Notable Champions of Diversity

Jumping from the retail sector to automotive roughly 15 years ago, Kirk Merrett couldn’t help but notice a stark difference.

“Retail is very diverse, and in fact, female-dominated. So, when I made the transition... it was striking to me that automotive as an industry was way behind.”

In the intervening years, the auto sector has done some catching up, Merrett said, but employers still have a lot of work to do.

Merrett steers the human resources department at Hyundai Auto Canada and is among the leaders pushing for and enacting change.

“Frankly, it’s the right thing to do on so many levels,” he said, pointing to his personal motivation to make diverse members of his own family “feel good in our world,” and the beneficial business implications within automotive.

“From a business standpoint, we need to represent our customers. We make better decisions, and it’s proven 100 times over that diverse groups make better business decisions, and that ends up in excellent performance.”

With a strong diversity mandate from Hyundai Auto Canada CEO Don Romano and other company executives, Merrett has implemented numerous policies and tools to add diversity to company ranks through recruitment.

This starts with the use of what’s known as a Plum assessment, a software tool designed to help reduce unconscious bias during initial candidate screening. The company has also partnered with groups such as Skills for Change, Onyx, Pride at Work and Indigenous Works to expand its applicant pool to communities often underrepresented in automotive.

When weighing candidates, hiring managers must consider at least two diverse prospective employees for any role before moving forward.

“We require that there be diverse candidates in the final stages of the [recruitment] process. If we don’t have the diverse candidates, we keep looking, we don’t select from what we’ve got,” Merrett said.

Once onboard, all staff must complete unconscious bias training, while executives also go through mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion leadership training.

The range of policies enacted by Merrett’s HR team and embraced by management has translated into one of the most diverse workplaces in Canadian automotive. Of the roughly 260 staff at Hyundai Auto Canada, 38 per cent are women and 48 per cent identify as being part of a minority group. The company is also working to increase the number of women and other underrepresented groups in management.

Merrett said that while the diversity figures are encouraging, “it doesn’t mean anything unless you’ve got the inclusiveness.”

In this regard, internal employee feedback continually shows staff feel part of an inclusive culture. And the company continues to enact fresh policies, such as adding all-gender washrooms and pronouns in email signatures to ensure diverse staffers feel welcome.

Outside Hyundai, Merrett is directly involved in a series of other organizations aimed to supporting diverse communities within Canada, such as the Anglican United Refugee Alliance that assists in the resettlement of refugees, and 360°kids, which helps kids in Ontario’s York region overcome crisis.