really, the murder of George Floyd, that really catapulted, I think, people's, I think, willingness to have what I call, to be comfortable with the uncomfortable conversations.
And when I look at what we've done since as an organization, and we were so committed to DEI. But now we are so much more explicit about it and more willing to raise our hand and ask for more awareness, to ask the uncomfortable question. So, I think, again, it's creating that tone at the top and our leaders demonstrating their willingness to lean in and have those conversations.
I think it's also about continuing to provide those learnings that we talked about earlier that are so important and being able to talk about the importance of [inaudible]. How do you build relationships? How do you create stronger teams and empower our people? So, again, it's all about the tone at the top, that role modeling, and that willingness to lean in and have those conversations and create an understanding and empathetic environment.
Tony Bond:
Awesome. Vinita, you mentioned very earlier on the things you're doing in the outside world, and the walls of the organization have become somewhat porous. Things outside, the outside world gets into the organization and vice versa. So, tell us a little bit more about how you continue to have conversations around these issues.
Vinita Clements:
Sure. So, I would say that I agree with every thing that's been said. It is actually a conversation that is in every part of the business. It is not a separate, "Now let's talk DE&I and belonging." It is in everything we do. From our performance metrics, every leader has 30% of their objective around people which includes inclusivity, which includes our culture survey, which includes how much of their teams are diverse. How are they recruiting? Do we have a mandate that every candidate pool has to have a certain amount of inclusive diversity within that candidate pool for leaders to interview?
We have panel interviews because we have found that as leaders start to interview, they may want to interview and only accept people who look like them and not really as innovative as they should be in their diverse thinking. So, we've employed all of those tactics, and I think what really does matter is that 30% of your people objective, that gives you immediate alignment across the organization, so they know how important that is.
The other thing that we've done is our CEO has a dotted line to my chief diversity and equity and inclusion officer. So, they meet regularly with as the CEO and that chief learning and diversity officer. So, they will talk about each business unit as well and what are some of the things we're challenged with or what we may need to do to remove barriers in that regard.
So, the top of the house, as we've talked about, is the utmost importance because no one can evade the conversation. It happens everywhere. When you have people talking about it and then you also are acting on it, I think that it is just a common thread throughout the organization, and it really does matter.
The only other thing I mention is that in our corporate sustainability DEI&B is actually one of our core pillars. So, when we think about the longevity of our company, not just capital but then also our governance, but we put our DEI&B effort in that respect, then you understand that the longevity of our company depends on this inclusive environment and how we operate in it. So, as we take that and permeate that through the culture and talk to our leaders and to our external partners, it actually catapults our efforts tremendously in that regard.
Tony Bond:
Awesome. What I'm learning from hearing from both of you, this is not a bolted-on initiative that you have. This is really core to who you are. This is your strategy. So, that speaks volumes to why you are great places to work for so many years. So, awesome.
I'd like to close with just a really quick question because we at Great Place To Work know the power of data. Most of what we bring to the world is because we collect so much data on a regular basis. I'd just love to hear quickly from you. Ginnie, you mentioned transparency and measurement, and both of you have talked about how you survey people. Just speak a little bit about how you use and track data to make sure that you're on progress to where you want to get to. Vinita, why don't you start, and then, Ginnie, you can close us out?
Vinita Clements:
All right, absolutely. I always say data is my friend in this regard. So, as much as we can learn about the world, the labor market, so we look at a number of things in terms of data. One is, what does the external market lend in terms of diversity for the specific jobs that we're hiring for so that we know if there is an opportunity for us to develop talent internally, whether we will have an opportunity to buy the talent, the diverse talent externally?
So, we start with metrics in understanding what the labor metrics looks like in our organization and in the markets that we reside in. Once we do that, then we also have a scorecard that every leader is able to review. I think we talked about transparency. It is of the utmost importance, because I think people need to know where they are in order to say, "I can do better."
So, the data is shared to at least identify the areas of opportunity, because how can I be inclusive if I don't have the right mix of individuals to give me that diversity of thought? So, scorecards go a long way with us. We measure how many women, how many diverse associates; and we break down the diversity by minority group. We look at it year-over-year, month-after-month.
And then we also equate it to what open positions you have and how that might be able to help impact the numbers of the organization in that regard. And then, again, those numbers are shared with the CEO, with the board; and it is just something that we do constantly to evolve and make sure we're doing our part to make Nationwide a great place to work.
Tony Bond:
Awesome. Thank you. Ginnie, how about you?
Ginnie Carlier:
Yeah, sure. I mean, I couldn't agree more with what Vinita just said. I mean, you've heard the saying, "You manage what you measure." So, data tracking and transparency is absolutely critical for the success of a DEI strategy. And I think, but honestly, if I think about today's company, I think about why and I think about companies that I talk to or clients that I talk to, we are drowning in data. But we are starving for insight.
So, I think what's really critical and what we really need to be focused on is taking all this data that we have, these surveys, these different reports that we have, the feedback mechanisms that we have from our people every year, every quarter now, and how do we synthesize all that data in a way that it really tells a compelling story and lets us take the action that is so important to our people.
So, I think, again, I could not agree more with Vinita on the importance of data, but I do think really the next step in this evolution is really figuring out how we take these mounds of data that we have and really be able to take those insights quickly and turn them into meaningful action.
Tony Bond:
Awesome. Well, this has been great. I'm so thankful for this time that both of you have given us. I've heard so many great things, so many great themes and stories. I've heard stories around how to take this time that we're in and use it as a transformation and grow your culture in even a stronger way. I've heard stories about how it's important to align this aspiration at the very top of your organization, and then make sure that every leader within your organization can embrace these behaviors.
I've heard stories around how it's so important to engage your employees. You're using these resource groups, and I think that's the key. They are resource, not just for the members, but for the organization overall. And then I also heard stories about how you facilitate conversations and keep the dialogue going, and so many other things. I look forward to unpacking it all.
I wish we could continue to ask you more questions and spend all day having this conversation, but I know that we have a lot of busy people out there who are needing to get back to work. So, thank you again, Ginnie. Thank you Vinita for both being with us and sharing your great insights and the dedication you have to creating a great place to work For All. So, we appreciate your time today, and thank you for your brilliant insights.
And you can find Ginnie, you can find Vinita both on LinkedIn, as well as myself if you have questions or you'd like to send us directly. Again, as a reminder that a recording of this conversation will be shared within hours, so please share it with your community.
And speaking about your community, I also want to take a moment to recognize the following companies, the great companies who are also leading the charge and doing the work to further For All mission. So, thanks again for these wonderful companies. And on behalf of Great Place To Work and all of us, thank you again for joining because we know and you know that we are better when we are championing For All. So, thank you so much. Take good care of yourself.