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The Cultural Awareness Network / Campus Recruitment Partnership

As a market leading global universal bank it is critical for Barclays to attract

and retain the most talented, diverse workforce available and ensure its

workforce demographics are reflective of the changing opportunities

globally.

Banking is renowned for its complexity and relies on the problem-solving

personal attributes of its employees. Team diversity broadens social capital

which enhances performance. People with diverse perspectives generate

more comprehensive views of problems, offer alternative interpretations and

ultimately generate more creative, robust solutions.

Barclays has expanded aggressively in Europe over the past 5-6 years

since the credit crisis, particularly in the Investment Bank. It is now able to

reflect on ethnic landscape of its workforce with commercial opportunities in

mind. By comparing its EMEA demographics to the London population, it is

clear it is under-represented with BAME employees, particularly Black Afro-

Caribbean.

Act

The Cultural Awareness Network (CAN) and HR Campus Recruitment team

collaborated in 2011 to enhance the recruitment processes to ensure they

are more inclusive. They aimed to significantly improve the demographics of

its recruitment intake within 5-10yrs. It was achieved in 2yrs.

Barclays have customised solutions for each business division, including the

Investment Bank which is notoriously difficult in converting BAME students

into hires.

The Campus Recruitment / CAN partnership leveraged off the leadership,

experience and influence of the network coupled with the detailed

knowledge of the recruitment process by Campus Recruitment to analyse,

identify and deliver the most effective enhancements for making the

recruitment process more inclusive.

Barclays’ long term vision is to become the financial graduate employer of

Awards 2013-Barclays-Recruiting Diverse Talent AwardTools & Case Studies

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Recruiting Diverse

Talent Award

This award is for a programme or

initiative that widens the pool of

BAME talent entering an

organisation’s workforce.

Connect with Race for

Opportunity

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- Hason Sandhu,

SEO

“ “Over the last two years we

have seen a huge increase in

interest in Barclays from BAME

students. This is testament to

the thoughtful and

comprehensive approach

they’ve taken to identifying,

engaging and supporting

students. (….) Critically they’ve

identified two ways to help

BAME students achieve their

potential – better education and

mentoring from the experts,

their staff.” ”

choice for BAME students. Initial focus centred upon the Investment Bank’s

graduate programme, which represents one of its largest intakes but

historically a challenging area to attract and recruit BAME students into.

Its goals since the 2010/11 recruitment season have been to :

Extend outreach activity and increase applications from BAME students

particularly Black Afro-Caribbean by 20%

Create integrated partnership model between campus recruitment, CAN

and external partners such as SEO, Rare, Powerful Media, etc

Increase the intake of BAME interns (Spring and Summer) by at least 5%.

Improve recruitment conversion statistics of BAME students by introducing

firm-wide mandatory unconscious bias training to EXCO, MD’s and

Directors

Introduction of Strength based Interviewing which have proven results

relating to diversity as the focus is on potential and enthusiasm instead of

past experiences.

Impact

Close partnerships enhanced the effectiveness of

outreach and recruitment programmes. Internal

partnerships saw 241 Campus events where CAN

members targeted BAME candidates. External

partnerships included BAME event - dinners,

conferences, case-studies, speaker-events - with

SEO, RARE, ACS, PowerfulMedia and

GeneratingGenius

“I attended various events hosted by banks leading

up to Spring-Week. I received multiple offers but

Barclays was my first choice. My preference was

purely down to their commitment throughout the

application process and consistent delivery on

promises of support. Nearly all other banks spoke

about open door policy but Barclays is the only one

who truly demonstrated this. Their people and culture

really set them apart.”

Reeya Sakaria, LSE

Barclays moved from the bottom of SEO and RARE’s

league tables to one of the leading BAME recruiters –

a 200% increase in intern offers accepted by

SEO/RARE candidates within 2 years.

View Barclays Presentation

(/sites/default/files/kcfinder/files/Diversity/RFOAwards2014/Barclays%20PPT%20for%20website%20September2013.pptx)

Issues:

Diversity Issues (/list/global-categories/diversity-issues),

Recruitment (/list/global-categories/recruitment)

September 2013

Case study published:

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