Earlier this year, American Banker asked executives at 90 banks that earned a spot in the annual Best Banks to Work For ranking how they’re handling challenges associated with hiring and retaining talent.
Horizon says it believes one of the ways they are staying abreast of hiring and retainment challenges is because they have a better understanding of their company’s culture and have taken a progressive approach to their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Horizon says it has recently established affinity resource groups that are open to all of their employees, the first of which was focused on LGBTQ+ issues with more groups coming in the near future. They say the idea behind the voluntary groups is to provide a welcoming forum where employees can share experiences, build relationships and generally cultivate better understanding of each other.
Horizon says it also defined and tracked workforce diversity metrics, to better understand where it is lagging or improving. For example, the proportion of new hires who self-identified as minorities jumped from 16% in 2018 to 26% in 2020.