“Innovation can only be achieved through inclusion and plurality of thought.” This statement was made by Dutchman Ramon Jubels, lead partner at KPMG Brazil, during the event Breaking Walls – Diversity and Inclusion, held by CEBDS. The debate also included the participation of Camila Weber, Public Relations Manager at WeWork, Mariana Simões, Sustainability and Diversity Supervisor at White Martins, and was moderated by journalist Alexandre Gaspari.
To introduce the topic of prejudice barriers that still exist in Brazil, Ramon Jubels shared a bit of his personal experience when he arrived in the country. “I came from the Netherlands as an openly gay man, but I thought about ‘going back into the closet.’ My husband and I were denied membership in a São Paulo club with the justification that other members would not like their children to share the pool with homosexuals,” said the executive. According to Jubels, this is a mistake that generates financial losses for an organization, both in relation to the end customer and the internal public. “The closeted LGBT professional spends 30% of time and energy to represent a character within the company that does not exist. This means a loss of productivity and engagement,” he explains.
The risk of loss of brand value and sales due to prejudiced and non-inclusive companies was debated by professionals, but the central idea that appeared most in the guests' speeches was how a diverse work environment in terms of skin color, aesthetics, age, gender, zip code, sexual orientation, social class and accent increases productivity, creativity and the power of innovation in business.
Mariana Simões said that White Martins has had an inclusion policy for people with disabilities (PWDs) since 1975, but for the past 10 years the group has been working with the idea of plurality in its workforce as a global strategy. Since then, it has sought to increasingly increase the inclusion of women and other minority groups in its teams. “Our big leap forward was when the value of diversity as a business reached senior management. If we want to be an innovative company, how could we achieve this by reproducing the thinking bias of socially equal employees?” she argues.
WeWork's PR manager, Camila Weber, brought to the debate the company's initiative to include immigrant refugees. Originally from the United States, the program WeWork Refugee Initiative has the goal of hiring 1,500 refugees by 2022. In July of this year, the Brazilian branch mobilized to bring the program to the country due to the increase in the flow of Venezuelan refugees. “In addition to direct hiring, our mission is to increase the visibility of the initiative for our outsourced companies and the companies that occupy our coworking buildings in Brazil. Our idea is to multiply the idea and help connect companies and immigrant talents”, he says.
The full recording of the event “Breaking Walls – Diversity and Inclusion” is available for viewing on the CEBDS Facebook page. The aim of the event is to bring discussions about sustainability to companies through cross-cutting themes in all areas.
