EU Diversity Month in Hungary

diversity

CELEBRATING DIFFERENCE AND DIVERSITY

LEADERSHIP COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY NEEDS TO BE FOLLOWED BY ACTIONS This May saw various events of the European Diversity Month. In Hungary, the coordinative organizer of the programs is the Hungarian Business Leaders Forum (HBLF). Diplomacy&Trade talks to the President and one of the board members of the organization to highlight the importance of the Diversity Month and the lessons one can learn from the initiative.

“The objective of the Hungarian Business Leaders Forum is to support the sustainable development of Hungary. In this journey, diversity and inclusion are strategic priorities. One month is not enough to make the change, but it gives us the opportunity that we can focus on an important topic. HBLF creates a platform for collaboration reflecting the motto of the 2022 Diversity Month in the European Union, that is, ‘Building bridges’. What we do is building bridges between organizations, between companies and NGOs, because it is our belief that we are stronger together and through collaboration our impact is greater,” HBLF President Andrea Solti, the CEO of Shell Hungary Plc. points out. She believes this is an opportunity to celebrate the differences and the diversity, but this initiative also highlights that there are many things to do: female representation in leadership, Roma representation in workforce or the employment of disabled people. “We recognize that there are still actions required to make sure that we represent our society at our workplace.” Jobsgarden Managing Director Zsuzsa Gárdus, a HBLF board member in charge of coordination for the Hungarian Diversity Charter, stresses that the EU platform of diversity charter selected May as diversity month. “It's spring, so you can renew everything, it is the time for the rebirth of ideas. But besides this, the main aim of this month is just to raise awareness about the importance of diversity and inclusion at the workplaces as well as in society: celebrate the results and also draw attention to this topic. This year, we had the third Diversity Month and learned that somehow the attention to this matter is becoming stronger among companies. We are really open to everyone and any organization ready to deal with this topic and would like to brace awareness within the organization. And later, we hope that they will join the charter as well.”

Leadership commitment

“Shell in Hungary has a long journey in building a diverse workforce and leadership. We adopted our diversity charter in 2002 and have set annual diversity goals since then. Currently, we have a 50% female-male board and I am the second female President of the Board. Visible leadership has been a key factor in this journey. We also reviewed and adjusted our HR policies and processes to make sure that those support diversity and inclusion. I’d also like to highlight that diversity is a common cause and needs to be addressed jointly by male and female leaders. I would like to refer to the March campaign of HBLF (“Let’s change perspective”) where close to a hundred male and female CEOs stood up jointly and publicly shared their commitment, how they want to improve the female presentation in their leadership. So, I think visible leadership, commitment and actions are required to achieve changes,” Andrea Solti says. Zsuzsa Gárdus agrees. “Leadership commitment is really, really crucial when we think about how to improve and develop diversity and share best practices. Also, the job market is pretty hot recently, meaning that companies are getting more and more open, not just to women and women leadership, but also to people with disability or any other disadvantages.” As Andrea Solti adds, “another element of the business case is uncertainty what we have been facing in the past two years in terms of the COVID-19 situation and then, the war in the neighborhood, and we need employees, we need leaders who are able to work in this uncertain environment. There are no straightforward responses, there are no straightforward solutions. I believe that diverse view help to manage the organizations under such circumstances.”

ZSUZSA GÁRDUS (ON THE LEFT) AND ANDREA SOLTI

Leadership X mentor program

Andrea Solti also shares that although research supports that diversity is good for the business just as for the society, the female representation in leadership is still to be improved. She quotes Mckinsey’s latest report saying it's only 8% of the companies in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Hungary, that have female CEOs. “That presents a challenge, thus, we do not only need leadership commitment but also supporting programs. HBLF’s award winning one-year X mentor program supports women who have ambition to become leaders. Several participating mentors have been ranked by Forbes among the most influential female business leaders. There are also Hungary-based expatriates and international leaders from other countries, who support this initiative. Our mentees can greatly benefit from this international dimension of the program, which is available both in English and Hungarian. The mentors support the development of future leaders by sharing their experience, developing selfconfidence and addressing dilemmas like how to manage work-life balance or how to deal with various leadership dilemmas. During the one-year program, we also offer dedicated workshops – one on building selfconfidence and another on career planning. But equally important are the network and supportive community we are building.”

Pushing boundaries further and wider

With this year’s EU Diversity Month over, summarizing the experience gained by the Hungarian Business Leaders Forum and the lessons learned with ideas in mind for next year, Zsuzsa Gárdus says “I am very happy because I think we have achieved really significant improvement. This was our third diversity month, and year by year, the number of events and programs are increasing. As a result, the number of those joining the charter is also increasing, which I believe is very important. I would like to stress the involvement of universities: having young people able to see what diversity is, what inclusion is, why is it so important when they join organization, a workplace. I'm really proud of my team who helped me a lot – they are fantastic. With this team, we were able to involve many more students than before. The lessons learned include that we need to do much more on this platform just to involve more young people so that they see the importance of this topic. Also, we involve more and more companies, organizations, not just HBLF members and charter members, but companies that have simply heard about this and we just started to talk to them and involve them in the process. It is because on the long term, these programs are not just for EU charter members, but we would also like to push the boundaries further and wider.” In conclusion, Andrea Solti quotes a couple of numbers about the Hungarian edition of this year’s EU Diversity Month. “We had 55 events and programs with altogether more than 135 hours dedicated to this topic and involving more than a ten thousand employees. Through the media coverage, we estimate to have reached one million contacts. It was a very impactful program. and I'm very proud that we have been able to mobilize significant number of organizations. The initiative was a true example of building bridges between corporate organizations, NGOs, between diplomacy and the corporate sector. We have covered a great variety of topics: from female representation in leadership to the HBLF-Romaster (Roma talent development) program, we talked about business case of diversity in the boards, in the decision-making process. Diversity month is an enabler; it builds awareness, it is an opportunity to discuss dilemmas and to learn from each other, however, this is just the first step, and we need continued efforts to embrace diversity and inclusion.”