Extax Advisory
Apr 13, 20212 min
Updated: Sep 3, 2022
Our people are our unique fingerprint as a network.
The rich diversity of experience, expertise, backgrounds and beliefs we bring together globally, differentiates our network, powers our progress, and enables our success.
We are focused on building a culture where our people experience the network as a great place to grow professionally. To flourish, feel empowered and be as successful as possible for themselves and for our business, it is essential that our stakeholders feel a sense of belonging in our community.
Our individual actions, conversations, behaviours and mindsets can have an impact on life at work and in wider society. So, it starts with you. We encourage each other to be curious, get involved and collectively, we can make change happen.
Diversity is what makes us unique from one and other. It can include demographic and personal differences, some we're born with and others are gained through our experiences. Some differences will be clearly visible, whilst others will be less apparent, or even invisible to people when they meet and interact with us.
Simply having diverse teams is not enough, we must complement our efforts to increase and support diversity with a commitment to creating a culture of inclusiveness - a great working environment where we each feel that we are treated fairly, respected, involved, connected, cared for and that the unique contribution we bring to work is recognised, encouraged and welcomed.
Whilst embracing diversity and creating an inclusive working environment is implicit in our values and behaviours, we recognise that we are still on a journey to truly achieving this. This is a shared responsibility of all of us which will take intention and conscious action to achieve and sustain.
As individuals, teams, offices, sites and countries, the maturity of our knowledge and understanding of diversity and inclusion is at different stages and that is ok. Our approach reflects this, enabling those who are further forward to continue to take action that is meaningful for them, whilst helping those who are just starting out to develop their knowledge and start to engage.
Developing awareness in a multilayered approach
Awareness of demographic and cultural facets of our stakeholders
Assessing whether certain processes are biased
Promoting networks and new networking possibilities
Celebrating communities and diversity
The business case for diversity and inclusion is well proven however we need to continue to reinforce it to raise and sustain the understanding of its importance across organisations and in wider society.
Increasing our diversity and making our workplace a great place to work for everyone will not only benefit peers, but all our stakeholders as well, by helping to:
Attract, engage and retain high performing, diverse talents which reflects the communities in which we operate in.
Ensure we are fully valuing and leveraging the potential of all our stakeholders.
Create deep and responsive partnerships with our increasingly diverse customers.
Be innovative, solving business problems efficiently and creatively through the diversity of thought.
Work collaboratively and effectively regardless of location or background.
Demonstrate our commitment to our values as well as being a sustainable, ethical network.
Ultimately, this will contribute to improving our overall performance, including market repute and financial returns.