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Top left to right: Marisa, Abhiruchi, Unnati, Hui Qi, Verena and Maila. Bottom left to right: Lathika, Nureen, Gilaine and Beth.

 

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Verena Poh, Head of Regional Human Resources shares her perspectives on creating an inclusive corporate culture with equal opportunities for all at ENGIE South East Asia.

View her LinkedIn feature here.

 

WHY IS DRIVING GENDER INCLUSION IMPORTANT?

Throughout all ENGIE entities globally, we are building a common culture that fosters Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) in our traditionally male-dominated energy and utility industry.

Gender inclusion is necessary to attract the best talent and create a more balanced workforce. When women are given equal access to personal and career development opportunities, everyone benefits from diverse perspectives, skills and experiences.

 

HOW DO YOU ENSURE THAT INCLUSIVE PRACTICES ARE MORE THAN BUZZWORDS AND ARE ACTUALLY EMBEDDED INTO THE COMPANY STRATEGY?

ENGIE has established a clear governance and road map for its DEI policy which are implemented across all regions and entities. We monitor and evaluate the progress and performance of these DEI indicators, communicate and raise awareness on our DEI initiatives. Stakeholders are engaged on a regular basis to share best practices and learn from one another.

ENGIE has also, since 2022, been taking part in the Rise & Lead Summit which brings together business leaders and entrepreneurs to share best practices and ideas to drive change in support of advancing DEI.

 

IS THERE AN INSTANCE WHERE YOU HAD TO ADDRESS PUSHBACK OR RESISTANCE TO DIVERSITY INITIATIVES WITHIN THE COMPANY?

There will always be early-stage inertia when implementing new initiatives. We faced some resistance when implementing the ENGIE Fifty-Fifty program, a framework to help achieve managerial parity by 2030. There are various reasons for the resistance – due to lack of understanding, misunderstanding or uncertainty driven fear.

We addressed these issues through regular communication and implemented the program in phases by rolling out new initiatives over time. We organised talks by female leaders to inspire others on their career development journeys, promoted learning programs to advocate DEI and enhanced our recruitment strategies to attract more female talent to grow their careers with us, via scholarships, referral incentive schemes and so on.

I am happy that we are seeing some result from our DEI initiatives; last year we managed to achieve 32% female new hires in managerial positions, this is good progress and there is so much more that we can do to achieve our ultimate goal of parity.