Our journey towards diversity and inclusion
In 2020 we made it official that we will be taking concrete steps in regards to diversity and inclusion by introducing the role Diversity & Inclusion facilitator in our company. What started as the work of one person has one year later grown into a team of ten people working on this vision. Our ultimate goal is that diversity, equity, and inclusion is reflected in our people, products, suppliers, partners, and marketing.
- 33,6% identify as female
- 15 countries
- 32 year age range
The figures at a glance
With offices in four countries and English as the default language, we have a variety of nationalities represented among Voys colleagues. We now have colleagues from 15 different countries: Netherlands, South Africa, Greece, USA, France, Spain, Belarus, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, United Kingdom, Kosovo, Italy, Norway and Iraq.
The current makeup of our workforce
Knowing more about our workforce helps us shape an inclusive environment that contributes to providing equal growth opportunities. Currently 33,6% of colleagues identify as female at Voys. However, our female technical workforce is smaller than we would like thus we are researching ways to influence change there.
Our youngest colleague is 22 and our oldest colleague is 54. The average age in the organization is 35. In regards to education, the majority of our colleagues have obtained a degree from a higher educational institution.
Moving from researching to enacting
Research into various topics has given us the opportunity to shape our decisions. We gather data internally in order to get insights on how the changes we introduce impact the organization. Due to the current size of the company, it is possible to conduct qualitative interviews with multiple colleagues in order to identify the needs of each group.
We have begun to make changes based on the research we did. We offer our employees a fully equipped nursing room and flexible hours to accommodate any parental needs. We took actions in regards to religious inclusivity by introducing a flexible holiday policy starting in 2022 which gives colleagues the possibility of exchanging two public holidays for any other day of their choice.
In 2021 we offered the possibility to our female colleagues to participate in Klapstoel Academy, a career coaching program. Our colleagues participated based on their experience: juniors as mentees and seniors as mentors. We take into consideration the dietary restrictions or choices of people by including a variety of options in our parties.
These are some of the changes we have focused on so far and there are many more steps are to follow…
