DIVERSITY HBLF organizes EU Diversity Month 2022 in Hungary

As Jobsgarden Managing Director Zsuzsa Gárdus, a HBLF board member in charge for the Hungarian Diversity Charter coordination, explains to Diplomacy&Trade, the European Commission has a long-standing commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion and combating discrimination through legislative action. These measures have helped to improve equality and have enabled millions of people to reach their full potential. “At the same time, we all need to work together to create an equal and inclusive environment, including public institutions, private businesses, nonprofit organizations and cities. Especially now, during the COVID-19 pandemic when diversity and inclusion are at risk.”

Diversity Charters

Under the initiative of – and with funding from – the European Commission, the EU Platform of Diversity Charters was created in 2010, offering a place for existing European Diversity Charters (currently 26) to exchange and share experience and good practices more easily through Platform meetings, expert seminars and annual high-level forums. The HBLF board member highlights that Diversity Charters encourage organizations (NGOs, public bodies, private companies, etc.) to develop and implement diversity and inclusion policies. By signing a charter, the given organization voluntarily commits to promote diversity and equal opportunities in the workplace, regardless of, for example, age, disability, gender, race or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation. Becoming a signatory to a Diversity Charter provides, for example, access to vast peer network, publications and supporting tools for benchmarking, measuring and monitoring. Through the platform, promoters can meet regularly, to share their experience and develop common tools.

Promoting diversity in Hungary

Project manager of the Diversity Month 2022 at HBLF, Mandy Fertetics points out that this initiative celebrates organizations’ efforts in promoting diversity and diverse teams in the workplace and in creating inclusive working environments. “The Hungarian Business Leaders Forum is driving the Charter in Hungary and is the coordinative organizer of the local Diversity Month. HBLF is encouraging organizations to organize virtual, hybrid or internal awareness-raising workshops for employees, round-table discussions with experts, share best practices for a commonly used toolkit, organize a social media campaign, collaborate with non-profit organizations or volunteers: be creative and make diversity visible within your organization, despite the pandemic. We want to spread awareness about the topic, good practices and encourage discussions and change.”

Building bridges

This year's European Diversity Month focuses on 'building bridges'. “By building bridges between organizations and areas of inclusion and diversity policy (race, gender, age, etc.), we want to encourage any organization to build partnerships with NGOs, research and educational institutions, other business organizations, governmental institutions, other companies or civil society to work together to promote and improve diversity. We would also like you to build bridges between the different aspects of diversity and make sure that your policies and activities are more intersectional,” Zsuzsa Gárdus says. Mandy Fertetics notes that “when we think about the UN Sustainable development goals that articulate the 17 most important areas of global and local sustainability challenges, or we look on current business crisis, we immediately recognize that all these challenges cannot be managed by only one organization, one industry or any individual. Cooperation, partnership is a must to understand and tackle complex problems and challenges and to find effective solutions. For this reason, the idea of building bridges is not new for any company, neither in Hungary, or elsewhere in the world. Diversity and inclusion are among these challenges. Discrimination is mostly based on prejudices and stereotypes and habits and routines. By building bridges, we resolve these boundaries to create inclusivity for all.”

Diversity management at the workplace

As the EU Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli says, diversity management at the workplace must be one of the main human resources priorities for any employer on Europe. As to how widespread diversity management at workplaces in Hungary is, Zsuzsa Gárdus is of the view that the level of maturity varies among companies in this country (and the world). “Although we still have a lot of firms that just state in a policy their anti-discrimination values, we have more and more companies that have already great trainings, recruitment processes, diversity and inclusion managers or working groups, annual awareness raising programs. It depends on the life cycle of the company, in which sector it is operating, whether diversity is already a business case (for example understanding the diverse portfolio of consumers), etc. and it is also influenced by the owner and their corporate culture. American culture has it already as an integrated element with almost monthly programs also in Hungary as, for example, at Black Rock company or BP, IBM or Eaton. If the company has big call or tele centers, disabled people are likely to be employed at places like banks. Another good example is shared service centers of global companies, where also cultural diversity is common If a company finds its business case on diversity, it is much easier to create an inclusive culture and every day operation. Another important trigger could be a role model in management: if you have a CEO, an HR director or anybody in the leadership team who can integrate this and stand up for it, this will positively influence the whole company.” Mandy Fertetics agrees, bringing up Shell as a very good example of diversity among board members because the highest decisionmaking body is influencing everything directly and indirectly. “Among this year’s events in Hungary, we will also have a great round table discussion on May 23 about this diversity in decision-making bodies, company boards and similar committees. This diversity can mean much more than having female or external directors – much more. Still female leadership is crucial for our society and economy. We will have, for example, an event at the Dutch Embassy where we will discuss the real or mental existence of the glass ceiling in the business sector and diplomacy – a best practice sharing among women CEOs and ambassadors, or the Oscar-winning X Mentor program where successful women managers are mentoring great potential women towards becoming leaders.”

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