PRESS RELEASE
The recent Dutcham event on the business benefits of Cultural Diversity hosted by ING Bank and supported by the Netherlands Embassy covered a wide range of corporate challenges and best practices. This topic is especially relevant for Dutcham, being a vibrant business community that melts cultures.
We were interested to learn how a company can benefit from encouraging an open, inclusive culture where differences are appreciated.
In her welcome Katinka Zinnemers, managing director, Abacus Medicine, chair of Dutcham highlighted that embracing diversity can be both rewarding and challenging, differences can bind us. She herself is a good example being a Dutch citizen, working for a Danish company in Hungary as the sole foreigner in the team.
H.E. Mrs. Désirée Bonis, Dutch Ambassador said that diversity is a goal in itself that can bring justice to the people. A diverse mindset improves the decision-making processes at the company level, thus supports profit growth and raises productivity, while establishing an inclusive working atmosphere at the same time. The Netherlands promotes this idea in various ways, like engaging women to male dominated areas like in the IT sector, just to name an example. Another big area is healthcare where a workforce of diverse cultural backgrounds can help communication with patients of different cultural and religious background.
Why cultural diversity matters and how it impacts innovation and performance at the workplace? This was the main topic of the keynote presentation delivered by Andrea Bujdoso, executive coach, member of the Dutcham board presented statistical data and case studies on the advantages of diverse thinking. Studies show that diverse thinking supports innovation and has a direct impact on company advantage & economic growth.
The panel discussion moderated by Robert Wagner, managing director Philips Hungary, board member Dutcham gave the floor to a lively discussion with representatives from Dutcham member companies.
Robert kicked off the conversation with the following thoughts: “In the current age of globalization and social mobility, individuals from different cities, countries, regions, ages, genders and socio-economic backgrounds converge across many social settings. The workplace is one such social setting, and diversity — in all its shapes and forms — becomes a characteristic part of the workforce. We aim to understand the impact of cultural diversity on our daily work-life and would also like to share good practices.”
Krisztina Horváth, Head of HR, FrieslandCampina EMEA SSC, having worked for international SSCs over the past 20 years gained vast experience in this topic. What drives her is the vibe and the constant learning about different cultures. This is something that people in an organization can connect to. We can embed it into daily operations via community hubs and language fairs, just to name two examples.
Sona Lasikova, Head of Culture & Development at NN Hungary, confirmed that career development and mobility opportunities support creating a diverse pool. Their company cooperation with Refugee Talent HUB in the Netherlands was one of the best practices she shared. Self-awareness is essential to cope with biases, so constant communication is crucial. Hopefully for the new generation geographical borders will disappear and they will refer to each other simply as “my colleague”.
Nikos Zois, managing director, HEINEKEN Hungary said that since creativity and DEI are connected, it drives problem solving and collaboration. Society is diverse and the company culture should reflect it. Cultural training is important before starting a career abroad but cultural landing will give the true impression. To prove it he entertained the audience with personal experiences gained in several countries.
“The enjoyment of life is a natural bond among people so a food fair displaying national dishes can bring colleagues closer together” - he added.
Anikó Kis, Diversity&Inclusion Officer at Abacus Medicine said it takes a leader to foster establishing Diversity, Equity&Inclusion (DEI) within the organization, who in their case was Katinka Zinnemers, but now it is implemented in the global organization.
Dutch and Danish best practices are slowly implemented in the Hungarian operation with great success, since they successfully overcome the frustration colleagues have at the start.
Zsuzsanna Tóth, HR Director, ING Hungary & CEE proudly highlighted that four generations are working together at the bank. In the local management team men and women are equally represented. They are working on making the CEE region more attractive for colleagues coming from western countries via the STA talent exchange program.
The panelists agreed that stronger the corporate culture the less diversity tension within the organization.
Integration across multicultural teams can be difficult in the face of prejudice, negative cultural stereotypes or different understandings of professional etiquette. But steps can be done to address these challenges and we can turn those into a driver. Like creating a dog friendly office environment :-)
We are grateful to the Netherlands Embassy for supporting the event!
