Case Study: Jardine Motors Group

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Name: Clare Wright
Company name: Jardine Motors Group
Your position: Group HR Director

Give us an overview of your organisation

Jardine Motors Group represents some 14 premium and luxury automotive brands. Our retail network covers over 50 locations, and we employ 2800 colleagues in both operational and support roles.

I spent 10 years in the motor industry during the start of my career and returned in 2015 after working across multiple sectors, such as retail, leisure, telecoms, and software. I joined JMG in April 2015 as Group HR Director. I have always been passionate about driving the D&I agenda to create a positive and inclusive colleague experience in the workplace, and it is important to me that we strive to remove the outdated perceptions associated with the automotive industry, therefore, returning to automotive 7 years ago, it was disappointing to see that little had changed in the sector, and it was still perceived as very male orientated with a lack of diversity.

As an organisation, we recognise the value of our colleagues in the success of our business. Our people are fundamental to everything we do, and we are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse culture where colleagues can feel comfortable to bring their whole true self to work in an environment removed of bias and stereotypes. Aligning with this strategy, working closely with the CEO and senior leadership team, in 2015, I commissioned external research to gain insight into the perceived barriers to entry for the automotive sector. We surveyed over 500 colleagues internally and 1000 workers from other industries to understand more about what they wanted from a career and to detail their perceptions of the automotive industry. One of the stand-out findings from the research identified that just 2% of women outside of industry believed that there was opportunity to develop a career in the automotive sector.

Armed with this research, in 2017, to evolve our strategy we launched #WeAreJMG. Extending our D&I focus beyond just gender and looking at ways we can be inclusive to all, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or background. We continue to grow and evolve our approach to diversity and inclusion throughout our business.

Tell us about the challenges faced by your organisation, which led you to focus on diversity and inclusion.

Our challenge continues to be the outdated perceptions associated with the automotive industry. Based on our external research in 2015, just 2% of women identified automotive as an industry where they could progress a career with 31% of those surveyed referencing automotive as a ‘macho’ environment. Whilst the research was in 2015, we still believe that these perceptions remain. We strive to challenge these perceptions and to promote the opportunities of our business as an industry accessible to all regardless of gender, race, sexuality, disability, or social background. We look to encourage individuals to join us in an environment where they can thrive in their career and be the best version of themselves.

Events over the last 12/18 months continue to shape the D&I agenda and it is important that we continue to adapt our strategy in line with this to keep up with change and secure our representation as a diverse and inclusive business to our colleagues, customers, and potential future employees. The more diverse our business, the more inclusive we are, and the more we reflect the diversity of our customers. Diversity enables richer, quality conversations, improved innovation, diverse opinions, and greater opportunity to develop our colleagues creating a better business overall, with strong financial results.

Our executive and leadership team are committed to the continued development of our D&I strategy, and along with support from our HR team and Group support functions, we endorse our inclusive culture and actively implement initiatives to promote change internally and across the wider automotive industry.

Please outline some of the D&I initiatives your organisation has introduced

Following our 2015 research, over the last 4 years we have continued to grow and evolve our D&I strategy.

Recognising the perceived barriers to entry to the automotive industry specifically for women, we became one of the first members of the Automotive 30% Club; we are now a patron member. We aimed to have 30% of females in management roles and this target was achieved in 2019.

It is important for us to hear from our own colleagues themselves; to give them a voice and understand more about the issues that matter to them to drive forward with our inclusive culture. With this in mind, we introduced a D&I Steering Group made up of some 20+ colleagues from across the business bringing together our previous colleague community networks. The group provides greater understanding of the challenges faced by underrepresented communities in our workplace, allows colleagues to share their experiences, show their allyship and to come up with ways in which we can all work together to develop new initiatives to further build our inclusive culture and commitment to diversification.

AutoTrader are very inspirational in their D&I work and are a great example of best practice in the industry. We also take insight from the external partners that we work closely with including Whizz Kidz, Automotive 30% Club, Moving Ahead, Diversity in Retail, Inclusive Companies, Stonewall and Speakers4Schools to enhance our D&I strategy and adopt a best practice approach.

Both internally and externally, we focus on our tone of voice and use of inclusive language and imagery. We have dedicated D&I pages on our internal intranet and external website and our #WeAreJMG campaign has its own visual identity to further strengthen our employee branding. In addition, we have recently conducted an audit of our HR policies to ensure the language used is more inclusive.

Over the last 12 months, we have held 2 virtual D&I events using our online events platform accessible to all colleagues. These events enable us to come together to discuss how we, as a business, can further improve our inclusive culture and take individual responsibility to create a safe and inclusive environment for all. Each event includes a colleague panel discussion with colleagues from across the business sharing their own personal experiences of inclusion. Topics discussed included race, gender, disability, and neurodiversity.

Education is fundamental to the development of our inclusive culture, and we regularly produce content across our social media channels and colleague intranet pages to raise awareness of key topics in line with our #WeAreJMG strategy. This includes content focused on religious festivals, colleague wellbeing and inclusive initiatives such as International Women’s Day and Pride month.

Our annual event to celebrate International Women’s Day which is attended by women and allies in the business. This is an opportunity for us to celebrate the success of the women in our business and to continue to raise awareness of gender bias, its impact, and how we must continue to strive for gender equality in our business and the industry as a whole.

Working to dispel the outdated perceptions of the automotive industry, and to drive for equality in the workplace, we have joined the Social Mobility Pledge and Disability Confident Employer Scheme. We are also involved with the Speaker4Schools programme to encourage youngsters from under-privileged backgrounds to pursue a career in automotive. As patron members of Whizz-Kidz Business Alliance we also facilitate multiple employability skills sessions for the young adults to offer support and guidance around CV writing, presentations, and personal branding.

Our Executive and leadership team are committed to the continued development of our D&I strategy, actively promoting our inclusive culture, and demonstrating their allyship to support our initiatives. We also involve our colleagues to measure our success in this area and include questions around D&I in our annual colleague survey. Results from the 2021 survey demonstrated 87% of colleagues agreed that JMG treats colleagues fairly, regardless of their background. 86% agreed JMG has created an environment where people of diverse backgrounds can succeed, and 84% agreed they can be their authentic selves at work.

Please tell us how people have reacted to the D&I initiatives your organisation has introduced.

We are proud of the inclusive culture that we have created and continue to build at JMG. Our colleagues actively champion and share our initiatives on social media, and throughout the business colleagues are more open to share their stories, lived experiences and show their allyship for inclusivity.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, 2021 has been our most successful year. We believe this reflects the success of our strategy and the confidence our customers have in doing business with us.

Inside and outside of industry, we are recognised as thought leaders for our activity and initiatives around D&I and are regularly approached to participate in events and panels to share our journey.

Testament to our initiatives, in the last 3 years, more than 70 female colleagues have been nominated for national and industry awards and 40 of them have become winners in awards including Great British Women Rising Stars, AutoCar Great British Women top 100, Top 30 Inspiring Automotive Women Awards. I am also personally very proud to have been awarded Inclusion and Equality Director of the Year by the Institute of Directors and more recently HR Director of the Year from HBO.

Please tell us about the impact these initiatives have had.

Results from our 2021 colleague survey found 87% of colleagues agreed that JMG treats colleagues fairly, regardless of their background, 86% agreed JMG has created an environment where people of diverse backgrounds can succeed, and 84% agreed they can be their authentic selves at work. This really demonstrates the impact of our initiatives within the business.

For the last 2 years, we have been recognised in the Inclusive Companies Top 50 Employers list and this is testament to our hard work around D&I.

In terms of talent retention, our focus on the introduction of flexible working and home working policies as well as well as the upgrading our parental and maternity policies ensures that women especially, can return to work and feel supported as a working parent. With regards to recruitment, our external D&I webpage is one of the most viewed pages in the corporate area of our website and is regularly referenced as a reason to join us by candidates applying for roles with the Group.

Our work specifically in the area of gender equality has resulted in 30% of management roles now being held by women. To further support talent retention and progression in the business, our Senior Management and leadership teams are now more accountable for the diversification of their teams and the data we now collect enables conversations and action to develop a more diverse and inclusive colleague community.

The biggest benefit is the growth of our overall inclusive culture, and this is reflective in the survey feedback from our colleagues as detailed above.

Tell us what you learned on this journey and how you’ll use that in the future.

I am very proud of our progress over the last 6 years in the area of diversity and inclusion, but the work doesn’t stop there, and we must constantly refresh our strategy, initiatives, and messaging. We must continue to challenge the outdated perceptions of the automotive industry and promote an environment where colleagues feel comfortable to bring their whole true self to work.

To continue the success of our D&I strategy it is imperative that we place more emphasis on our data to ensure we fully understand the true demographic of our colleagues and going forward we will be including more demographic questions into our colleague surveys.

My advice for other organisations; it is essential that you ensure the buy-in of the Executive and senior leadership team. D&I must remain a permanent topic on the business agenda. Be accountable, do the things you say you are going to do and always be honest and transparent. Take feedback from your colleagues and insight from those around you and continue to review and refresh messaging to create an environment inclusive to all.