Hi everybody and welcome to The Inclusiveship Show
the place to get practical insights to make inclusion happen in the business
world and today I'm absolutely delighted to be here with Poonam Sharma Poonam
a warm welcome to you thank you so much for accepting my invitation thank you so
much Thais I think it's equally a pleasure for me to be here and to be
sharing my thoughts I think it's a huge opportunity thanks for that thank you
let me share with him a few words about Poonam so Poonam sharma is Head OD and
talent at Alkemy she is a seasoned Human Resources professional as well as
and OD expert with over 14 years of diverse yet deep experience prior to her
current role at Alkem Poonam has led the D&I function for all Citigroup
companies in India Poonam has been adjudged as the young
professional of the Year in 2014 and amongst top 100 global diversity leaders
in 2018 by the world HRD Congress under her leadership alchemy India and the
Citigroup have received several external recognitions and one of my first questions
for you is how did you get involved with inclusion and diversity what's your
story well Thais be honest you know like my story really starts from my childhood
you know as a child my brother me and my sister always had equal opportunities to
you know decide our education take our personal decisions and even make very
very critical choices in life and you know considering the socio-cultural
context that I belong to in India as well as the times we come from not many
Indian women could do that you know I saw
my peers struggling either on account of taking a decision with regards to their
education or simply put the personal life
or even larger decisions you know so for me it was a tremendous opportunity to be
able to do so so when I took up diversity I thought it was something
more than myself you know an opportunity to contribute to the society to work for
equal rights for women to you know work for their fairness and yet stay
meritocratic so i think you know right from my childhood I wanted to be
involved in something which was more altruistic yet allows me an opportunity
to be more than myself yeah not everybody values diversity and inclusion
in the same way that you do Poonam and especially working in corporations
what's your killer argument try to convince people of the value of
inclusion and diversity true so know whenever I meet a business leader and
I'm asked a question regarding you know what the value of diversity I say well
imagine an organization today you know which is global in nature which wants to
make Martlet rain every who can corner of the world and in every country and in
every sort of a different customer what will happen if it operates with a set of
employees which do not represent such a diverse mix you know what will happen to
the products that they produce what will happen in to the kind of understanding
they bring to the table with respect to diverse customers you know the second
case in point is really imagine an organisation which is planning to sort
of attract a diverse diverse talent and yet has a non-inclusive culture so you
know essentially what I'm trying to say is that an organisation that embraces
diversity you know sort of gains a lot of diversity dividend you know either
quantify by Lipsy and innovative set of customers or a diverse set of customers
to put it correctly a greater market share or a diversity dividend in terms
of being established in every part of the world
successfully and sustainably for that particular argument Wow I know there is
something it's the first time that I hear this expression the diversity
dividend I think that's so powerful and it's so like business language right
yeah that's great and what's the most effective initiative that you've ever
taken in this area well you know that's a very good question you know I'm
totally totally passionate about diversity I think there is one
initiative which I took in my role as the diversity officer of Citigroup in
India which is a close to my heart you know so this is at the time when I
joined City almost 50% of women who left the organization put it the existence of
unconscious biases as a key reason believing you know biases for example in
terms of that when women go through marriage maternity and even mobility
they slow down in their career they are not aspirational anymore and you know
take a back footing in terms of productivity you know there was another
very strong bias in terms of that you know longer hours in office really you
know or longer phase time converts into higher productivity so the initiative
that I took aim that really sensitizing the leaders in terms of the unconscious
biases and also somewhere telling them about the impact that creates on the
other gender you know how difficult it is to have a non inclusive culture and
get work towards the organizational objectives so you know really for this
initiative claves I worked for a month very intensively
with the DNI research organization which was a you know notably known for its
diversity and inclusion research we carved out a very powerful workshop
which was based on corporate theatre methodology so we you know sort of took
actual instances from city india you know we played it out in terms of the
role plays on how women on board on how women were coming back from maternity or
marriage feeling when they come back into the workplace city
and I think that was the point when city leaders actually felt you know what they
were doing it was all unconscious you know they were not able to understand
what they were doing and how they were impacting women at the workplace so I
think that was a more powerful most powerful initiative ever ah you know
what I did additionally was to make it sustainable and ensure that these
unconscious biases are you know totally totally removed from the system
I sort of spearheaded the creation of an Indian River City Council led by RC u we
created gender networks generational networks throughout different states and
countries in India so that they support women in every corner in the joining
city and I think within a year and a half of doing so phase we were
recognized by NH already in the National Human Resource Network as one of the top
ten organizations for gender diversity and you know we improved we gave an
inclusive workplace you know because unconscious biases are very difficult to
point out it is very difficult to make people aware because there are much deep
rooted and softer issues so today that is very close to my heart
congratulations you know for that in there is something that you mentioned
you know when you started doing the workshop with leaders in actually they
were not aware yeah the impact because I believe in every diversity area but
especially when it comes to gender there is this perception gap you know we even
know what they are going through but maybe sometimes male leaders they have
no clue it's not that even once that they you know that they don't want to
take care of the situation simply that they are not aware we're having that
awareness to people so important very important yeah and what's the most
common objection you come across in how there is to that
you know please that the most common objection and I would like to bring this
point very beautifully in is that you know people feel the diversity
inclusion should always be quantified and at the same time the belief is that
diversity and inclusion is only a good to have you know so I believe that while
it is important to assign a metric and to measure the impact of diversity I
think there's somewhere you know not understanding the software and the
deeper underlying cultural issues or biases you know not everything can be
quantified right so I believe that diversity is beautiful in a way because
it's linked to culture it's deep rooted in the values attitudes and belief some
part of it will definitely be visible in business numbers directly you know while
others are for the leaders to understand you know others are more culturally
built and you know it's very important for a leader to be mature to understand
both the numbers part of it the strategy part of it and the culture and the
humane side of it so that's what I would say I think I'm Stan he says it's not
everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted
counts yeah I think it relates nicely not what you've just said yeah you
beautifully summed it up yeah and you know one of the common objections that I
come across is that people think that diversity inclusion initiatives they go
against the meritocracy principle yes leaders that say you know I just want
the best person for the job you know I know what I don't see peoples in there
or color or whatever you know yeah well they respond to that type of reaction so
you know somewhere I believe to be honest that diversity and inclusion is a
journey right while affirmative action or you know some of the directives may
be necessary to bring go not equality but fairness and workplace you know more
of diversity and inclusion should also be natural but you know let's be
practical the truth is that when I see a workplace
I see more number of men as compared to women I see certain
generations working in a different way as compared to others so there are
differences for sure right and it is important to take some interventions to
bring them up the same curve and you know if it were a perfect world then
diversity and inclusion would be so much more easier but the fact is that we are
all different and it's important to ensure fairness meritocracy and not
equality you know so fairness and equality should be understood very
differently the truth is that women are
underrepresented in a certain way the truth is that yes they can be
unconscious biases so important it is important to take a good and a very
practical view to that oh can you develop a little bit Poonam on the
difference between fairness and equality you said there is a difference yes yes
yes so you know fairness basically means that for example if there were fifty
fifty percent representation let's say both the genders in the workplace and
there were no sort of unconscious biases right I would have possibly taken
possibly no particular steps or special steps for women to come up the curve
right and to be more represented in the workplace now it's just fair to take
steps to ensure there is you know more representation of women in the workplace
because you know somewhere they're not fairly represented in the mix right so
that's the fairness or exit and hence I mean if some of these initiatives are
really necessary to ensure that you know those unconscious biases go way there
are spareness and meritocracy in terms of taking decisions regarding career
regarding promotion and performance on equality is a little different from
Paris so that's the whole point
yeah so I think the best way to respond to non-inclusive behaviors thief is
really to say that those behaviors are unconscious
right so the moment I say and I tell my leaders that look these behaviors are
unconscious I think they all begin from a very positive space and possibly they
were unaware of beings behaviors and there is much more willingness and
readiness to change it right and a second very positive way to ensure and
respond to non-inclusive behaviors is to equip your leaders and people managers
with the right mindset with the right tools to be able to change themselves
you know when become more inclusive so there's a very very good point which you
know I would say I would say the inclusion dividend book clarifies it
says when you have to change somebody always start from positive mindset in a
positive way and you don't respond to behaviors by telling the other person
that particularly or possibly they are unconscious right and that's where the
will change begins you know make people feel guilty
to begin oh right yes and what is the biggest mistake to make in this area I
think the biggest again mistake to begin is to think that you know that diversity
and inclusion is only a good to have right I think it is important to believe
for any leader or for any employee at large the diversity and inclusion is a
business imperative you know diversity and inclusion is a humane intervention
it is equally required to business to progress and equally required by
employees and human beings to feel valued in the workplace right so it is
not only a compliance perspective you know or a good to have perspective I
think it doesn't need to have perspective okay so really focus on the
on the business case is right yes on business case and which which had which
what was the best peace advice that we were given for them and which I advice
would you give to anyone who wants really to accelerate you know progress
this area I think the best advice is you know to firstly look at the cultural
aspect of diversity and inclusion and you don't do also view inclusion as a
conscious effort you know it's very important to understand the diversity is
a mirror you know existence of differences right and just by being
diverse an organization cannot succeed so my advice to diversity practitioners
and professionals is to make a conscious effort to create an inclusive work force
from every standpoint right and really start by first impacting the mindset
issues you know before you sort of even launched a diversity strategy or an
initiative and you look at the business side I think it's a very important sped
step in an aspect to look at you know the mindset side the cultural barriers
you know some of the attitudes and beliefs which may come in the way of
inclusion it's very important you know so let me also give you an example that
is in City I would have just started by launching a diversity strategy and not
impact the mindset you know through the whole intervention that we did of
creating awareness of unconscious biases and building a management accountability
around it I think we wouldn't have succeeded in a diversity join you too
but can we say can you see the death in itself was part of this strategy yes
like would be a part of the strategy yes maybe yes it was the foundational part
so you're right you know so in a way I'm saying that for any diversity and
inclusion to be successful I think the foundation needs to be very strong in
the foundation is in understanding the values and the beliefs and the mindset
of your leaders and the people management's and what you see oh it's
trendy now from your point of view when it comes to diversity inclusion well you
know what I feel is that in India we were a little late on the global map
to start with the diversity inclusion F and you know but I feel that we have
made significant progress I think the first important trend to notice that
more and more business leaders and the CEOs I think they are able to see a
stronger linkage between diversity and inclusion and the business right so I
was reading about this PwC report recently you know where they had
interviewed the CEOs global CEOs and around 85 percent of them believe that
diversity and inclusion strategy has really made a difference to the bottom
line you know so more and more leaders are coming up taking management
accountability for ensuring that they build inclusive workplaces so that's a
very positive trend to watch out for and you know the second trend I believe is
is really the whole principle of intersectionality and I make it very
simple to explain which is that if we see some of our diversity practices and
initiatives specially the employee resource groups and the networks right
they're typically woven around one or two at the max diversity attributes like
we have gender networks we have generational network right but I think
increasingly diversity strategies and initiatives will assume that every human
has multiple faces and site you know so for example if I'm a woman with special
abilities and from a particular minority you know there will be diversity
practices there will be diversity networks that will cater to my
multifaceted needs so as we're becoming global I think the
intersectionality principle is becoming very important and in India there is a
clear trending and assimilation of this principle of developing strategies which
are more multifaceted in which some more inclusive of major differences in
something that you mentioned before they import you said that it's important that
people focus on the inclusive culture yeah those like diverse is not that the
inclusive maybe in this inclusive mindset an inclusive culture maybe it is
a good response so that intersectionality as well yeah
that's because these the an inclusive mindset it's an inclusive mindset of all
different aspects of a human being usually right no yeah yeah oh yeah there
is a lot of connectedness there is man and do you have a favorite book or
favorite TED talk in increasing the diversity yes the favorite book is that
that I just told you about is inclusion dividend it's Mason Donovan who's
written the book and I think it's it's beautifully it talks about you know
brings diversity very closer you know to business and some of the thoughts which
are pioneering have come from the book for example the very thought that how do
you change you know a person's behavior from becoming known inclusive to
inclusive it talks about that it's a journey that you should start by putting
a person or a leader in a positive space by saying hey you know that behavior is
possibly unconscious and you know if you sort of move from
unconscious bias to becoming more inclusive these are the benefits you
will realize so it's a beautiful book and it links diversity to business very
very nice be my to-do lists you know I'm I'm traveling soon on holidays you know
I'll have this book and any any favorite quotes not really a favorite quote but
maybe practically believe that I have is that inclusion is something that is not
something that you know we should have it's something that is the need of the
Auburn right I think you know with globalization becoming the order of the
day with companies expanding you know for example if you look at Google right
Google wants to make its search engine available to a consumer in every part of
the world and in every language so I think it's important for the companies
and for the ecosystem to become so much more inclusive of the differences that
we have so becoming inclusive as the need of the
other and somewhere I also fundamentally believe that with you know so many
protectionist policies you know coming into being
I think inclusion hensel's becoming even a stronger narrative from the political
social cultural and the individual standpoint yeah well thank you so much
for I enjoyed so much our conversation very much thank you so much thank you
thank you you're welcome I mean I I am they want to think you
know it's great to have your presence presence here and thanks everybody for
watching us and let us know actually what are you key insights from this
conversation you can feel free to leave your comments below feel free to to like
this video to share it to subscribe to my channel and if you want to learn more
about how I support companies on their inclusion journey feel free also to
visit my website www.declicinternational.com
I hope to see you at the next episode until then embrace
differences and make a difference bye Poonam thank you Thais bye
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