Celebrating Diversity & Inclusion
This week at Fujitsu we are celebrating the work we do throughout the year to strengthen diversity and inclusion. I’d like to explain more about why diversity and inclusion is embedded into our business decision making and tell you about our plans for the week ahead.
Why is Fujitsu focusing on diversity and inclusion?At Fujitsu we believe in the power of difference to create a better future for everyone.
To support our constant pursuit of innovation and strengthen our competitive advantage, we are committed to bringing together diverse perspectives and talents in an inclusive environment where all our people feel they can be completely themselves.
We use the term ‘diversity’ to refer to difference in its broadest sense, encompassing both our innate personal characteristics (such as age, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation) and our personalities and working styles. We use the term ‘inclusion’ to refer to an open, respectful and supportive environment where all our people know that they will be welcomed, listened to and valued.
We are committed to winning the right way and having a positive impact on wider society. We believe that being diverse and inclusive is the right thing to do and enhances our performance as a business by enabling us to better anticipate the needs of our customers, attract and retain the richest mix of talent, and enhance creativity and innovation.
Why are you passionate about diversity and inclusion?I believe strongly in having diverse teams, including diverse opinions to create more innovation. Within my own life, as an Engineer, I often found I was the only female in a group. Feeling included was important to allow me to fully participate. My oldest son is disabled and I am keenly aware of the need for accessibility, as well as inclusion. But in a business context, it just makes sense to allow all of us to be ourselves in a work context and for us as an organisation to do all we can to enable this.
What is Fujitsu doing in the diversity and inclusion space?We encourage diversity and inclusion across all aspects of the business by focusing on five key areas, which we call ‘the 5 Rs’:
Recruitment: working with our recruitment partners to promote Fujitsu as an employer of choice and build a more diverse workforce.
Retention: promoting the enablement and development of all our employees. One example of this would be our Disability Passport, designed to make it easier to implement workplace adjustments for our disabled employees as they move around the business so they can carry out their jobs effectively.
Representation: showcasing role models and working with targeted professional communities, such as the Fujitsu Distinguished Engineers, to increase diversity across all areas and levels of our business.
Realisation: creating a more inclusive working environment and culture, for example, by rolling out an Unconscious Bias and Inclusive Behaviours training programme to all our people.
Reputation: engaging with our customers, suppliers and partners to raise the visibility of this agenda and promote best practice.
Our family of Inclusion Networks – the Cultural Diversity Network, the Gender Network, SEED (Supporting and Engaging Employees with Disabilities) and Shine LGBT+, are invaluable in supporting these efforts and driving the diversity and inclusion agenda. To learn more about the role played by our networks look out for our daily blogs by each network chair this week.
What have been the highlights from the past year?We have had an extremely busy 12 months and each of our Inclusion Networks has achieved some great things. We were named Business in the Community’s Responsible Business of the Year 2015, something that I am very proud of. Another highlight for me personally was being nominated for Information Age’s Woman of the Year 2015. Other highlights include being placed in Stonewall’s Top 100 Inclusive Employers for the first time this year and achieving a 40% increase in the number of employees sharing with us that they have a disability since May 2015. This shows that increasingly we are comfortable with sharing who we are at work.
What are we looking forward to over the next 12 months?One of the goals of our diversity and inclusion strategy is to work more closely with different regions globally. We operate in over 100 countries worldwide and are becoming increasingly international in our outlook. We want to ensure that our people always experience a diverse and inclusive environment within Fujitsu, wherever they are in the world.
We are planning to launch an Intergenerational Network over the next few months. There are now four different generations within our workforce, each with different priorities, expectations and communication and working styles. The new Network would help to improve understanding between these groups and make sure we are leveraging the strengths that the different generations can bring to our workforce.
I’m also looking forward to the Be Completely You initiative that we are launching this week. Empowering our people to be completely themselves within our organisation is critical to our success. Feeling comfortable and accepted in the workplace enhances our capacity to achieve our full potential and deliver what matters to our customers.
What are we doing to celebrate Diversity and Inclusion Week?We have planned an ambitious programme of thought provoking and fun filled activities during Diversity and Inclusion Week, with stalls at sites across the UK & Ireland to reach out to a wide range of employees, online conversations, a quiz, a Diversity and Inclusion video, stories from our people and far more.
We are introducing the Take a Break initiative which will help employees to expand their internal networks. Meeting new people is one of the best ways to become more inclusive and open to difference, so Take a Break will introduce people to a new colleague.
One of the highlights of the week will be an event to celebrate our achievements over the past year. This will be an opportunity to recognise the dedicated members of our networks who have made an outstanding contribution to promoting diversity and inclusion. We are delighted to be joined by external guests: Claire Harvey, the only openly lesbian athlete of the Paralympic Games 2012, who will share her reflections on our Be Completely You theme and Caroline Waters OBE, who will speak about progress on diversity and inclusion in wider society.
All of these activities aim to promote our approach to diversity and inclusion, increase understanding of the business benefits of diversity, and inspire our employees to embrace more inclusive behaviours.
You can find out more about Fujitsu’s approach to diversity and inclusion on our
website and you can follow updates from our diveristy and inclusion week on Twitter #BeCompletelyYou
Be sure to check in next week and hear how Fujitsu Northern Ireland celebrated diversity and inclusion week.
