Diversity and the Change We Want to Make
Do we want to create within our work environment a better version of the world we live in?
This question was made in a weekly meeting to discuss everything in engineering, product, and design. That’s when we started questioning ourselves (or better yet, public questioning with others) what we are doing to make this a better place to work in, and how we are creating a safe space for everybody. Even though we have leaders who reinforce that we here don’t tolerate any kind of discrimination, and even though we do have here a little bit more diversity than that which is seen in other companies, we still think that’s not enough. We didn’t have — spoiler — until last month actions that were directed to talk about diversity, inclusion, and ways to make this a better place for everybody.
Bearing that in mind, a major number of colleagues gathered and started a Diversity Guild, in which we have spokespersons for four major groups here at Grupo Zap: LGBTQIA+, Women, Ethnic Equality and Person with Disabilities.
Following the calendar, we saw ahead of us a great opportunity to start the change, and not only change our brand logo to a rainbow color but also to make a real change for the LGBTQIA+ community, mainly in engineering, product and design, which is traditionally a very manly and heterosexual area. With that in mind, we started a productive discussion with other areas of the company and found out that an initiative was being formed in other groups. That made us so happy, seeing that the company was aligned with us and ready to make a move. So let’s see all the things we did this month. Hold your wig, start your engines and come with us:
POSTERS IN THE ENTRANCE
We asked a group of 15 LGBTQIA+ colleagues to gather and write phrases of the LGBTQIA+ universe so that we could expose them in really amazing posters right at the entrance of our building. And the results? 10, 10, 10 across the boards!
RAINBOW EVERYWHERE
We put a rainbow path leading the entrance of the building to our poster wall so that we would have as great an impact as one could imagine. To go with the path, we put a rainbow sticker at our entrance’s roof.
NEVER FORGET STONEWALL
In each floor, we projected in our TVs an information bomb about the LGBTQIA+ history and facts. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were remembered since day one: their fight, courage and the start of everything!
OUR VOICE IS HEARD (AND SEEN)
A group of employees, including myself, made a video in which we talk about “what made us proud of being LGBTQIA+” and “how does Grupo Zap help us to be prouder?”. The video is beautiful and full of amazing stories.
DRAG QUEEN TALK
We invited an amazing Brazilian Drag Queen called Rita von Hunty to give us a speech about the LGBTQIA+ history, what each letter means as well as how we can include and develop diversity in our teams. What a class we had!
SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD
And now, for the last part, we are sharing with the world (at LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Medium)! We want to motivate other companies to make a change, to start including and educating employees so that we can have more LGBTQIA+ people on engineering, product, and design! We want the whole company to be empathic, safe and amazing for every employee.
IS THAT ALL? SURE NOT!
As RuPaul Charles sings: This is the beginning! We are preparing much more to continue to question ourselves and to include more and more diversity in our team. Our guild is working day and night to bring new activities, talks, and workshops from each group we are developing. Let’s transform the world together!
