A true leader in creating a culture of diversity and inclusion, global corporate KPMG’s annual BRG Conference celebrates its internal diversity groups. The internal team that worked on the event included three people from the events and meetings team and 10 people from the Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) team.
We spoke with Stephanie Jucksch, associate director of KPMG Events & Meetings, as well as project lead, about alignment of vision and lessons learned. Find out much more about the BRG Conference.
Did you need to get senior leadership aligned with your vision, and if so, how did you do it?
Fortunately, KPMG’s commitment to inclusion and diversity is a strategic imperative and is rooted in our vision to have a diverse workforce wherein our professionals can reach their fullest potential in an inclusive work environment. It did not take convincing external partners to be on board with the BRG Conference vision. In fact, including I&D objectives into goal setting is a requirement at KPMG.
I&D influence everything we do in terms of recruiting, training, growing our people, orchestrating the delivery of our work, engaging in corporate citizenship and building public trust. A company with more diverse representation in senior management will likely achieve greater profits is not breaking news. Our partners understand the importance of diversity not just because it helps drive profitability, but because having a diverse culture spurs innovation and drives growth since it attracts and empowers top talent who bring richer and different points of view.
What didn’t work, and what did you learn from it?
Our breakout session times were not long enough. We should have spent more time in these smaller sessions and less time in the general sessions to allow for more collaboration and brainstorming for each specific BRG. We also tried to do a networking lunch and pre-assigned each attendee to a specific table number. Since lunch was only one hour, it didn’t allow for enough time for the attendees to eat, network, take any client calls and use the restroom. We learned that if we’re going to do a networking lunch, we need to extend the time.
What has been the reaction from your audience? Internal stakeholders? Your team?
We received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the conference, and our participants walked away feeling informed, inspired and encouraged about I&D at KPMG. They also expressed how empowered they felt by the insights gained from colleagues and the presenters to make them better equipped to serve as inclusion and diversity leaders in their respective offices. In addition to feedback from the attendees, we also have each BRG review their goals throughout the year to ensure they continue the momentum of what they said they were going to accomplish.
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