The board of the Global Automakers of Canada (GAC) is looking at ways to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the automotive industry.
Following up on Hyundai Canada’s Empowering Auto 2022 conference earlier this month to bring awareness to DE&I and create more discussion among all auto manufacturers, the GAC had its first meeting with a 15-member committee set up to talk about attracting new talent to the industry and make diversity a key element of that.
“What is clear is that most of the traditional talent pools were white people and men,” said David Adams, GAC’s President and Chief Executive Officer and columnist with Canadian auto dealer. “A part of (GAC) effort is designed to say how do we leverage the work that each of the member companies is doing in the diversity, equity and inclusion space and find out what makes sense for the whole industry to grasp on to and move forward as opposed to just the individual companies working on things. It’s a bit of a collective meeting space for those folks who may or may not know each other within the member companies to learn more about what others are doing and also some of the best practices.”
As part of addressing the DE&I issue, the GAC employed Bronwyn McAully, an Operations Transformation Consultant at Deloitte Canada who volunteered to do research on DE&I as part of a course she was doing for her Masters of Business Administration.
Adams said McAully talked to OEM Chief Executive Officers or people whose area of responsibility includes DE&I to find out what is and isn’t working and what can be done better through a collective industry approach.
She did a report entitled Developing/Standing Up a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee to Lower the Barriers of Entry in the Automotive Industry.
In the report overview, it indicated numerous studies have found that adding more diversity to teams can promote innovation and improve company performance. It also indicated that despite overwhelming evidence to support diversity in the workplace, there is still evidence that the automotive industry is male-dominant while women and diverse groups are consistently outnumbered by their male counterparts.
It also indicated each member company has some form of DE&I initiative within their organization, but there is still an image/reputation issue that the automotive industry faces as a whole.
McAully made a presentation to the GAC’s Board of Directors in June and that led to the committee’s first meeting. Adams said the plan moving forward is to do a monthly meeting and bring in outside speakers.
“I would anticipate things moving forward fairly quickly once we get the committee up and running and people sort of understand what opportunities exist to collectively try and help fill the space a little bit,” said Adams.
