Bernardine Perreira
Financial Advisor
Perreira Wealth Advisory - Raymond James Inc.
Toronto, Ontario
Raymond James Ltd. nurtures an inclusive and diverse culture where everyone feels welcomed, respected, valued – where we all feel we belong. There are four inclusion pillars that have formed the basis for change:
Psychological Health & Safety
Everyone is responsible for creating a safe and healthy workplace, where people are respected for different perspectives, and where diversity is welcomed.
Guiding Behaviours
A roadmap for each person to support healthy team dynamics and professional growth. These behaviours are key hiring and performance assessment criteria.
Associate Insight
We seek feedback, welcome each person's point of view and commit to address shortcomings – to learn from mistakes and move forward together.
Diversity
Building a diverse workforce, a place where we all feel a sense of belonging, is a natural extension of our values-based culture.
The key path of success has been to establish safety as the foundation – where occupational health and safety is both our obligation and our commitment. The path to health and safety is how we treat one another (guiding behaviours) coupled with how we listen and act upon feedback (associate insight). Respecting diversity is thus an extension of this foundation, where we acknowledge systemic discrimination exists and we are therefore compelled to act.
Recent events have deepened our resolve to face and counter discrimination in all forms. We will not be bystanders. Our action plans are extensive:
Empowerment of the Inclusion Council to be a voice for diversity. The Council launched an intranet portal alongside new communications such video micro-learning (IDEA Tuesdays) and sharing diverse experiences through stories.
In partnership with S.U.C.C.E.S.S., we will sponsor anti-racism bystander training, webinars for self-care in the face of racism, and facilitation with a leadership panel and parliamentary secretary Rachna Singh.
The recruitment teams are diversifying candidate sources. One example is Mosaic, a non-profit organization for recruiting immigrant and diverse communities. We work with 19 diverse sources of candidates.
Our 25 by 25 goal – 25% women Advisors by the year 2025 – was created in 2013 to attract and coach women in this traditionally male career path. We are making progress with 18% women Advisors presently.
Training launches include Leading Toward Inclusion and the Unconscious Bias webinars, in addition to our anti-harassment program, Fostering a Respectful Workplace. Additional programs coming in 2021 are Recruiting for Inclusion, StoryTelling, Bystander and Mental Health Awareness.
A national pay equity analysis is underway. Over 60 people have received pay adjustments so far.
We have launched self-identification to compare our demographics to Canadian census, a key measure of our progress over time. Our next step in representation is adopting the 50-30 Challenge.
Accessibility policies supporting employees and clients with disabilities are being updated and will have an enhanced presence on our intranet and raymondjames.ca including our multi-year plan. We have also adopted captioning for internal town halls in the spirit of accessibility.
Please see below link to our parent company CSR report.
https://www.raymondjames.com/about-us/corporate-responsibility
We have Advisor Inclusion Networks – women, black and pride.
https://www.raymondjames.com/advisor-opportunities/diversity-and-networks
I serve on the Pride Financial Advisor Network. Pride Perspectives publication can be found in this link.
https://www.raymondjames.com/advisor-opportunities/diversity-and-networks/pride-financial-advisors-network