Sopra Steria hosted a successful and thought-provoking workshop during this year’s SHE Conference titled Closing the Gap - Digging through your own diversity and building relations beyond our differences. We were able to learn more about what this means in a practical sense, and the best actionable practices from the hosts and facilitators – Ida Charlotte Bratteberg Jakobsen and Bente Stormo Valland.
The Importance of Active Inclusion
Those in leadership positions must take responsibility for going through this process themselves and help others do the same. When you are responsible for people, you must recognise the diversity among them. According to the facilitators of the workshop, Ida and Bente, there are subsequently three things that all leaders should do.
Start the conversation. This could be with yourself as a starting point. It is important to be open and vulnerable both to gain a new perspective and to foster psychological safety within a team.
It is better to do something wrong, than not doing anything at all. We are all imperfect and should have the opportunity to learn together and correct ourselves.
Be active. Inclusion is not passive and needs to be enacted on every level. Who are asked when something needs to get done? Who is a part of decision-making processes? What do we measure and why? What you give attention to grows, so you must be conscious about where you place it.
One person can have a great impact when daring to take this role, they both conclude.
Building Meaningful Relations in the Workplace and Beyond
Ida and Bente wanted to use the workshop to help people have open and meaningful conversations about diversity in the workplace.
According to Bente, we are at a stage where an increasing amount of people are becoming aware of the importance of diversity and inclusion—and while it is easy to support this sentiment—it is more difficult to understand what it really means. Good intentions are a good first step, but it is vital to move beyond this and gain a deeper understanding of the topic, talk about it, and learn to actively contribute.
All workplaces consist of a diverse group of people; therefore you must set the stage for an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, Ida continues. From their experience, one can often appear as someone who is very open and inclusive, without being able to approach difference in interpersonal relations. It is therefore important to get down to the basics, which is what the workshop is about.
While structural changes and aims have been implemented to foster inclusion, we must also meet one another and connect despite difference, prejudice, and the unconscious bias we all have. The latter is unavoidable because all humans have individualised and unique experiences, knowledge, and reference points. This is something we must reflect upon and challenge within ourselves in order to build a foundation for lasting change and progress.
The main three pointers from the workshop were:
Explore the diversity you represent together with your associates - discover both what you have in common and how your experiences might differ
Become aware of how the brain works – our brain can be our biggest challenge
Use this insight to initiate meaningful conversations across differences in the workplace!
Dare to Rethink
A large part of promoting diversity is helping people understand that they are a part of forming a diverse workforce, even in the cases when they are mostly a part of the majority. Using herself as an example as a white, heterosexual, and cis woman with young children, someone like Bente might not think that a large portion of DEI work and concerns are relevant for them. She believes that this is a dangerous mindset, because it means that it becomes easier to distance oneself from the subject.
“Personally, it has been very helpful to be able to refer to myself and my own experiences using identity markers as someone who is most commonly a part of the majority. But I can also walk into a room and suddenly become part of a minority.” Bente continues.
Doing this neutralizes the process of differentiation and alienation that often might occur on both a conscious and subconscious level, Ida adds. This is demonstrated by the increased use of the phrases “cis” and “trans” – by providing an identity marker for all gender experiences, not just those who are marginalized, it becomes easier to have good and open discussions.
Ida further highlights the importance of corporate responsibility and a social justice framework when promoting diversity within corporate spaces. Corporate responsibility entails that you must create positive change both within and outside of the organisation – you play a vital role at both an interpersonal and societal level.
“I think we all need to remember that an organisation is made up by its people, and it is between people that microaggressions and biases are manifested and acted upon,” they continue. Everyone should be able to be their authentic self at work and thrive!
Prioritizing Inner Development and Connection
When asked about what the biggest challenges they have faced when initiating these conversations and training within Sopra Steria, both Ida and Bente immediately agree that the main issue is time, and the lack of it. We need to make sure that we dedicate enough time to this process.
It becomes challenging to ensure that this work remains a core priority when everything else can seem more urgent and overwhelming. From their own experience, Ida knows that when something does not feel as pressing and your intentions are good, it is easy to think that things are better than they are. This builds and reinforces ignorance - we must fight this and create spaces for open conversations and trust.
It is vital to not get defensive when corrected, and rather learn from the experience. It is important to correct it and move on. Speaking from a tech perspective, we can view this process as a software update, which means that we need to find errors. This is only possible if they are noticed and people know how to recognise them which requires that everyone are a part of the conversation.
“An additional barrier to honesty and reflection is the fear of not doing the right thing”, Bente adds. “When everyone just nods along and fail to ask questions, we are not able to do the in-depth work necessary to understand how or why discrimination happens.” We have not faced any resistance within the company, however the main issue we have encountered is encouraging people to take an active part in learning and understanding, as inclusion requires action.
We must be conscious about the different experiences within the concept of diversity. Your colleagues may have had negative experiences you have never dealt with and do not fully understand. Societal norms effect all of us, both to varying degrees of severity and with different consequences.
Creating a Societal Framework Rooted in Social Sustainability
Bente ends the conversation with an optimistic statement – change is possible if you are committed to building it from the inside! For this to be possible, people need to understand what structural discrimination is, and what norms they adhere to. It is vital to be conscious of the part you play in this journey, and continuously ask and reassess what you as a person or organisation are doing.
The company is a part of society, and those who work there are also members of society. Changes within a company can therefore have a wider societal effect, Ida adds. This requires a commitment to continuity, reassessment and shifts in attitudes. If we do the work, companies can play a positive role in society and be an arena for change.
Ida Jakobsen is a business consultant at Sopra Steria and has extensive previous experience working with NGOs. They recently finished their qualitative master's thesis about LGBT+ people at work, with a focus on how sexuality and gender influence people’s wellbeing.
Bente Stormo Valland is a business manager at Sopra Steria. She has a master’s degree in administration and organizational science and has previously worked as an HR manager in Reitangruppen. She has helped organizations with strategic competence management and has also done leadership and employee development for several organizations.
Together with Ida and their colleague Anita Wie Eriksen, she has developed digital training courses and workshops about diversity, inclusion and belonging for their 300 leaders and 3,000 employees.
Thank you, Ida and Bente, for sharing your time and insight with us – and for the wonderful workshop!
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