BISA Magazine - Quarter 1, 2017 - 30

EXIT STRATEGY

The Inclusion Imperative
Greg Cunningham, head of global diversity and inclusion for U.S. Bank, talked with BISA Magazine about the company's
commitment to diversity in recruiting and the results those efforts are yielding.

We know that 95 percent of the
population growth in our footprint
is from multicultural communities.
- Greg Cunningham, U.S. Bank

On U.S. Bank's focus on recruiting a diverse work
force: We've hired a number of recruiters in our key local
markets whose primary goal is to increase representation
of our key segments, which are Asian, African-American,
LGBT and Hispanic. Their focus matches the communities
they are serving. They are forging relationships with
third-party organizations, and we have specific initiatives
to build the pipeline, including a really strong internship
program. We had nearly 100 interns at our Minneapolis
headquarters alone last summer. A large portion of them
were people of color. We have also formed partnerships
with organizations like the Wallin Foundation, Step Up
and Right Track (all Minneapolis-based) to increase our
minority workforce growth. This year, we expanded our
internship program to college juniors in Portland, Ore.,
and St. Louis, and with a focus on recruiting students of
color. If they perform well, the interns will be offered fulltime, permanent jobs at U.S. Bank when they graduate.

case for hiring diverse candidates. To do that effectively
and efficiently, they need tools and to better understand
how to forge those relationships. So we are working hard
to give them the tools they need and we are looking at our
education and learning plan.

On the response from candidates: They are thrilled to be
at U.S. Bank and that we have a meaningful push to retain
and develop diverse team members. There is a lot of enthusiasm also for our business resource groups. We had a significant increase in participation in our business resource
groups in 2016: more than 25,000 employees engaged in at
least one business resource group activity. That's just one
data point to suggest that our team members are getting
behind the need and leveraging those resource groups to
take on additional leadership skills and make connections
professionally and socially.

On the importance of inclusion: It's critical to our business. We know that 94 percent of the population growth in
our footprint is from multicultural communities. But more
importantly, diversity is one of our five core values: "We
draw strength from diversity." It enables our business, and
our ability to leverage inclusive leadership is a true competitive advantage. We're able to make better decisions and
leverage creativity and innovation because of our diversity.

On how U.S. Bank measures success in its diversity initiatives: We have scorecards from our four key D&I focus areas: workplace, marketplace, supplier diversity and community engagement. We measure our supplier diversity spend,
our customer acquisition, hiring and community engagement
with diverse groups. All the indications show that we are
consistently getting better, and we share that information on
a monthly basis with our top leadership. U.S. Bank's senior
leadership is fully on board with this initiative.

On how U.S. Bank's recruiters deliver on diversity: It's
about taking a proactive approach rather than waiting to
see the same candidates applying. If you want to diversify
your staff, identify your ideal candidates, then go out to
where they are (LinkedIn, industry groups, campuses, partner organizations) and recruit them personally. Hiring managers are extremely interested and understand the business

On what's next: It becomes not just a program, but a way
of doing business. Ultimately, we want this to be a way of
meeting the wants and needs of all of our customers, not
just a few. Diversity and inclusion are bringing us closer to
our customers and helping us figure out how to meet their
specific needs. It's a challenge, but one that will make all
of us better.

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