Exertis’ CEO has spoken of the need to enable a “ground-up” approach to DE&I following the success of its LGBTQIA+ event last week.
Held in partnership with reseller Softcat, the event was conceived by the respective Pride Employee Resource Groups (ERG) of the two companies.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen following the event, Exertis IT CEO Tim Griffin claimed the distributor has within five years gone from being “behind the eight ball” on DEI, to being a recognised DEI leader.
But setting a “tone from the top” only works if you can get employees engaged at a grass roots level, Griffin claimed.
“It has to come from the ground up,” Griffin said.
“That’s because a lot of this is extra-curricular activity. People are volunteering to do this; we’re not making people do this.
“We set the tone and an environment where people feel comfortable about bringing their full selves to work.
“But they’re volunteering to do this, and it’s about things they care about. And they make emotional connections with customers like Softcat.
“It’s a brilliant thing to see.”
ERG spree
Exertis now has seven ERGs covering themes including gender, ethnicity, neurodiversity and fertility.
“Yes we have programme leads that try and enable that ground-up support, but most of our work comes from the ERGs,” Griffin said.
“Increasingly, employees are getting together and wanting to have another ERG formed about something they’re particularly passionate about.
“While the ERGs are for that community, they’re actually for us all, which is why we try to engage people as allies. We’re trying to get our teams to realise that it’s not specifically about fertility, or the menopause – it’s actually about what society we want. So our message is ‘get on board’.”
Exertis’ and Softcat’s ‘Advancing LGBTQIA+ Inclusion in Tech event included a panel featuring Avanade’s Sarah Rench, Exertis’ Manpreet Bath, Softcat’s Debra Coady, Microsoft’s Lee Jones and Unleashed International’s Erica Rose. Trans man and musician Dylan Holloway (pictured near top) also sung a live duet with a recording which he had performed before his transition.
Despite the widely reported DEI rowbacks at US tech giants such as Google and Meta, Griffin said he hadn’t seen any copycat moves in the UK channel.
“There are retrenchments generically in the industry, but I think that’s cross-functional – everyone’s tightening their belts,” Griffin said.
“Whether or not that impacts DE&I, it’ll be for those individual businesses to call. I haven’t heard anybody say ‘right, I’m going to target DE&I as part of my cost-cutting’.
“Personally, I think it’s a key enabler for our long-term success.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
