The T2 Story creating a Brewing Force for Good
We were treated to a wonderful and engaging presentation by Georgi Poulos, Global Director, People and Steve Martin, Head of Learning and Development, T2 at our October event, Celebrate Difference to Make a Difference – The T2 Story creating a Brewing Force for Good.
Georgi walked us through their Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) journey, beginning in 2018 with an ad hoc approach and then shaping into a comprehensive strategy in 2019, with a wide range of initiatives, events and activities that were strongly linked to the company’s purpose and values. The D&I strategy is in progress still, ever evolving and informed by data from their staff about their needs and ideas about making the workplace diverse and inclusive, through annual D&I surveys and a D&I Committee with cross-representation from across the company and its members specially trained.
We were impressed by the diverse and wide range of exciting ways Georgi, Steve and their team implemented to engage staff and embed the principles of D&I into their work practices at T2. The number of different activities, events and initiatives was vast, granting Georgi and Steve were generously sharing all the different initiatives they have implemented over four years. I found some of the policies and activities aimed at helping people feeling that they belong in this company (even using that word to simply describe inclusion), very interesting and progressive. These included discussion groups following the Black Lives Matter movement and celebrating pride all year round, belonging and pride badges for people who wish to identify, policy initiatives such as Pronouns Belong 2 emails, Menstrual and menopause leave (75% of the workforce are women), Exchange/swapping public holidays and getting to know each other activities such as Harmony week – Come dine with me.
I really liked the creative initiatives that Steve shared with us that they have used to help people tell their stories and share messages about eliminating racism, ageism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, like the powerful Slam poetry video and use of imagery and photography. Steve also led us through a great activity, the Whodunnit exercise, that forms part of their unconscious bias training, and we experienced how easy it is to miss things when we are not looking for them.
When we broke into small groups to reflect on Georgi and Steve’s presentation and consider any questions we wanted to ask, there was much enthusiastic discussion, which continued when we returned as a whole group. It was a very informative and inspiring evening.
Yope Vegenas
Leadership Group Member