The benefits of creating a gender-diverse workforce

Gender diversity is a potent tool for both the enterprise and employees, widening the talent pool, encouraging staff retention and making the organization a more appealing place to work.

Gender diversity is essentially the equitable, unbiased representation of different genders within an organization, bringing new ideas, experiences and perspectives. A gender-diverse workforce helps the organization better serve an increasingly diverse partner and customer base.

Breaking down barriers

Diversity is at the heart of the Orange Business ethos. We must celebrate people’s unique qualities and backgrounds to foster a happy and successful workplace. We can nurture a more creative and productive workforce by cultivating a culture of diversity and inclusion in the technology industry and beyond.

When it comes to gender diversity, for example, Orange Business aims to achieve 25% of women in digital technical roles by 2025. It is also working to reduce the wage gap and achieve equal pay for like-for-like situations.

Orange Business offers women equal access to development and mentoring programs, whether mixed or dedicated, as well as long-term career support and actively encourages women to apply for senior management roles. Our employees have completed e-learning courses on gender equality worldwide – the courses are available in five languages.

At the same time, Orange Business realizes the importance of introducing young women to technology early to support the next generation of digital advancement. To this end, Orange has launched the Hello Women program designed to increase female representation in the industry by raising awareness of technical jobs among girls and students. It also actively identifies, recruits and retains more women in technical roles.

Working to close the diversity gap

Here at Orange Business, we are working to challenge gender stereotypes. We believe all companies should prioritize creating an inclusive and gender-diverse workplace where everyone is heard and their efforts and input are appreciated.

At Orange Business, we promote gender diversity and inclusivity at work. We tackle unconscious bias and prioritize creating a safe and equitable environment where everyone's input is valued, regardless of gender. We listen to our employees' experiences and work together to create a better future for all.

We talk to employees at Orange Business to find out their experience of gender diversity and inclusion in the workplace and their vision for the future.

Follow Deborah on LinkedIn.

Question: What does diversity mean to you? What is your vision of diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

[Deborah DeCan]: My vision is that the workplace allows every employee to feel welcome and respected and is given the same opportunities to grow and succeed at work.

Question: How does diversity and inclusion impact your daily life at Orange Business?

[Deborah DeCan]: I have worked remotely for three years, so my recent daily life at Orange is unaffected. Orange Business has continued to be a place of diversity and inclusion for on-site and hybrid working modes.

I've been with Orange Business for 28 years and have only experienced diversity and inclusion while working here.

Question: How far do you feel Orange Business is along the diversity and inclusion journey?

[Deborah DeCan]: I believe Orange Business works hard to be inclusive and diverse.

Question: Please tell us about some behaviors, tools or methods that have allowed you to demonstrate diversity, equity and inclusion during your career.

[Deborah DeCan]: Very early in my career, being a female technician, I was seen differently than male technicians by the company I worked for or by many customers. I was not given the opportunities or salary my male counterparts received.

My past experiences help me today so that I try to see the individual and what they bring to the situation before judging their ability.

Question: What advice would you provide to managers looking to improve life-long learning, retain talent in technology roles and be more inclusive?

[Deborah DeCan]: Ensure all employees have the same support, encouragement and opportunities from management.

Question: And to your peers?

[Deborah DeCan]: Before judging or excluding fellow employees, wait to see what benefits they bring to the team. For example, I am a more senior tech, and it would be easy for me to dismiss the input from more junior technicians. Yet I have learned so much from some of our youngest and most junior technicians due to their different perspectives and knowledge base.

Follow Alaa on LinkedIn.

Question: What does diversity mean to you? What is your vision of diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

[Alaa Desoky]: Diversity and inclusion in the workplace means having people in the same organization that have different genders, races, ages, personalities, locations, education and backgrounds.

Question: How does diversity and inclusion impact your daily life at Orange Business?

[Alaa Desoky]: Orange Business has continually been adopting diversity. Thanks to that, it's increasing creativity and innovation initiatives. Also, it helps in better decision-making and problem-solving through out-of-the-box ideas.

Question: Please tell us about some behaviors, tools or methods that have allowed you to demonstrate diversity, equity and inclusion during your career.

[Alaa Desoky]: We have strong female leadership at Orange Business. I joined in 2017, and throughout my career at Orange Business, I had the opportunity to lead and manage technical teams of different ages and backgrounds in one of the most booming technologies. Also, I have been highly engaged in the business development of our offers.

Question: Can you tell us about any programs or initiatives you are currently taking advantage of and those benefiting the entire company?

[Alaa Desoky]: Gender diversity at Orange Business has been beneficial in being in a managerial position at a young age, ensuring equal pay and having a good work-life balance.

Question: What advice would you provide to managers looking to improve life-long learning, retain talent in technology roles and be more inclusive?

[Alaa Desoky]: Look for employees' feedback, encourage collaboration and offer mentoring.

Question: And to your peers?

[Alaa Desoky]: Improve communication and support open culture without bias or discrimination.

Follow Devesh on LinkedIn.

Question: What does diversity mean to you? What is your vision of diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

[Devesh Torul]: Diversity and inclusion in the workspace is acknowledging and respecting differences. It is primordial that we take time to ponder on and celebrate diversity. All over the world, more and more people are unable to empathize or/and have simply a human approach to our societal challenges. Amidst the everchanging worldly cultural landscape, taking a yearly rendezvous like Diversity Month to make more people diversity-aware in its different forms is, beyond question, a must. I am happy that Orange Business respects this commitment every year.

For diversity and inclusion to take effect in the workplace, all lines of management must undergo an Emotional Intelligence workshop, assessments and tailored training. Only when we empower each individual with the proper introspection will they bud out beautifully and be able to address the current key diversity and inclusion challenges. Having more and more women in top or technical positions at Orange shows the efforts to alleviate gender-based discrimination.

Today, both Orange and Orange Business CEOs are women, amongst other female leaders at Orange, demonstrating that neutrality is part of our culture. Not being burdened by a biased approach allows our management to bring a true sense of recognition of each employee's contribution, be it through equitable financial or non-financial rewards. My global vision is that all employees, Business Analysts, customers, shareholders and partners should endorse Orange as a company embracing Diversity and Inclusion without reserve.

Question: How does this impact your daily life at Orange Business?

[Devesh Torul]: I am proud to say that my current team accounts for 50% of the female-to-male ratio. An effort is being made to not only be gender diverse but also to develop an emphatic understanding of each individual to have fewer business impacts related to issues of organizational, external, internal and personal layers of the Diversity model.

What is Emotional Intelligence & Diversity? — EIDI (eidi-results.org)

We foster inter-generations to the service of diversity. The teams with young members tend to move to new job roles after some time. Thus, we have the challenge of retraining and refocusing on diversity and inclusion with new external employees who may not have been exposed to the richness of this subject. Monitoring good practices by fellow managers in their daily activities is a recurrent activity that is sometimes overlooked due to operational or business urgencies. Therefore, having digital tools to accompany our staff and management may be good. These tools allow communication channels for anyone to voice out issues and challenges and request to receive further support.

Question: How far do you feel Orange Business is along the diversity and inclusion journey?

[Devesh Torul]: There has been a lot of work done at Orange Business over the years. I note that we have many more women at the top leadership level, we empower through predefined programs for women in tech, and with the Mobilisnoo platform, there is undoubtedly a greater awareness and inclusion of LGBT+ in Orange Group. LGBT+ inclusion expectations are rising rapidly; thus, more understanding and care toward this community requires continued efforts. Digital training has been developed, such as the "Gender Equality Visa," amongst many other initiatives, and these have, for sure, contributed to the highly motivating and appreciated milestones of Orange Business.

Question: Can you tell us about some behaviors, tools or methods that have allowed you to demonstrate diversity, equity and inclusion during your career?

[Devesh Torul]: As a manager, I have always promoted a performance-based evaluation for recruiting newcomers or assessing current staff, fostering the business ambitions first, irrespective of the people's background. We are also responsible for permeating an environment where people feel included, be it women, men or whatever background they come from. I have also supported highlighting cases of biases to my management and with remedial actions in consequence. Inclusion also implies our ability to provide adequate space for each to be themselves and integrate their creativity into the organization.

Our approach starts with the management style, which needs to be mixed – democratic, servant, autocratic or other, depending on the criticality of the business situation and the level of professional and personal awareness of the individual. I have contributed to CSR events where we worked to bring smiles to the faces of children with issues of domestic violence or coming from families with financial challenges. These included celebrating Christmas by offering them warm meals, gifts, and, more importantly, talking and playing with them. These children did not have the chance of having responsible fathers, and thus through another specific Orange Dad program, a team of men dedicated some of their time to the children.

Question: What advice would you provide to managers and peers looking to improve life-long learning, retain talent in technology roles and be more inclusive?

[Devesh Torul]: To managers, I recommend being aware of unconscious bias that may trigger mechanistic reactions. Recruitments should focus on what the recruits could bring to the business in terms of experience and expertise. Talking about Diversity and Inclusion in the teams is also vital during team meetings. April, Diversity Month, is the best time to start if this discussion has yet to be kicked off. It is also a way for us, managers, to self-evaluate our efforts on this aspect. Communication is essential.

As managers, we should also be attentive to biases from the recruits or our staff's attitudes based on perceived prejudice, proof and behavioral traits. Suppose there is a suspected tendency of biases. In that case, this matter should be addressed with the proper support to the staff by acculturating, coaching and training the person on Diversity and Inclusion.

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