Striking the right balance: Why diversity and inclusion is still a work in progress

Mix it up

D&I benchmarking

Kindred Group’s Read says its recruitment programmes are built on co-created bias-free leadership capabilities that have been externally verified. “Lots of organisations are building equitable processes into their talent identification frameworks but many of their leadership capabilities are outdated and can be overly masculine in their language.

“It’s not just about injecting women into the organisation but also adopting the best characteristics in all leaders regardless of gender or background. Our programmes involve a rigorous selection process which ensures only the best leaders are selected so to avoid any inadvertent positive discrimination,” she says.

In addition, Kindred Group has created a women’s network which welcomes allies. It is also taking steps in its recruitment process in terms of wording and targeting unconscious bias in the organisation.

In March, Hero Gaming employees attended an external talk by KPMG’s Micky Swindale on the business case for diversity. The main takeaways from the presentation were gender quotas and the way to write job descriptions. The talk also brought up the discussion of role models and mentorships. “When you see someone who can make it at that level, I think mentorship is something which is very important for people to grow and develop in that area,” Hero Gaming’s Saliba explains.

At the Malta-headquartered operator, there are some elements of mentorship already in place with a buddying-up system at the onboarding stage as well as a 360-learning model, which includes mentorship, coaching across the organisation plus online learning and classroom-based training options.

Similarly, Kindred Group engages in coaching and mentorship relationships at all levels of the business. “We have just been recognised as a Best Workplace for Women by Great Place to Work, so we are clearly doing something right,” Read proudly reveals.

The Stockholm-listed operator is taking a programmatic approach to its diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Read explains: “As we already have rich data on gender, we are able to pinpoint inequity in the system along the entire employee journey and make meaningful change, but we are not stopping there. We have also been driving huge inclusion initiatives for the last 12 months for other marginalised groups and starting to build trust in the organisation and a solid framework for self-identification.”

Tech talent

For Hero Gaming, as a Swedish company and with Sweden being a strong advocator of equality, the discussion around gender diversity has been very advanced. Theobald proudly shares that the firm now has a 50:50 gender split compared to a 65:35 split in favour of men in 2018, but she acknowledges it has been a journey to get there.

“There have been a number of initiatives, specifically within tech. We had run a women in tech campaign. We also were very open when recruiting and we’re very open in getting people with different levels of education, and some with no experience in coding, for example. But with the requisite for other elements, such as personality, culture, fit, potential, academic qualifications, and so on and so forth.”

Hero Gaming’s educational journey on gender diversity has seen a shift in its operations centre which is now 55% female and 45% male. One of the changes it has made in its recruitment strategy is to shortlist candidates based on how good a person is for a role, yet also to make sure the final three shortlisted candidates are from diverse backgrounds.

In its tech office, the split is 39% female and 61% male. However, Theobald thinks this is not just a gaming industry problem and that gender bias needs to be eliminated from the early stages of education.

Through Kindred Group’s graduate programme, 35% of recruits are female and its chief experience officer Britt Boeskov is leading a steering group made up of women’s network members to keep this at the forefront of the board’s mind.

As Abby Rachel Cosgrave, founder of SafeComply Group, highlighted in a recent opinion piece for EGR, the lack of financial backing for female founders and entrepreneurs is another area that needs to be looked at. “There are some standard responses to bridge the gender diversity and inclusion gaps in any industry, the narrative here largely falls around senior women helping other women, women mentoring other women, in creating funds by women for women and while this certainly has a place, it would ignore the specifics of this industry where the vast majority of – if not all – investment comes from organisations largely ran or owned predominately by males and the vast majority of leaders are males,” she explains.

To address this imbalance, Cosgrave encourages operators and providers to create the space for employees to pitch ideas for corporate investment as well as encouraging and supporting women, who it has been claimed are less likely to put themselves forward to pitch.

In addition to that, the SafeComply Group founder urges the industry to create private or online pitch schemes to open up access for women in the gambling sector to its leading investors and entrepreneurs.

Minority report

Another area that still needs to be addressed is ethnic diversity, which was highlighted in All-In Diversity Project’s first Covid impact study conducted in May 2021. While the results are due to be published imminently, Kehn shares with EGR Intel that 95% of survey respondents identified as white.

“That’s a problem, I don’t care how you spin it. We’ve been working for three years really focusing on gender and look how far we’ve come. I think it’s about holding the mirror up. For sure, race and ethnicity is something that we need to address very quickly,” she admits.

One US operator that is tackling ethnic diversity head on is Penn National Gaming (PNG), which last year launched the Penn Diversity Committee to celebrate Juneteenth, now recognised as a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the country. Since the launch of the committee, PNG has committed to increase its recruitment efforts and support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). In 2021, 20% of its leadership excellence at PNG interns attended HBCUs and the company is also strengthening its relationships with and supporting neighbouring HBCUs within the PNG properties’ regional footprint.

In March 2021, the operator also unveiled the Penn National Diversity Scholarship Programme for children of its team members. The scheme focuses on equity in higher education by providing financial support to under-represented team members and their children. This year it has handed out 58 scholarships, totalling $1.05m. In support of minority-owned businesses, PNG launched a pilot this year for the Penn Minority Business Incubator to identify potential new minority suppliers and assist them in growing their businesses.

As well as other forms of diversity, Kehn doesn’t feel that disability has come to the strategic table yet. Theobald at Hero Gaming echoes the need for disability to be brought to the forefront: “I think we need to create more awareness around making sure we are as inclusive as we can be with people with disability as certain conditions can come with difficulties in social connections as well.”

Kehn acknowledges that the industry has started to address sexual orientation, but perhaps not yet in a meaningful way. “I think Pride is an easy month to say we do think about it, but I’m not sure we’re doing it in a meaningful way in terms of practice and policy that supports same-sex families and adoptions,” she points out.

Saliba at Hero Gaming agrees that more can be done to support the LGBTQ+ community in the workplace. “I think, as an industry, what we need to aim to do is to continue offering a fair onboarding and talent acquisition process. So, then, the way that we present our roles out there, the way we write job descriptions, the tools that we use maybe to shortlist and to remove that unconscious bias, can all help to offer more equal opportunities at the application stage,” he explains.

Another overlooked area is socio-economic factors. All-In Diversity Project’s co-founder explains that while we are privileged in Europe with high-tech, high-paid work and people coming out of university to join the sector, it may not be the case in the US. “In the US there is something different right there in the local communities. You have to have land-based casinos going along with your online brands. So, we have to address local community on who’s going to be working for our businesses of the future,” Kehn highlights.

Age is just a number

On the subject of age, Kehn says when the figures are broken down by gender, it is pretty close to 50:50 through every age range from 18 up to senior management level. She attributes that to igaming being a young industry and being “open to experts coming in to do their job in a meaningful way at any age”.

Betsson Group’s Nordin says age is an important diversity measure that may sometimes be neglected. “While most people working in our industry are millennials, at Betsson we do have the right mix of people from other demographic cohorts too. I really believe in a multi-generational workforce as I think it facilitates effective synergies between experienced and less experienced staff, which in the end has a positive benefit both for the company but also for the employees themselves.”

Hero Gaming offers internships in areas such as analytics, marketing and finance, but emphasises that opportunity for growth is available to employees of all ages. “Our organisation has really been built on a culture of feedback, and feedback is given equally. No matter the age, no matter the experience, we all have gaps and we all can grow,” says Hero’s chief people officer.

Kindred Group’s head of talent development agrees with her peers that the industry needs to pull together to make a change. “Employers are definitely starting to step up, but a lot still remains focused purely on gender and making little progress representing other marginalised groups,” she says.

Although Read admits there is no “silver bullet”, she stresses the importance of listening to diverse employees and building for the future. “We have to cast the net wider to engage and nurture future talent pipelines. The gambling industry has historically been very ‘close knit’, but we are starting to see more and more diverse talent coming into the industry.”

While the All-In Diversity Project still has more work to achieve, Kehn underlines the need to have a workforce that reflects the industry’s customer base or potential customers. “Once you open Pandora’s box, you can’t go back. Now we have loads of other work to do and there might be blind spots that are coming to light in terms of how we support everyone, and how companies are being better because they are addressing those blind spots.”