7 minute read
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 by Bhavna Sarin
Mukta 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 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 embedding 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 awareness among employees on visible and invisible disabilities in the workforce and implement accessible and inclusive measures. We have already started on this front and we hope to see much more progress in the near future.
On LGBT+, we are in the process of enhancing an inclusive environment with awareness about the issues that LGBT+ employees may face based on conscious and unconscious bias and progressive policies.
Every year, we review our priorities and look at the current challenges we face in APAC countries. We believe that with consistent efforts including policies to support families, development programmes for specific groups of employees, conscious effort to embed DEI criteria in talent management process from recruitment, succession planning to development, open culture of “speaking up” and acting on employee suggestions, we have managed to build an inclusive environment for our employees and will continue to make progress.
What's one thing organisations should to work on to address underrepresentation?
I would not differentiate the integrated talent management approach for different communities of employees. However, within the approach, it is important that for an organisation, if there’s an issue of underrepresentation, the elements of access to employment, mental healthcare, career growth and cultural inclusion should be embedded in day-to-day HR policies. If they are not part of the policy and if HR and managers are not trained for those elements, it can fall through the cracks. I am a believer in institutionalising actions in the organisation, so that they are not person dependent. In my opinion, all the
elements are equally important and they should not be compromised.
How is Societe Générale enabling its workforce and the broader community to meet the needs of the differently abled?
Technology is a big support for our initiatives regarding differently abled employees. Accessibility from movement with automatic doors to features in Microsoft Teams to live captions during meetings or “Reading” function in Outlook, all helps to create an inclusive environment for differently abled people.
IT infrastructure which allows us to work from home is a boon for corporates to explore different working arrangements which are favourable to employees with different needs.
In Societe Générale, we have made conscious efforts to create awareness on the topic of Visible and invisible disabilities through our Employee Resource Group - Differently Abled Network (DAN). DAN organises webinars, panel discussions, participates in external events throughout the year, and engages employees to know more about the topic. We have also made conscious efforts in our office design wherever possible to improve accessibility. Some locations took the lead in hiring of differently abled interns to test whether we can integrate them well and whether we can hire more employees with these abilities in full time positions in future. The network has also worked with HR on mental health care initiatives such as mental health first-aid, caregivers support group, well-being month. We currently have over 20 activities across 12 locations in APAC.
What are some essentials to shaping meaningful and transformative learning experiences for the distributed workforce and bringing sustainable mindset and cultural change?
The first few things coming to my mind are the debrief and collective experience. With the advancement of technology, there are various means or modes of remote learning where users could complete the learning completely on their own. However, I believe the real difference lies in whether users could be accompanied in reflecting on the concepts and knowledge they learnt and what’s next for them.
Discussion with peers and a hybrid mode of training with some instructorled elements would be very conducive to make the learning more impactful.
Panel discussions and hearing from people who have experienced the concepts are also a powerful way of learning. In our sessions, we have a mix of these components so that it reaches employees with different learning styles in the most effective way.
In recent years, Societe Générale has done tremendous work towards making their organisation a workplace where LGBTQ+ talent can thrive. Can you share some of these practices and their impact?
As mentioned above, we aim to create an inclusive environment for LGBT+ employees. We have worked on several initiatives in this field through our ERG which is quite active in creating awareness across the organisation through training sessions throughout the year as well as an annual LGBT+ week, participation in external panel discussions and webinars, movie screenings on the topic, career fairs, and events like Pink Dot and the celebration of Pink Friday.
Our LGBT+ ERG launched “Reverse Mentoring” on the topic for all the 20 Management Committee members in APAC. I was also a mentee and even though I have a fair level of exposure to the topic, I learnt a lot. It was eye opening to me and to my fellow management committee members to understand the real issues faced by the community and how we can play a part towards enhancing LGBT+ inclusivity in the organisation.
In addition, we have embedded benefits for LGBT+ employees in our policies and have started revising our internal policies with gender neutral language. We have been recognised for our efforts in
this field by external organisations in Hong Kong and Japan in the past few years.
What is your advice for businesses that hope to achieve their diversity goals and build inclusive workplaces?
DEI is not a buzzword anymore.
DEI is a relatively longterm cultural change for workplaces, and it takes much more than the management to make everything happen.
For example, to foster such cultural change in broader teams, there must be solid awareness in staff at all levels in the organisation and managers should be able to explain on how the goals on DEI could be translated at team level.
Without company-wide participation and buy-in of the philosophy of DEI, it will be very difficult to “walk the talk” in the organisation. My advice will be to have the top management buy in first and then choose “influencers” within the organisation to work on the initiatives and implement them. Recognition of the “influencers” and employee volunteers is extremely important and the organisation should earmark a budget for these initiatives. DEI is an area where I believe the ROI is multifold in terms of employee productivity and retention.
