This article was first published in 2022 and has since been updated.
At Visma, we pride ourselves on being diverse, and we truly believe that we are. And, as we strive to constantly improve our products and services, we also have a desire to take even better care of our employees.
When we speak about diversity, we refer to all the individual differences that enable us to have different perspectives and opinions. It can, for example, be age, life experiences, beliefs, and physical and mental abilities.
This is where Pride comes into play.
Pride month could concern the person next to you
More than anything, we wish for our offices to be a place where no one has to hide who they truly are. No matter what sexual orientation or gender identity you have, you can always come to work and be confident that it doesn’t matter.
Celebrating pride isn’t just about “hiring more gay people” or “embracing a diverse workplace” – it’s also about remembering that the LGBTQIA+ community is important to a lot more people than many of us might think.
Pride also concerns fathers of lesbians, cousins of transgender people, best friends of pansexuals – and also the future children of our friends and family who are yet to find out who they are.
Almost 5 out of 10 hide their orientation at work
According to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 46% of LGBTQIA+ workers are closeted at work. Top reasons for not being open at work about their sexual orientation and gender identity are:
- possibility of being stereotyped (38%)
- possibly making people feel uncomfortable (36%)
- possibility of losing connections or relationships with coworkers (31%)
- people might think I’ll be attracted to them just because I am LGBTQIA+ (27%)
Our colleagues celebrating Pride in Växjö, Sweden.
Why is Visma celebrating Pride?
There’s a ton of reasons why we’d like to spread awareness about the pride movement. Here are the top three:
- We have zero tolerance for discrimination or offence towards anyone. As we’re welcoming more companies and colleagues to Visma every year, this continues to be a business-critical code of conduct.
- As an international company with more than 14,500 employees, we’re supporting our individual employees’ right to be themselves.
- We’re always working on making Visma a better place to be. Our Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) discipline is one of our most important actions, where the main goal is to increase knowledge and awareness about different topics within D&I, including LGBTQIA+.
What’s on our agenda?
First and foremost, we encourage everyone to get familiar with the Pride celebrations! We know that everything begins with dialogue – so let your peers know (if they don’t already) it’s Pride month.
Our inspirational Pride activities, and other D&I related initiatives:
- All employees are welcome to use our Pride background in online meetings
- They’re also welcome to update their email signature to include their preferred pronouns
- We’ll publish blog posts with interviews related to the LGBTQIA+ community
- Social media toolkits are available to all Visma companies and employees
- We’ve introduced a D&I index in our internal employee feedback tool – Visma is currently in the top 5% of the tech industry!
From all of us to all of you: Happy Pride!
