Joël Couderc, Digitech: “I’m committed to equality”.
Femmes du Numérique:What have you put in place, extended or enriched concerning gender equality, since the end of 2012? Remind us where you were at that time?
Joël Couderc:In 2012, there were very few women in our middlemanagement. We decided to take action by integrating women into management positions at all levels of the company and by training our teams in diversity via a corporate social responsibility policy.
FDN:Could you give us a few concrete examples of your latest actions in favor of professional equality?
JC:Our business development director has joined the comex. Women have taken charge of the marketing, R&D (research and development) and administrative departments, and Digitecha hasrecruited women to train internally as project managers.
We have also signedthe Diversity Charter, and trained our managers in diversity management. We facilitate access to employment for profiles from diverse backgrounds via the Amplitudes network, and we carry out mentoring actions for these profiles.
<p>Interview with Joël Couderc (Digitech) on gender equality Interview conducted in April 2016,</p>rn
FDN:What qualitative and quantitative results have your actions brought?
JC:Two of the company’s top five salaries are held by women. Three out of five departments are managed by women. Our teams have also seen the benefits of our diversity policy on the quality of communication within the company. This creates an excellent social climate, with low staff turnover, high co-optation rates (which cannot be explained by the financial compensation), and strong participation in works council events.
FDN:Based on the experience you’ve gained with your professional equality project or plan, what advice (steps, organization, best practice, simple and effective idea…) would you give to a structure embarking on such a project to help it build it effectively and avoid the pitfalls?
JC:It’s not easy to get all teams to embrace the concept of diversity: the natural tendency is to form teams with identical profiles. But this isolates the teams from each other, and the company’s friendliness and efficiency suffer.
On the other hand, once employees have understood the benefits of diversity, they become convinced and proactive players.
When implementing a diversity policy, take the time to involve your teams and demonstrate the merits of the approach using concrete examples. In this way, instead of confronting inertia, you’ll win over the actors of change.