SNC-Lavalin’s leadership has noted the material
benefits of a diverse workforce, supported
by studies by The Wall Street Journal, Credit
Suisse, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, and BCG.
As part of its “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion”
(ED&I) initiatives, SNC-Lavalin’s CEO has
championed UN Sustainable Development Goals
of gender equality, and reducing inequality.
The company’s efforts to date have focused on
the diversification of its executive team, and it has
not elected to disclose key workplace metrics
relevant to diversity in its reporting under the UN
Global Reporting Initiative (UN GRI), including
gender-based differences in compensation,
retention or access to key employment benefits .
Tracking and identifying gaps in representation
and compensation practices throughout an
organization help identify where real progress
in diversification is happening, and where there
are problems requiring attention. Such practices
have been gaining ground: for example, between
September 2020 and September 2021, the number
of S&P 100 companies releasing recruitment rate
data by gender, race and ethnicity increased by 234
percent, companies releasing retention rate data
increased by 79 percent, and companies releasing
promotion rate data increased by 379 percent.
Where SNC-Lavalin is required by law to report
more comprehensive information on workplace
equity, disclosures have been informative. For
example, the UK requires all employers with
more than 250 employees to report annually on
their gender pay gap. SNC-Lavalin’s submission
finds that at Atkins, the mean pay of men is
nearly 20% higher than women in the UK. Men
are more likely to receive bonuses and the mean
bonus pay of men is 40% higher. The gaps are
generally even wider for other UK subsidiaries .
In Canada, employees at the SNC-Lavalin’s
nuclear subsidiary, Candu Energy, report that
the company has failed to grant the same basic
entitlements to a predominantly female bargaining
unit as are enjoyed by the predominantly male
bargaining units, including access to comparable
health and sick leave benefits, nor an equivalent
harassment procedure – all measures that
could affect the company’s ability to recruit,
retain and promote a more diverse workforce.
Comprehensive reporting on outcomes related to
workforce composition and compensation practices
would help both the Board and shareholders assess
the efficacy of the company’s ED&I programme.