Company name : BSP | Bonn Steichen & Partners
Activity sector : Other service activities
Company category : SME
Description of the action
BSP produced video-interviews in the series “Share & Care” where employees from diverse backgrounds shared their feelings and the positive lessons they have learnt from such situations.
Context
To encourage people in sharing their experiences and raise the discussion amongst BSP employees, we have thought about a video with the format of interview where people were free to express their feelings about a condition of diversity but especially give a positive message and suggestions to co-workers.
Objectives
The objectives of this initiative were several. - Diversity seems sometimes something far from the daily routine: this is not true as we may have colleagues around us who are living this condition and struggling with it; BSP wanted to make BSP employees aware that diversity involves us all. - The initiative was also supposed to give a voice to people who have been discriminated or may have been so for their conditions. It was also focused on the positive aspects and on the take out of this experience: this allows both the interviewed and the public to realise the points of improvement in the day-to-day approach.
Approach
The videos were published internally, sent by email and were in the form of an interview.
Impact
The initiative raised awareness, made people better know their colleagues, put a light on discriminatory approaches and made people deeper think about discriminatory attitudes that we can have in the day-to-day life.
« To do »
- Create an open and relaxed environment in which people feel safe and comfortable in expressing their personal experience. - Give the opportunity to review, repeat and rephrase: feelings are sometimes difficult to be expressed and it takes time to elaborate them. It is really important that the interviewed has a positive message and that he succeed in passing it along to the audience.
« Not to do »
Do not improvise. As the experiences are usually touchy, it is better to draft generic questions and go into details only if the interviewed feels comfortable. A preliminary informal discussion on the topic can make smoother the agreement on the "storyboard" and the Q&As. This also can help in preventing embarrasses and reassures the interviewed who can choose to also do a trial alone.