To drive diversity, embed access in the day to day policies As organisations gain maturity in their diversity efforts, their work will begin to broaden far beyond the initial scope of gender representation. Mukta Arya, CHRO APAC of Societe Générale, talks about the DEI focus areas that the organisation has identified and how policies and practices are being adjusted to support these
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By Bhavna Sarin
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ukta Arya, ACC, is the Managing Director, Chief Human Resources Officer, APAC at Societe Générale. A HR professional with over 24 years of experience in multiple industries and locations in the APAC region, she started her career with India's Essar Group. In 2006, Mukta joined Societe Générale in Mumbai as Head of HR for India. She subsequently became Regional Head of Talent Development and Inclusion then Head of HR for SEA, before being appointed as the CHRO for Societe Générale, APAC. Based in Hong Kong, she is a published author with four books to her name. In this exclusive interview, Mukta shared her | March 2022
perspective of what's needed to drive DEI across a large international organisation: how to embed DEI elements in talent management processes, how to enhance accessibility inclusion for differently-abled talent, best practices to build a thriving ecosystem for LGBTQ+ talent, and what it means to craft transformative learning experiences for sustainable change.
What are Societe Générale’s DEI priorities for 2022? In Societe Générale, APAC, we have identified four main DEI focus areas: Gender, Cultural, Differently Abled and LGBT+. With a D&I steering committee at regional level in 2015, we started with creating networks with employee volunteers and creating awareness on these topics internally in the organisation. Over the years we have progressed to embed-
ding DEI elements on the above in our HR policies and managerial practices. On gender, we have been working on gender balance in our organisation, which is not an easy task in corporate and investment banking at senior levels, given the systemic issue. The added complexity is that gender ratios are not the same in all countries that we operate in Asia, so we need to have a customised approach in different countries. On cultural diversity, we are looking at creating an inclusive environment with a mix of nationalities in our organisation. In APAC, we have around 30 different nationalities at all levels of the organisation. The challenge that we are aiming to overcome is the perception of employees as well as concentration of few nationalities for senior positions. On Differently Abled, the challenge is to create aware-
