Increasing the effectiveness of decision making and creativity

Helen Gilmartin, Regional Strategy & Marketing Business Partner, Hexagon Geosystems   

Why businesses should focus on EDI and sustainability

MANY businesses are reassessing and prioritising their diversity, equality and inclusion (EDI) efforts as part of their sustainability targets. For me, this means recruiting a more diverse workforce and understanding the importance of looking after the environment and bettering society.

Managing an inclusive workforce means removing barriers to job equality, including gender diversity, and having more diverse leadership roles. For EDI to truly work, we have to take action and ensure our principles are integrated throughout our organisations and cascade down on both a corporate and personal level.

EDI is about getting different viewpoints from a diverse team, resulting in a workforce that is not afraid of voicing its opinion. We need people with different opinions and different views in order to achieve the best outcomes for our businesses and industry. Diversity increases the effectiveness of decision making and creativity. It fosters an environment where everyone feels they have an opportunity to advance and that creates a culture of equality.

The solutions to global problems are complex, but we know that advances in technology and investment in people will play a pivotal role.Leaders should make sure their people have a sense of purpose, and foster a spirit of teamwork towards achieving goals. Encouraging mutual respect ensures that our talent understands that they are the future – we need their ideas and we want to enable them to challenge the status quo. It is important that they understand that we want them to thrive.

At Hexagon, we have launched an employee group to share ideas and opinions. This will help us understand what challenges and opportunities the industry faces in implementing EDI and wider sustainability practices. We understand that we need to revolutionise our physical and digital reality, and the conversations we are having around EDI and sustainability afford us the opportunity to improve as a business, which in turn will assist in attracting diverse talent for the future.

There is so much passion for dealing with these important topics and we are optimistic about what science and innovation can achieve in the future. Whenever you bring visibility to a topic you end up improving it, if you are looking at measurements and you are trying to see where you are, it shows you are trying to do better. The solutions to global problems are complex, but we know that advances in technology and investment in people will play a pivotal role.   

Helen Gilmartin, Regional Strategy & Marketing Business Partner, Hexagon Geosystems

helen.gilmartin@hexagon.com www.hexagon.com

Helen Gilmartin is a member of the CICES Sustainability Working Group.