The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed every aspect of our lives. We are living through times of great uncertainty and unprecedented levels of stress. That’s causing a lot of us to re-think how we engage with many things, including getting work done, finding appropriate work-life integration and supporting others around us – especially those who might be more vulnerable. This has led to greater conversations about how to support people working from home, how to create flexibility in the workplace and an increased awareness of mental health.
It’s also led us to evaluate how we communicate and work with one another. While we all want to be better at this, especially when we can’t see each other every day, research tells us that those people who regularly experience unconscious bias exhibit poorer health and mental health outcomes – therefore it’s important that we all understand this better to support each other more fully.
At Colt, we want to create a culture where everyone can thrive and have a fair chance to develop and progress. We want to achieve greater diversity within our global teams so that we can benefit from different perspectives and draw from the widest possible pool of talent. That’s why we made November 18 Colt Diversity Day – a day to ensure that everyone at Colt understands the importance of all forms of diversity and why learning to recognise and manage our own unconscious bias is better for everyone.
We started Diversity Day with the news that Colt had been recognised in the Financial Times annual Diversity Leaders ranking. In an independent survey of more than 100,000 employees from 15,000 companies, Colt came in at number 44 of the top 850 employers in Europe and in the top tier for the telecoms sector. And while we are so proud of this recognition of the work we’ve done so far to create a more inclusive culture, we know that we want to do more.
Diversity Day is just one step in a journey that will help everyone learn so that we can all thrive and achieve more together.
Another step that we feel is critical is publicly committing to what we want to achieve in the coming months for Inclusion and Diversity. One way we’re doing this is by using Black Friday to not share corporate messages, but rather messages from our people that share how they are going to focus on making sure our business is as inclusive as possible.
We know that an inclusive culture needs to come from the top down, but it also needs buy-in from all of our people. So I couldn’t be more proud that we have taken these steps to truly champion Inclusion and Diversity at Colt.
Find the messages from our staff around inclusion here.
Louisa Gregory is the VP of Inclusion and Diversity at Colt
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