Having a more inclusive work culture can boost productivity and staff retention.
That’s the message of two former gaming executives targeting the channel with their new Inclusive People venture, which they claim dispenses with the usual “fluffy” approach to HR consulting.
Charlotte Bidgood and Angela Harding founded Inclusive People last summer after leaving Activision Blizzard following its acquisition by Microsoft.
Their experiences at the gaming giant sparked their passion to advocate for better representation, workplace culture and people leadership in the gaming and tech sector (Activision Blizzard was sued by the state of California its “frat boy” culture in 2021).
Having already taken on Activision Blizzard as a client, the duo are now targeting the IT channel with what they claim is a fresh approach.
“There are so many HR consultancies out there which are very – I don’t know if you can say it – fluffy,” Bidgood told IT Channel Oxygen.
“They come in and do some nice stuff.
“But what Angela and I want to do is really show the commercial value of people and actually demonstrate that, if you do these things, it will increase your retention, bring down recruitment costs, drive more productivity and drive your products and services to be more attractive to a wider customer base.
Harding was at Activision Blizzard for 20 years, most recently leading its Commercial Call of Duty business in EMEA. She also served as the Global Executive Sponsor for its Women’s Network.
““There has been a lot of publicity in relation to the gaming sector and the historically negative culture it has had towards woman. The split of male versus female employees in the sector is also still heavily imbalance,'” Harding said.
Bidgood has spent 20 years in HR, four of which were at Activision Blizzard.
But the need for amore commercially led HR consultancy is just as great, if not greater in the IT channel than gaming, the duo claimed after speaking to leaders in the IT industry.
“There are a lot of voices in the [gaming] space around inclusion, but there isn’t a great deal of noise around that topic at the moment in the IT industry,” Harding said.
Despite the name, Inclusive People is about more than just diversity and inclusion, Bidgood stressed.
“Actually, we do a lot of stuff around redundancy programmes and regeneration of cultures – let’s say when a company’s done a lot of change,” she said.
“Our ideal clients are those that are interested in how they can improve their people culture to drive their commercial business.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
