Dell was one of the key sponsors at the Women in Tech Africa conference held in Cape Town last month. Among the key speakers was vice president of client solutions, Dave Brooke, who gave a presentation to the women and delegates in attendance about how to address barriers to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) with the Many Advocating Real Change (MARC) initiative.
In his address Brooke said that Dell has made D&I a core pillar of its business strategy and operations, which is driven directly by its founder and CEO, Micheal Dell, who gets his leaders to follow his example by speaking regularly to the employees in the company about diversity and the positive social impact the firm aims to drive.
“You can address diversity on a spreadsheet. You just need enough of a certain group and it looks like the organisation is diverse. But getting inclusion right is the real challenge. The culture of the company must embrace and celebrate inclusion and it is important to understand and continuously address the many ways we create barriers to D&I,” said Brooke.
Dell Technologies adds that in making the D&I change stick, it has rolled out the MARC initiative, which is designed to engage men in creating a more inclusive work environment that aims to promote a more collaborative and inclusive leadership style.
“D&I can’t be done in isolation from the rest of the organisation. It must be supported by tone from the top and can’t just be ground up, the CEO and board must be committed to this. MARC is not about making men feel guilty, it’s about how we connect emotionally to something that makes rational sense. MARC’s role is helping to change how diversity is viewed,” added Brooke.
The VP explained that MARC has four areas of conversation and study. Namely diversity, privilege, bias and inclusion.
Diversity – Is the presence of differences in a group. It challenges the boxes people tend to place themselves in.
Bias – Determines the reactions to others. It can be conscious but also unconscious, sparked by the fight/flight responses. Biases get in the way of a good organisation. They include micro-aggressions and gender conditioning such as assuming women are only capable of certain roles.
Privilege – Is the invisible and often unacknowledged virtue of who a person is. A type of privilege is sitting in a meeting while some people have to attend via a conference call. It is important to recognise privilege and then use it with respect, and must never abuse privilege.
Inclusion – Diversity is relatively easy to tackle by hiring correctly but inclusion is the trickier but vital element. Diversity is being invited to a party but inclusion is being asked to dance. A focus on inclusion ensures D&I programmes do not become a mere box-ticking exercise.
“Diversity we can fix with a spotlight, but inclusion is the key. That’s how we get great people. Team members don’t leave for a few percentage points of salary difference, they leave because they don’t feel included,” adds Brooke.
“This is where MARC plays a key role, we work to create a company culture where team members do their very best work to the benefit of our customers. A formula Dell Technologies commits to driving in South Africa and across the continent,” he concluded.
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
