Belonging and the Strengths of Diverse Societies

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) is hugely important to everything we do at AMS.

Recently our DEI EMEA Committee hosted a session on Belonging and the Strengths of Diverse Societies. I was joined by EMEA DEI co-leaders Zuzanna Ananiew and Beejal Pattni as we explored themes on belonging, multiculturalism and how wider societal trends impact our sense of belonging in the workplace. 

Belonging and the Strengths of Diverse Societies focused on the importance of fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment at AMS. We are conscious that as a global community, many of our colleagues have diverse and immigrant backgrounds, myself included being based in Germany. We explored various dimensions of belonging, shared insights from our leaders into building inclusive forums, and discussed approaches to leverage the diversity within our workplace for our collective growth and development. 

Our session builds upon the past years where EMEA DEI has celebrated UN World Day for Cultural Diversity highlighting the importance of intercultural dialogue for achieving peace and development. Over the past 2 years we have hosted very well attended webinar sessions exploring Intercultural Communication and Awareness and Enhancing Cultural Competencies. 

I truly believe that diversity makes us all stronger, driving more innovation and engagement, that flows through to great solutions for our clients. One area of strong encouragement is how engaged our people are with our Employee Resource Groups, based on what our people are passionate about. Our ERGs act as critical friends to the business, are hugely committed to driving change and creating a culture of inclusivity for all employees with an engaging calendar of events to which their reach and influence is growing all the time. 

All this contributes to enabling us to collectively build a genuine sense of belonging and bring our true, bold, authentic selves to work.