Workplace Diversity - Getting Started in the EMEA Region

‘Getting started can be the hardest task for many companies’

Michelle Raymond, a Global Diversity & Inclusion consultant for multinational corporations and higher education institutions in Europe and North America, outlines some aspects of workplace diversity and how to best implement it.

Policies companies have put in place to promote diversity:

Beginning in 2017, the European Union implemented stricter legal requirements for transparency on non-financial information such as disclosure of diversity policy for large listed companies. This included a requirement for large listed companies to provide insight into their diversity policies in relation to their executive and supervisory boards.

In response, many large listed companies in Europe have implemented changes to their diversity policies to comply with these stricter EU requirements. For example, the European Commission itself implemented a new Diversity and Inclusion strategy, focusing on four main target groups: women, disabilities, LGBTQI* and generational (age) diversity.

A key feature of the Commission’s new human resources policy includes measures to bring female representation in management to at least 40 percent by November 2019. The first gender quota came into effect in 2003, when Norway became the first nation to legally mandate a gender quota to address inequities in the corporate boardroom and promote women’s economic interests. This law mandated publicly traded companies to enact a 40 percent quota. The result was a 31 percent increase in just nine years.

EU member countries that have since implemented similar gender quota measures include Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Additionally, companies such as Bayer AG (Germany), Barilla (Italy), Anheuser-Busch InBev (Belgium), and Ernst & Young (Global) have signed up to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principals, a set of guiding principles for businesses to empower women in the workplace.

What do employees at these companies say about the policies, or about diversity in general?

Most of my D&I clients are based in Madrid, Spain, where I have spoken with many executive stakeholders and local employees about their company’s diversity policies. The hot topic in Spain right now is gender diversity, with LGBTQI* inclusion a close second.

Many of the diversity initiatives implemented have been employee-driven. There is a growing sense of the need for change, and it’s the employees themselves who are advocating for the creation of more inclusive workplace environments. The problem? Many of these employee advocates are grappling with the question:“How?”

I recently spoke about gender identity and sexuality at a multinational consulting firm. After the workshop, a comment from one of the employees was:

‘We want to start an LGBTQI* resource group at our office, but no one here is openly gay. So how do we convince our employees these topics are important?’

In addition, frustration about the funding of these initiatives has left many employees discouraged, with some choosing to side-table or completely abandon their diversity projects.

To give an example, most multinational firms with offices in Spain have diversity budgets of less than 5.000 Euros – if any at all. When a local office asks for funding from their regional headquarters, they can be asked to produce reports measuring ‘successful year-long D&I events’ to back-up their request for new funding the following year.

But how is a local firm with no funding supposed to achieve a record of successful year-long events without financing, marketing support, or management resources of any kind? Faced with this ‘What comes first, the chicken or the egg?’ logic, more often than not employees abandon their diversity initiatives or finance them personally. This is a stark contrast to the robust ($50,000+) diversity budgets most of these companies offer their North American branches.

Some legal obstacles companies have encountered when trying to implement their goals or diversity policies:

One of the biggest legal obstacles European companies face is EU data privacy laws. In the United States, it is not uncommon to be asked the following questions during the job application process:

‘What is your gender?’, ‘How do you sexually identify?’, ‘What is your ethnicity?’ and ‘What is your religion?’

These data-sensitive questions serve multiple purposes, one being assisting HR departments and companies to gather statistics on job applicants (to measure the performance of their corporate diversity policies).

Without a benchmark, it can be difficult for EU-located companies to gauge the success of their diversity programs and identify key areas for improvement. To further complicate matters, many EU member states have their own data privacy laws which can vary from country to country.

In France for example, employers are prohibited from collecting data about their employees relating to ethnic origins, religious opinions, sexual identity, politics or health. Some European companies have circumnavigated this obstacle by surveying their employees anonymously to obtain ‘sensitive’ data and monitor employees’ sense of inclusion and belonging.

Advice for Getting Started:

When it comes to workplace equality and just beginning to promote diversity, many US corporations can serve as a model starting point.

You should research what other companies in your industry are doing as regards diversity, and follow global diversity benchmarks such as the Stonewall Index to identify which companies are scoring highly in the areas you care about the most.

If you work for a multi-national company and already have well-established workplace equality initiatives in the US, I recommend setting up a conversation with your North American D&I manager to ask for educational resources and financial support.

More often than not, I have spoken to D&I managers in the US who were completely unaware their branches overseas were not receiving the same resources and funding. Make these managers aware of your European branch's desire to implement diversity initiatives, the struggles you are currently facing, and ask for their support.

I have helped several local branches in Madrid receive diversity budgets for the first time simply by picking up the phone and talking to a diversity manager in their North American headquarters.

Starting an employee resource group or creating a diversity policy from scratch can be a challenging task, but it is not impossible. Team up with your other European offices, local non-profit organisations and universities, or diversity associations for guidance and support.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

The hardest and most important task for any company is getting started. The time to take that first step is now.