Overview
At CIBC, inclusion is a cornerstone of our bank’s culture. We embed equitable talent management practices into our human capital strategy while removing barriers to access in a timely manner, consistent with the principles of dignity, independence, and equal opportunity. This ensures our teams reflect the clients and communities we serve and helps create conditions where everyone can achieve their full potential.
Recruitment
CIBC is committed to providing an accessible recruitment and onboarding process for persons with disabilities. To demonstrate our commitment:
- We advise candidates through our job postings that we are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels like they belong, with individualized accommodations available upon request.
- We have policies and other resources in place to support our recruitment processes. We consult with job applicants so that accommodations are provided based on individual accessibility needs.
- Throughout our recruitment and onboarding processes, we notify successful job applicants about our policies, programs and other offerings for supporting employees with disabilities. This includes providing links to our People Networks as well as Workplace, our internal social networking platform.
We have made long-term investments in building a workforce that reflects the clients and communities we serve, and it remains a top organizational priority to close gaps where they exist.
In 2019, CIBC was the first Canadian-headquartered bank to join the Valuable 500 campaign, dedicated to unlocking the business, social and economic value of people living with disabilities. In 2022, we achieved our publicly-disclosed goal of at least 9% of our workforce in Canada identifying as living with disability3 ahead of our 2024 target. For board-approved executives in Canada, this figure rises to 11%.4
To continue to transform our teams, advance representation of persons with disabilities across our bank, and ensure an inclusive pipeline of talent, we maintain a number of strategic partnerships. These include Lime Connect, the largest network of high-potential university students and professionals with disabilities, and Specialisterne Canada Inc., an international leader in harnessing neurodiverse talent.
Employment
At CIBC, we are committed to creating an accessible workplace for everyone by promoting equitable talent practices and working collaboratively to remove barriers and make accommodations available. To demonstrate our commitment:
- We have policies, programs and other resources in place to promote accessibility and inclusion. These help ensure the accessibility needs of employees with disabilities are considered throughout performance management, career development and redeployment processes.
- We have a dedicated and centrally managed workplace accommodation program that proactively promotes accessibility, addresses barriers in the workplace, raises awareness regarding available supports within our bank, and helps develop and document individual accommodation plans, including for those returning to work following an absence due to disability.
- We ensure the health and safety of everyone in our workplace by preparing individualized emergency plans for employees that require assistance or accommodation in the event of an emergency or evacuation.
At CIBC, inclusion is a priority from the top down. Our Inclusion and Diversity Leadership Council (IDLC), chaired by our President and Chief Executive Officer, oversees the implementation of CIBC’s global inclusion strategy, with the support of a dedicated Inclusion team, Inclusion and Diversity Action Committees (IDACs), and People Networks that bring together more than half of our global workforce.
Through our WorkAbility People Network, we connect nearly 3,000 employees with disabilities and their allies. The Network supports our goal to create fully accessible and inclusive work environments through the removal of attitudinal, systemic, technological, physical and other barriers. We also host listening exercises to understand barriers faced by several talent segments, including persons with disabilities, with resulting action items leveraged to enhance our human capital strategy.
CIBC continues to proactively provide enhanced supports for persons with disabilities, including ergonomic furniture and equipment, as well as standard technology that includes accessibility features such as dictation, screen magnification and read aloud, and technology peripherals such as headsets that can be self-selected based on individual needs. We also have dedicated webpages and accessible accommodation request forms to help our team navigate the accommodation process and secure accommodation solutions in a timely manner. Over the past few years we have introduced in-house support services, including American Sign Language interpretation and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) writer captioning for our Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing team members, attendant and reader assistant services, as well as a dedicated Assistive Technology team that helps to identify, implement and support specialized technology solutions.
To further our commitment to accessibility and inclusion, CIBC partnered with MaRS Discovery District and the disability community to investigate the main societal challenges and barriers to employment for persons with disabilities. The results of this investigation helped us create a series of Inclusive Design Challenges — with a focus on four key areas: Access to Work, Support at Work, Career Advancement and Future of Work — to identify and overcome the most pressing employment barriers faced by persons with disabilities and ensure identified solutions help persons with disabilities achieve and sustain meaningful employment.
Training
We are committed to building our teams’ capabilities to act and lead with intentional inclusion. We leverage multiple accessible learning formats and continue to explore ways to enhance our culture of accessibility through transformative learning. To demonstrate our commitment:
- We require our team to complete ongoing training regarding acting with integrity and respect in the workplace.
- We established an Accessibility Learning Strategy to ensure that everyone recognizes the importance of inclusivity and can champion accessibility in their role.
- We took steps to ensure all mandatory training is accessible, and developed inclusive learning design, inclusive imagery and accessibility standards to ensure that all future learning experiences at CIBC are inclusive and accessible.
- We curated short videos for an Accessibility Learning Hub to help our team learn how to be inclusive in the workplace and to break down barriers for persons with disabilities, including providing tips for accessible virtual meetings, inclusive presentations and inclusive interviews.
- We introduced training modules — Practicing Intentional Inclusion, Inclusive Client Interactions, and Leading for Equity and Inclusion — to help our team understand how unconscious bias and assumptions influence decision making and create biased outcomes that impact members of underrepresented groups. These modules equip leaders with knowledge and tools to lead important conversations about equity and inclusion.
- We launched two additional people leader training modules to normalize discussions regarding mental health in the workplace and help leaders best support the mental health of their teams.
We have identified some barriers in employment
During the recruitment process, accommodations may not always be proactively offered. There may also be varying levels of awareness of the supports CIBC makes available for persons with disabilities, and the workplace accommodation process could be simplified. We also understand that opportunities for career development and advancement may be dependent on the support and expertise of individual leaders, and that there are additional opportunities to promote belonging for persons with disabilities within our bank.5
Ongoing plans
- We will continue to build a workforce that reflects the clients and communities we serve. We are committed to growing the share of employees who identify as persons with disabilities in our Canadian workforce through targeted recruitment, intentional retention strategies and by increasing self-disclosure through education and activities focused on belonging.
- All job postings will continue to set out CIBC’s commitment to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels like they belong, as well as instructions for candidates to follow if they need accommodation during the recruitment process.
- We will strengthen the partnership between our workplace accommodation program and talent acquisition partners, and provide ongoing training for those involved in the recruitment process regarding best practices for supporting candidates with disabilities.
- During the recruitment and onboarding process, as well as throughout the employment relationship, CIBC will continue to raise awareness regarding our People Networks, including WorkAbility, as well as Workplace, our internal social networking platform, to help persons with disabilities seek out relevant networks, build a sense of belonging, and develop relationships across our bank.
- CIBC’s WorkAbility People Network will continue to create and promote ways for employees with disabilities to stay connected and help remove attitudinal, systemic, technological, physical and other barriers in the workplace.
- On a quarterly basis, our workplace accommodation program will continue to review metrics, trends and feedback to identify opportunities for improvement.
- We will continue to ensure that all new training initiatives are designed to be inclusive and accessible.
2023
- CIBC will strengthen existing processes and update onboarding materials to ensure information regarding accommodation supports are made available to all new employees.
- To complement our existing policies, programs and resources regarding accommodation in the workplace, we will create additional virtual and accessible training modules to ensure leaders understand our accommodation processes and available resources and offerings at our bank, as well as best practices for supporting employees with disabilities.
- We will explore enhancements to our internal processes, as well as our HR systems, to ensure appropriate accommodation information is shared when an employee transitions to a new role or a new leader.
- As we enable professional development, support individual career growth, and help our team build their skill sets, we will take steps to ensure our talent development initiatives are accessible and that we remove barriers to success for persons with disabilities.
- We will explore creating an enterprise-wide mentorship initiative for advice, guidance, and coaching on career development within our bank that is inclusive and accessible.
- We will continue our partnership with MaRS Discovery District with the third and fourth phases of the Inclusive Design Challenge: Career Advancement and Future of Work. These challenges seek solutions to support inclusive work environments and career advancement, as well as solutions to emerging areas of opportunity in the future of work for persons with disabilities. Innovative solutions presented as part of this challenge will be reviewed internally to determine how they can be applied to support career advancement for persons with disabilities at CIBC.
2024
- We will launch digital training modules to help employees and leaders understand the basics of accessibility to effectively support and work with team members and clients with disabilities.
2025
- As part of our Accessibility Learning Strategy, we will continue to ensure that new training initiatives as well as all remaining learning assets are accessible.