A commitment to diversity and inclusion
June is Pride Month, and at Omega 365, we're committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and global workplace. Meet five Omega 365 colleagues from four different cities and one small town, each sharing their views on Pride.
Published: 13. June 2024
Sandra Lin Nielsen
Client Success Manager at Omega 365 Denmark
What does Pride mean to you?
For me, Pride is about visibility, equality, and acceptance. More than anything else, it's important to me that Pride is intersectional – that we include everyone. Pride is diverse and human, not a clinical representation of one type of person. If you're a woman, your experience as an LGBTQ+ person is different than if you're a man. Your experience also varies between skin colors. You can be LGBTQ+ in many ways, and for me, the rest of your persona helps create your individual Pride identity. I occasionally participate in local Pride events, but I'm more interested in supporting my community on a daily basis than in big celebrations.
What is the best way for businesses to support Pride?
Listen, learn, support, stand up. You can't just wave a rainbow flag or say ‘we support LGBTQ+’ without doing something about it. Symbolic politics and empty declarations won't get you far. As with any community, LGBTQ+ is only as visible and normalized as we make it. In order to support Pride, you need to know what Pride is and why it's worth growing. Here are my top tips:
- Learn about Pride's history locally and globally.
- Listen to LGBTQ+ people in your workplace and hear what they say about their experiences, both good and bad.
- Support Pride financially and socially – recommend Pride events to your employees, organize Pride events yourself, or support local events.
How can workplaces work systematically to ensure diversity and inclusion outside of Pride Month?
LGBTQ+ people are always LGBTQ+, even when it's not Pride. After Pride, allies can go home and wash off the rainbow and pretend like nothing happened. LGBTQ+ people can't. That's why it's important to be able to be LGBTQ+ at work, in the same way that it should be possible to be vegetarian, religious, and so on. Do you support your employees regardless of their identity? Do you take their concerns and feedback seriously - even if it's something you don't understand because it's not part of your everyday life? Diversity and openness are important for a diverse workplace. The more diversity, the broader the understanding and the more different types of contributions to everyday life and individual tasks! This Pride interview, for example, is a great initiative.
Emma Ireland
General Manager of Omega 365 Australia
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride Week, to me, is a cornerstone in our progression towards a safer, more inclusive and considerate global community. It’s a chance to celebrate our LGBTQ+ family members, friends, and colleagues, and to listen, learn, and acknowledge their lived experiences.
What is the best way for businesses to support Pride?
Businesses should support Pride every week. We can do this through taking the time to research and educate ourselves on the LGBTQ+ community and their history and fight for liberation. Rainbow flags, pins, and T-shirts are wonderful, but the crucial element to being an ally is to advocate and stand up when we see injustice.
How can workplaces work systematically to ensure diversity and inclusion outside of Pride Month?
Businesses can support Pride through thoughtful and educated inclusion polices that are more than just lip service. Train your team on unconscious bias, develop parental leave schemes that are inclusive of all family structures and identities, promote LGBTQ+ community events and initiatives, and ensure your business provides platforms for networking, support, and advocacy for LGBTQ+ employees and allies.
Javier Ramos
Software Consultant at Omega 365 Solutions in Oslo
What does Pride mean to you?
To me, Pride is an opportunity to celebrate your identity and feel that you can be yourself. Pride is also about honoring the struggle that previous generations have fought for, ensuring that we have the same rights, visibility, freedom, and security as our fellow human beings. It's extra special for me to see how Pride is celebrated in Norway, where you can see both families and businesses celebrating with us.
What is the best way for businesses to support Pride?
To respect every employee without discrimination.
I remember the first time Omega raised the Pride flag in Ølensvåg. It may not have been something I needed to feel seen or appreciated, but it was incredibly amazing! Sometimes, it's the little things that make others feel good. It's important to know that Pride is celebrated by everyone, and it's the employer's responsibility to ensure that all employees feel included and proud that at Omega 365, we also have queer colleagues.
How can workplaces work systematically to ensure diversity and inclusion outside of Pride Month?
The most important thing is to ensure that discrimination does not happen. It's hard to say what could be improved at Omega 365, as I've always felt safe, respected, and included. So, I can say that Omega 365 and all employees have done a great job of being nice to each other.
Melissa Macklin
Client Development Manager at Omega 365 USA
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride is important to me as a way to stand up as an ally, showing support and a commitment to equality not just for the month, but every day.
What is the best way for businesses to support Pride?
Along with fostering a culture of inclusivity for all, business can participate in Pride events (and support our clients' participation!) and raise awareness of the history and events that allow Pride to be celebrated today.
How can workplaces work systematically to ensure diversity and inclusion outside of Pride month?
I believe workplaces, like Omega, can lean into their core values to consistently ensure these ideals are put into everyday practice through inclusive, non-discriminatory hiring practices, by providing diversity education, using inclusive language, and encouraging compassion for one another. Finally, workplaces should ask their employees what else might be helpful!
Sigmund Lunde
Founder and chairman of the board of the Omega 365 Group
What does Pride mean to you?
I've managed to become a well-grown man. In my youth, I thought very little about what it meant to be queer. Now that I have grown-up children who are teaching me, Pride has become important to me. I see Pride as an improved version of 17 May (Norway's Constitution Day). Here, too, we celebrate our freedom, but it's also a celebration of self-evident values, such as being able to be who you are and being able to love who you want. The music is greatly upgraded from the bands we hear on 17 May, and the atmosphere is just as good. I think everyone should treat themselves to a trip to Oslo at the end of June for the Pride celebrations. Experiencing the sea of people and the feeling that diversity is a good thing is an enriching and warming experience.
Since many queer people still have a hard time in our society, Pride is important. Standing up in favor of an open society with room for everyone, and for everyone to be able to live their lives safely and without hate speech or other forms of negative influence, feels meaningful.
What is the best way for businesses to support Pride?
Flying the rainbow flag (or one of the other related flags) is a great way to show support. Additionally, I think businesses need to make sure that the workplaces around them are safe and good, and that we treat each other with respect. Visible evidence such as gender-neutral toilets, is something I'm in favor of.
When we emphasize diversity, we make the lives of individuals better. No one should experience being pigeonholed as inferior because of faith, gender identity, orientation, or skin color. Everyone who grows up deserves to be accepted for who they are. These are values that should apply everywhere in society - including at work.
How can workplaces work systematically to ensure diversity and inclusion outside of Pride month?
Facilitating a working environment where diversity is seen as a positive thing. For example, incorporating guidelines that ensure gender neutrality in boards and management forums. That we are open to recruiting refugees into vacant positions and that we work actively to ensure that queer employees have equal conditions when it comes to career opportunities, working environment, and all other aspects of working life.