All Things Talent, after the immense success of its previous talk in Pune, landed in Mumbai this time to organize another successful talk on 12th August, 2017, which focussed on the significant concept of ‘Diversity & Inclusion’.
The event mainly catered to HR Professionals who were interested in obtaining a better understanding of Diversity in the workplace, holding considerable prior experience in Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives.
‘Workforce Diversity’ describes the differences, similarities, and unique features that exist in an organization’s workforce due to the mixture of gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, disabilities, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious beliefs and other such factors.
Like various other aspects of an organization, this too is a double-edged sword, as it comes with both advantages and challenges, which can often be tricky to deal with.
To create more awareness on how to extract the maximum potential from this diversity of workforce, and to minimize the conflicts arising out of it, All Things Talent invited several influential HR hiring and recruitment experts to this talk in order to facilitate a discussion wherein HR professionals could gather keen insights on present trends in managing workforce diversity and the initiatives taken by various organizations to create a more engaging and inclusive environment, which takes into account this diversity.
Mr. Anoop Kamat – Head Talent Acquisition at Johnson & Johnson, talked about the importance of constant monitoring and measuring the impact of D&I initiatives, to keep a check on whether they are actually making a difference or not. He also talked about how D&I initiatives involve ‘betting’ on a new person or new talent, as he/she is pitched to the senior management. This betting, explained Anoop, counts as an important move to instill confidence in a new employee, who is already coming to terms with a ‘culture shock’ associated with a shift in organization. He also highlighted the importance of keeping D&I initiatives simple and integrating them within existing frameworks rather than going for an entirely new one, which may complicate the entire process.
Mr. Ashish Bahl – Head Leadership Hiring at Ocwen Financial Solutions Pvt. Ltd. , broadly centred his talk on the prevailing gender biases in the Indian society and the lack of female representation in the employment scenario. He gave the audience an insight to the biases which exist in households and how they often tend to spill into the workplace. He then elaborated upon the necessary tools which play a significant role in removing gender biases from the hiring process, such as blind auditions and introducing gender-neutral job descriptions.
Ms. Vinath Hegde – Head CRM at Eureka Forbes, conducted a special session on the ‘EuroAble’ story, an initiative by Eureka Forbes. As explained by Vinath, EuroAble is a BPO of Eureka Forbes which is entirely run by specially-abled workforce. This is one of the projects formulated and launched under the leadership of Vinath as Head CRM. She spoke about the challenges faced by her in setting up this initiative and also about the pride with which all 130 members of the BPO come into work everyday. It was indeed a very moving and inspiring account which earned Eureka Forbes heartfelt respect and gratitude of everyone around.
Ms. Deepa Shankar – Diversity & Inclusion Consultant (Erstwhile, Head of Human Resources at Bristol-Myers Squibb), shared her views on the different focus areas of D&I initiatives based on different societies. She supported this point by taking examples of India and Japan, which are largely patriarchal in nature and as a result focus more on gender diversity and less on the generational differences in any workforce. She also raised some pertinent points on the shared responsibility of the HR and Leadership to drive the D&I initiatives in an organization, as the HR alone can only disseminate the information and not really implement the initiative unless it receives a solid backing and support from the leadership.
All four presentations were followed by a Q&A session by the audience members wherein the speakers resolved any queries pertaining to their respective presentations or on the theme of the talk, in general.
The event concluded with the presentation of mementos to all the panellists and proceedings were taken forward to a lunch session, which marked the end of all the sessions.
In totality the event turned out to be a huge success, as evinced by the feedback received by our team and we thank all our esteemed guests and speakers for making it so!
See you soon, in a different city, with a new theme!
