TORONTO, May 24, 2013 /CNW/ - Further to President and CEO Gord Nixon's Open Letter to Canadians released on April 11, RBC announced today the completion of its supplier arrangements and policies review with the adoption of a Supplier Code of Conduct.
This principles-based Code sets out RBC's expectations of suppliers to ensure their behaviour aligns with RBC standards. It formalizes and standardizes RBC's approach to responsible procurement. As part of the Code, suppliers must, among other things:
- Adhere to human rights, labour and employment standards legislation
- Treat their employees fairly and with respect, including respect for diversity
- Not hire foreign workers from outside of Canada, when performing services on behalf of RBC, where a worker eligible to work in Canada is available and able to perform the service.
RBC will monitor compliance with the Code and ensure contractual commitments are secured through Master Service Agreements. As part of RBC's annual corporate responsibility reporting, RBC will report on compliance with the Code and engage objective parties as part of an independent review.
Offshoring and Temporary Foreign Workers Program
As part of its supplier review, RBC looked at the types of work the bank will and will not outsource to suppliers that execute all or part of the work offshore to ensure suppliers support RBC's focus on creating Canadian jobs and prosperity. Specifically:
- RBC will only offshore to suppliers when their investment in scale, technology or operational knowledge provides superior skill sets and capabilities that RBC cannot duplicate inside its own business or in Canada.
- RBC will not offshore work where salary savings is the primary reason and will make every effort to source in Canada.
For example, RBC's Canadian client call centres are located in Canada, supporting RBC's domestic and U.S. business, and they will remain in Canada despite the trend in many industries to offshore them.
RBC uses the Temporary Foreign Workers Program on a very limited basis for executives and for workers with highly specialized skills and will not use the 'low skills workers' program to fill jobs in Canada.
RBC currently follows many best practices for retention, retraining and redeployment of employees and the company will further invest in our capabilities to proactively support and retrain employees whose roles are impacted due to restructuring, outsourcing and efficiency initiatives. In addition, a new youth employment initiative designed to provide young Canadians with a meaningful first career experience will be announced in the coming weeks.
SOURCE: RBC
Media Contact:
Jason Graham, RBC Media Relations, 416 974-8810, [email protected]
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