Diversity Makes Us Better: How Borrowell Improves Inclusivity Through Feedback
Venture Out is excited to have Borrowell at our 2019 Conference as a Silver sponsor! In this guest post, Claire Bartok, Borrowell’s Talent Generalist, reflects on key takeaways from leveraging employee feedback in order to foster a more inclusive and positive experience for employees and job candidates.
Diversity and inclusion are at the core of who Borrowell is as a company and we believe it’s a key competitive advantage. Inclusion is a priority that’s discussed by not only by our talent team, but by our engineering, credit operations, management team and more. “Diversity Makes Us Better” is one of our five core values because we wanted to ensure we’re hiring for culture contribution rather than culture fit. We’re constantly asking for employee feedback in order to make our workplace an inclusive one and we know focusing on being a diverse and inclusive workplace is the best way to retain our people. Here are five ways that we are working towards this goal:
1. Make an Inclusive Interview Process/Candidate Experience
To start, we recognize that job descriptions should be written to encourage applicants from all experiences to apply. At Borrowell, we use a program called “Textio”, that uses a predictive engine to determine how a job description will be perceived by candidates. We also make sure to review job descriptions with employees that were recently hired in a similar role to ensure that it aligns with what they are doing in their role.
Secondly, we learned that carefully selecting who will be involved in the interview process is important. Interviewers should be diverse because candidates are diverse, and they should also be comfortable talking about company values. After some trial and error, we’ve found that allowing candidates to do assignments at home and present them in the interview works well for all parties. Interviewees are often nervous enough, and providing this option allows a more positive opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their skills.
2. Sell the Job the New Hire is Actually Going to Do
We found this tip to be extremely important, because if you sell a completely different job to a new employee, they will most likely leave the company shortly after joining. The wrong hire can cost a lot of time and money. At Borrowell, we try to be as honest as possible with candidates. In our final interview with candidates, our management team will typically speak candidly about what the job entails so that there are no surprises about the position.
3. Consistently Ask for Employee Feedback
Borrowell prides itself on a culture of feedback. Our management team strives to meet with every person on the team once a quarter to receive employee feedback from all levels of the organization. We understand that some team members might not feel comfortable giving feedback face-to-face, so we try to accommodate for that. We use Officevibe, which is an anonymous feedback survey sent out to employees every two weeks. Officevibe asks employees a number of questions that range from “how well does your manager communicate” to “how can we increase attendance at our Thursday socials”. Having an inclusive, anonymous platform, such as OfficeVibe, for employees to provide their feedback is integral to our company culture.
4. Be Willing to Adapt
At Borrowell, we realize that we’re not perfect. We place a huge focus on diversity and inclusion and ingraining that into our culture. Our management team, talent team, and other team members work tirelessly to make this a great place to work. However, we understand being a diverse and inclusive employer requires consistent effort over time.
5. Transparency Goes Both Ways
If we expect our employees to be transparent with us, then we need to be transparent with them at all levels of the organization. One way that our management team encourages open dialogue is by hosting quarterly “Ask Management Anything” at our team meeting. Employees submit anonymous questions that management will answer them in front of the entire team.
We realize that there is still work to be done, and it’s a challenge that all of us at Borrowell are excited about tackling!
Borrowell is a 100% Canadian company, with a single goal in mind: to help Canadians make great decisions about credit. Our job is to empower you by providing the tools you need to improve your credit score and save money.
While it’s our technology that differentiates us, it’s people that motivate us. We were the first company in Canada to introduce free credit scores and over 850,000 Canadians to date have received theirs. To learn more about life at Borrowell, visit us at https://www.borrowell.com/careers/.
Get your tickets today for the 2019 Venture Out Conference on March 14 & 15 at MaRS!
