Written by Christine Schmitt, Workplace & DE&I Program Manager, Puppet Belfast
When I joined Puppet as the workplace manager for Belfast, I knew I was joining a company culture that was very friendly and collaborative — but I could not have predicted just how singular my journey at Puppet would be.
Like many organisations, Puppet embraces the pillars of diversity, equity, and inclusion (often called DE&I) not only because they align with our company values, but because we truly believe that customers and innovation are better served when everyone’s voice is equally heard and valued. Puppet’s values — Be open; be transformational; be for each other — are rooted in a shared ethic instilled in our colleagues across the globe, and embody a collective movement towards continuous inclusion, equity, and accessibility.
But no matter how aligned our values and outlook may be, the truth is that it’s difficult to find practical ways to take action and ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion remain at the forefront of the business.
I began my journey at Puppet as workplace manager but my personal and professional investment in DE&I led me down a more specific path, and my title today includes “DE&I Program Manager.” Puppet is very much fostering autonomy and ownership of one’s career path by providing tools to shape your future role. I was already highly engaged in local and global DE&I initiatives when I decided to try to change the direction of my career to reflect this.
Along my path to becoming DE&I Program Manager, I became an active member and eventual leader of our global IDEA Council. IDEA stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access, and is Puppet’s collective of individuals across the globe who have been nominated into the committee for their involvement in regional DE&I work. As I worked collaboratively with our global IDEA Council over the past few years, we all agreed on one thing: we wanted to elevate our DE&I initiatives in a far-reaching, but immediately impactful way.
We’re very fortunate that our CEO Yvonne Wassenaar is highly invested in DE&I and lent her support to our burgeoning roadmap. With the moral support of our leadership, the IDEA Council worked together to chart a new course that would facilitate meaningful action.
We’ve learned a few things along the way and I want to share our learnings in the hope that others may find this useful on their own journey to make an impact.
Charting a new DE&I course
When the global IDEA Council began discussing how we could address DE&I in a meaningful way, we knew that the only way to move forward was to face our unconscious bias. Despite the diversity on the IDEA Council, each of us brought our own preconceptions and personal experiences to the discussion. In fact, because of our diversity, we each had radically different experiences as employees at Puppet. So how could we come to an agreement on how to evolve?
We came to the realisation that we needed a level of objectivity that we could not find within the workplace, so we decided to hire an external consultant to help us collect data, conduct thorough analysis, and draw meaningful conclusions. After much research, we hired the external US-based consulting firm, Mosaic Consulting, to conduct an extensive workplace equity audit, including a belonging and demographics survey, listening sessions, and an HR lifecycle equity audit.
This process took more than a year. While we were all eager to see immediate action, we came to the understanding that genuine change cannot happen overnight, especially when hundreds of people are involved. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the blueprint we sought to create could not be drafted overnight. This was all indicative of the intentional nature of charting a new DE&I course. We conceded that it would take time and resources to benchmark our new starting point.
Breaking it down into meaningful action
After a year of regular consultations with the IDEA Council and both qualitative and quantitative research, Mosaic Consulting delivered a substantial 24-month roadmap that gives Puppet a framework for radical evolution. This roadmap is akin to a guidebook, providing us direction on which initiatives to focus on in the coming months. It’s a living, changing document that we plan to review and update every six months.
The roadmap is focused on three key areas: workforce training and analysis; empowering communities and allies; and talent acquisition and branding. We broke the roadmap down into short term (6 months); medium term (12-18 months); and long term (18+ months), with actions to complete in each time period.
The first direct action we took as a result of the roadmap was to hire an experienced DE&I director to lead this initiative as we move forward on our journey.
I’ve already mentioned the IDEA Council, which facilitates regional representation from the geographies where Puppet is located. A second direct action from our roadmap is that we are working with the Puppet community to encourage the creation of more ERGs (Employee Resource Groups), which are self-formed groups of employees open to anyone with shared characteristics or life experiences who identifies with a specific identity represented by an ERG. Previously these groups have included women, trans folks, and gender minorities, and people of color; now, new groups are being formed around the LGBTQIA+ community and people who identify as neurodivergent. The goal of ERGs and the more regional IDEA groups (smaller cohorts outside the IDEA Council) is to create an inclusive environment for all employees and foster community.
We’ve already seen strong interest among employees in fostering environments of equity and inclusion. In Belfast, our local IDEA group has been working with partners such as Women Who Code Belfast, The Homeless Period, Specialisterne, and other organisations through meetups, collaborations, and events.
Shared values, shared actions
Every Puppet office has its own unique characteristics, but we all share an ethic around diversity, inclusivity, equity, and access. Each IDEA group is getting involved in their local communities in different ways, while the organisation as a whole is continuing to make strides.
In addition to hiring a new DEI Director and building more ERGs, we are doing deep work to ensure our hiring and retention practices continue to be equitable and inclusive. We are continuing to integrate the feedback from the qualitative and quantitative research Mosaic Consulting conducted. We know this will take time, but with dedication and thoughtful implementation, we are confident that we are mapping a more diverse, more equitable, more inclusive workplace every day.
This article first appeared in the Winter 2021/22 edition of the Sync NI magazine. You can download your FREE copy and sign up to receive future digital editions here.
