KPMG sets diversity targets to create a new industry benchmark
In an industry first, accountancy and professional services firm KPMG has revealed the detailed diversity profile of its 11,500 staff. At the same time, the professional services firm has also announced targets, across the four areas of gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation, for the next three years, creating a benchmark against which the firm will recruit and develop its workforce. The firm now has the most detailed set of targets of its industry group.
Simon Collins, UK Chairman of KPMG, commented: “The diversity profile of the workforce across the professional services industry does not reflect society or our client base. We need to change and I believe a crucial part of achieving a meaningful shift is providing more transparency of the make-up of our current staff against where we would like to be. It’s uncomfortable but we need to step up and be open and honest about the challenges we face. Greater transparency means we can be scrutinised against the targets we set ourselves. It means we can test the success of our inclusivity programmes and demonstrate that we are serious about this issue.
“We certainly don’t underestimate the scale of the challenge we have set. For example, we need to double the number of female audit partners to hit our gender target. Our overall numbers on ethnicity are good but, for example, we know we need to do much more to support black professionals as less than 1 per cent of our partners are black.”
Steve Frost, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at KPMG, added: “We are determined to have the best visibility of our staff’s diversity profile within our industry. In July, we asked our staff to complete a diversity profile, which included race, gender, disability, sexual orientation and education levels. We are now confident that we have the best understanding of our staffing mix, comparable to public sector organisations which have led the way historically. In positive news, 93 per cent of the firm completed the form on a voluntary basis but there’s still work to do. For example, a meaningful number of people are unwilling or feel they are unable to disclose their sexual orientation.
“Staff profiling enables us to take a focussed approach to our recruitment, training and diversity and inclusion strategy. We have seen success this year in raising the number of women promoted to partner by adapting our partner process to support women coming through the ranks. We are now making similar changes to remove any barriers that might exist in the targeted areas our data has revealed are problematic.”
About KPMG
KPMG LLP, a UK limited liability partnership, operates from 22 offices across the UK with approximately 11,500 partners and staff. The UK firm recorded a turnover of £1.8 billion in the year ended September 2013. KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax, and Advisory services. It operates in 155 countries and has 155,000 professionals working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such.
