Investis Digital's 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Efforts
This year, a big priority at Investis Digital was to evolve and enhance its focus on our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion. Throughout the year, Diversity and Inclusion committees across our offices came together to pool their skills and resources into making Investis Digital the best company it could be. As we head into 2021, our commitment to this area only deepens, and we are excited to look back at what we’ve accomplished and look forward to everything there is to come.
We spoke to our Diversity and Inclusion chairs from New York, Europe, Phoenix, and India, and here are some of their thoughts on the year gone by.
What are some of the initiatives your region did this year?
Europe: This year, we hosted a session looking at equality versus equity and ran a privilege walk with all EU offices, headline sponsored the Ascential’s Charity Auction Gala and donated to the Prince’s Trust which helps vulnerable young people get their lives on track, created and published a pro bono website for the mental health charity, Mindset, and ran a D&I panel discussion in our final town hall of the year.
India: In India, we made efforts to bring awareness to our local office in Baroda what our commitment as a company to this important initiative is. While we may not share the same issues in regions where our other office is located, we found there were ways to improve what we were already doing here. For example, our regional Events Committee (popularly known as ECB) that primarily manages the Events throughout the year, is now merged into the D&I committee. This allowed us to celebrate Diwali, bring all our employees together to hoist the Indian flag on India’s Independence Day, and investigate any missing holidays not included in our mandatory public holidays. Before we closed off the year, we also took part in a CSR initiative in collaboration with collaborated with two Baroda-based NGOs (Sevatirth & Happy Faces) and launched our “Share the Warmth” campaign where we donated several face masks, warm blankets, clothes, groceries & essentials.
What does diversity and inclusion mean to you?
Phoenix: It means creating a workplace culture that promotes valuing the unique perspectives of each individual, treating all co-workers with respect, and supporting each other as we work towards a common goal.
New York: It also bolsters our commitment to align our business goals to promote and sustain a culture that appreciates and recognizes the various groups that make up the fabric of our company. Recognizing that our different perspectives allow us to create better solutions for our clients and drive better performance for the company as a whole.
What are three words you would use to describe our culture?
New York: Respectful, Understanding, Supportive
India: Dynamic, Equal, Vibrant
Europe: Enabling, Open, and Growing
Phoenix: Team-Oriented, Supportive, Productive
What are some of the diversity and inclusion issues you see facing the technology industry today?
New York: In an industry that is 75% male, the lack of women in technology is a significant issue that can largely be attributed to gender bias. For women who have eschewed “gender normative” schooling and manage to get a job in tech, they are expected to behave like their male counterparts; often face discrimination, and routinely get passed over for deserved promotions. More work needs to be done to eliminate implicit gender bias against women in the technology industry and find ways to attract more women in tech at every stage of their lives. This is also an intersectional issue that affects women of color even more deeply than white women and needs to be looked at as such.
To this end, there also needs to be a sharp focus on the promotion and inclusion of BIPOC across the gender spectrum, as their presence in the industry is underrepresented as well, especially at the highest levels. Without a concentrated effort to uplift and extend opportunities to all people, change will not occur.
Europe: Like the U.S., representation of women, particularly at a management level can be improved. At Investis Digital, we have made great efforts to uplift the women leaders of the company with the head of marketing, managing directors in both New York and Phoenix, and the company CFO, both being women. Additionally, mental health is an area that needs continuous focus in 2021 especially as we adjust to new ways of working and working even harder to create an inclusive, open environment where our culture is felt and is something that supports everyone in their day-to-day roles
What does your committee hope to achieve in 2021?
Phoenix: 2020 was a year that allowed tremendous introspection and finding ways to do things better and recognize where improvement can be made. As a committee that meets globally quarterly, we expect to partner with each other closely in 2021. We want to improve our participation in events across our offices to not only educate but to effect change. Leveraging the success of past events like virtual privilege walks, viewing parties, and evaluating our own processes with our executive leadership team, we want to blaze a trail for other companies but also live to our value to Keep Inspiring.