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Starting the conversation on Inclusion

Three friends from different ethnic backgrounds

Bata

Founded in the Czech Republic in 1894, Bata was one of the first manufacturers to sell its products all over the world.

Business challenge

Bata’s vision for 2022 included delivering sustained turnover and market share growth by better aligning to customer needs and improving product innovation. Bata was in the earlier stages of their ED&I journey but was committed to improvement. They wanted to start their ED&I journey by gathering leadership and managerial buy-in and creating understanding of the business case for D&I, so that the culture of inclusion trickles down to the entire organisation.

Description of work:

We assisted Bata in conducting a Leaders Inclusion Assessment for 50 leaders at the ExCo level and an online learning programme on Inclusivity for 400 leaders + managers across 5 regions – LATAM, Europe, Africa, India and APAC. This programme consisted of an education session and a reflection session along with pre- and post-work to maintain engagement, support inclusive habit and behaviour development, and ongoing learning. The programme provided an understanding of Inclusion and its importance, linked inclusion to Bata’s business vision, gained buy-in from leadership and managers as well as provided an understanding of how an inclusive culture can be created at Bata to help the business grow sustainably.

Results

  1. A clear understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion and why they are important for Bata’s commercial progress.

  2. A clear understanding of where leaders stood individually on the inclusion journey and how improvements need to be made.

  3. Leaders felt equipped to take responsibility for areas that they can work on at an individual, team, and organisational level.

  4. Leaders became mindful of their actions, conscious of their thoughts and biases, and practiced more inclusive habits like listening to everybody’s perspectives and including them in decision making.

About the company:

The corporation is one of the world’s leading shoemakers by volume with 150 million pairs of shoes sold annually. It has a retail presence of over 5,300 shops in more than 70 countries across five continents and 21 production facilities in 18 countries. Bata is an employer to over 32,000 people globally.

Positive change in employee and manager behavior evidencing active allyship.

Increased engagement and understanding of inclusivity principles among 400 leaders and managers across 5 regions.

Camden Council Photo

Story & quotes:

A White participant, for the very first time in her life, called out an act of racism that she witnessed outside the workplace. She felt that she was more equipped to do so after the session and felt confident in supporting the victim. Though she was extremely uncomfortable doing so, she did it and that was her starting point in this journey she plans to continue.  

Maria was discussing how frontline workers, from marginalised backgrounds, were being targeted for racial abuse by the public. She said that this was an ongoing problem, where an elderly white woman refused to be served by anyone of colour, and Maria’s manager assisted the woman to be served by a white person instead of addressing the racism that his colleagues were being subjected to. Maria’s manager, a white man, was asked to intervene repeatedly but instead allowed the abuse from the customer to continue. Post the ARLO sessions, Maria felt emboldened by the content, and the fact that everyone had been on the course; she spoke to senior leadership above her manager, and they have decided to ban the elderly white woman from the building.

Next Steps

Following this project, we have gained opportunities to work together on additional projects.

We partnered with In Diverse to drive Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) programs over the last two years. Through a validated Leader Inclusion Report, business insights and their accelerated global inclusivity program, In Diverse has helped us progress on our DEI agenda globally. Their work, knowledge and insights are crucial for businesses looking to build a more inclusive and diverse workforce to ensure future organizational success. Participants left the session with practical advice that they could implement immediately and also picked up some larger concepts that they could start thinking deeply about. The team at In Diverse ensured that the sessions were highly interactive with great insights and real-time work examples that ensured the level of instructions were easy to understand and implement. They are professional, personable, resourceful and always willing to meet our learning needs. Overall, it was a great learning experience.

The training session was very educational and with now full understanding I now know how to deal with different people from different backgrounds.

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