Why Care? #13: Marta Pajón-Fustes - Living A People Culture
“If you’re going through a recruitment process, instead of that idea of ‘how will this person fit into the company?’, it’s the question of ‘what will this person bring?’ How could they add into the culture of Innocent and into the way we do things?”
In this episode I am joined by Marta Pajón-Fustes, Head of Technical and Inclusion & Diversity at innocent drinks, to discuss Marta’s personal experience as a Spanish native living in the UK, and innocent’s innovative approach to Inclusion & Diversity.
We open the conversation by discussing Marta’s journey growing up in a small village in northern Spain, to moving to the UK and becoming a major change leader at innocent drinks. Marta shares the personal importance of her work at innocent and how human rights is at the centre of it, with innocent ensuring that even their suppliers have the same ethical values that it expects internally.
Marta shares a formative moment when two employees who job-shared applied for a promotion and how it raised questions on how Marta and her team should redesign the hiring process to accommodate for this. We have an insightful discussion about inclusive job design and the merits of job sharing in general.
We also discuss how we have personally experienced micro-aggressions and subtle acts of exclusion in our lives. Marta shares how the people who work at innocent are the backbone of their ‘people culture’ and the importance of managing a flexible, agile and reactive company culture. We then discuss Covid-19’s effect on this culture and how innocent maintained a “Whatever you need, just say. There is nothing out of the option here” approach to help the employees navigate the unique and challenging situation.
The conversation then turns to best practice in inclusive recruitment and how companies should focus on the idea of ‘culture add’ - what a candidate would bring to the role and company - rather than the idea of ‘culture fit’ - trying to squeeze a candidate into a particular gap.
We close the conversation by discussing innocent’s innovative process for measuring Inclusion & Diversity within the company.
Links
For more from Marta Pajón-Fustes, find her on LinkedIn here.
A few related articles:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/national-inclusion-week-marta-pajon/
For more from innocent drinks, you can visit their website here: https://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/
To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.
Transcript
Marta Pajón-Fustes 00:00
Something I experienced is that sometimes when you're speaking about other people’s experiences or other people's microaggressions, it's easier for you to spot them or to recognise them but when it is your own, I doubt myself more, like maybe I'm exaggerating or maybe I'm reading it wrongly. And that's quite interesting because the theory and the practice actually sometimes, you know, you struggle a little bit more to give yourself the power and say, don't doubt yourself, this is happening right now to you and it's important, it is not because it's you that is less important.
Nadia Nagamootoo 00:33
Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo, Business psychologist, coach, speaker, and founder of Avenir consulting, which creates organisational growth and success through inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to a company's bottom line performance for decades with more and more evidence, but there are so many questions organisations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their uniqueness and the qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organisation that they find the answer to this question, to make sure that each employee is not only supported but also appreciated. With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace, from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health, and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society by sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organisations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier, and better in our roles both inside and outside work.
Hello, and welcome to episode 13 of my why care podcast. My name is Nadia Nagamootoo and I am your host. In this episode, I speak to Marta Pajon-Fustes head of technical and inclusion and diversity at Innocent. She joined the company in 2009 as an ingredient technologist and has grown into a global business. Marta works alongside the Innocence people team and other senior leaders from across the company to make inclusion and diversity a business priority. Marta discusses her personal experience of microaggressions and some of the challenges of being a Spanish native living and working in the UK. She shares Innocent’s five core principles for inclusion and diversity and how they have created a clear and measurable action plan. We discuss how to challenge a culture mentality, some best practice examples of inclusive recruitment, how to best utilise affinity groups, overcoming backlash, scaling up inclusion and diversity in a fast-growing company, and much, much more. It's a packed show. Enjoy.
Hello, Marta, it is wonderful to have you on the Why Care Podcast shows, welcome.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 03:06
Thank you, Nadia, really, really nice to be here.
Nadia Nagamootoo 03:09
I'm super excited to talk to you about all things diversity inclusion from a personal perspective but also obviously working at Innocent and I would like to find out a little bit more about what Innocent doing in this space. So first up, I would love to know about your journey. Now everyone's got a journey, some story to tell, how they came into diversity and inclusion, and I'd love to hear yours.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 03:33
I guess I can speak probably in my personal as well as my professional journey. So, from a personal perspective, I think I've always been quite an active feminist but I don't think that's where it comes from more strongly. I think what drove me the most to be involved in this is my personal experience in social mobility. So I am from a very small village in the north of Spain and I had the luxury of living in such a small place, which meant that we all went to the same school, we all had a much more similar experience than maybe when you are in that bigger city. I'm the proud daughter of a truck driver and a stay-at-home mum, they had four kids, and they had enough support and enough opportunities to give the four of us the opportunity to get a degree, study, and have a career. And I realised that, that should always be the case, that I wish everyone had those opportunities but it's really difficult to get that. I guess that's probably the area, the personal area that connected me more with inclusion and diversity.
From a professional perspective, I became part of the leadership team at Innocent a few years ago, and as part of my initial former role, technical quality, and food safety, human rights were a strong element of my role at Innocent. The way we approved suppliers is not only from our quality food safety perspective but also there is a structure in terms of human rights, social and environmental tools, and systems. And I guess finally, as part of the leadership team, I also had the experience of leading by example. So I was able to implement my own team, tools, and things that I thought a business should, for example, in terms of job shares, I had the first job share that was exhibited at Innocent but not only that, also, it was the first job share that actually got promoted. So, the two women sharing the role decided to go for a promotion together, and they went through the promotion as a job share.
Nadia Nagamootoo 05:38
And you were one of that pairs?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 05:39
No, I was hired for their roles. So, they were part of my team and they were applying for a role within my team.
Nadia Nagamootoo 05:45
And so tell me, I'm really curious, was there any conversation as a leadership team about how this would work? Like, was there any hesitation about this job sharing possibility and promoting two people at the same time to job share in that way?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 06:01
I don't think there was a hesitation, I think there was a recommendation that there will be things to think about and there will be things to change and to adapt to make sure that we gave the right tools and the right opportunities for them to succeed. So obviously, for the start of the recruitment process, how do you do the recruitment? Do you do interviews with both of them together? Do they do it separately? So we kind of created it as we went, the promotion process and the recruitment process for that role, so it will work. And we did it together, as in I did it as the person who was recruiting but also, the two people that were applying, we made sure that it worked for me and their business but it worked for them as well and they succeeded.
Nadia Nagamootoo 06:41
And so how did you do it? Did they interview together or separately?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 06:46
Both. So, we had a separate interview process for each of them but we also had a session where we worked together on how the role would work and how would their responsibilities will be split in a way that we get the biggest benefit for both of them, as well for the team they were leading because it was a leadership role. So, they will become the leader of one of the teams in my function.
Nadia Nagamootoo 07:08
That's really fascinating because typically, you might recruit as a job share but actually, promotion as a job share is another thing because what if one individual is more ready than the other individual, that sort of interdependency on their careers is an interesting dynamic.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 07:25
e It was very, very interesting and it was a perfect example, as well of the value of different perspectives. I think that job sharing not only brings the opportunity for people that wants or needs more flexibility at work but also, it's a great opportunity for me to have a job share in my team. I'm having two brains instead of one and two perspectives instead of one, they are going to support each other and they're going to challenge each other, and we're gonna probably get to a better solution, having two people get in there that only one.
Nadia Nagamootoo 07:54
I love that perspective, particularly for the manager who's managing the job share people, it's so often the focus of the negatives, of the downsides, the extra work, of having performance relative to people, of trying to figure out where are they at. What if one of them goes on holiday? What happens with the other? We know the extra work and the extra cognitive effort it takes to manage two people rather than one and so I love that gain as a result. What a wonderful story! I'm interested in, now you've spoken about your upbringing in Spain, you came over here to the UK and you've been living in the UK for a number of years right now.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 08:31
Yes, I think I lost track. I think 14 or 15. I think I lost track of it already.
Nadia Nagamootoo 08:37
Yes. I'm curious about whether you experienced any challenges coming into the UK throughout your working life in the UK, any bias, or any microaggressions. Or if you don't like that term, as some people don't, then subtle acts of exclusion or anything that you felt actually, that is making you feel like you don't belong here.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 08:59
Oh, absolutely. So, I guess the first thing to mention is I try to be mindful and aware of the privilege I have, that's the reality. I'm White, and the color of my skin has given me a lot of privileges throughout my life. I'm from a Western European country, so I have lots of privileges that I've been having throughout my life but yes, you're right, like different cultures also bring you different kinds of situations. I don't know what your experience Nadia is, or the people that are listening to us today but something I experienced is that sometimes when you're speaking about other people's experiences or other people's microaggressions, it's easier for you to spot them, or to recognise them but when it is your own, I doubt myself more like maybe I'm exaggerating or maybe I'm reading it wrongly. And that's quite interesting because the theory and the practice actually sometimes, you know, you struggle a little bit more to give yourself the power and say, don't doubt yourself, this is happening right now to you and it's important, it’s not because it's you that is less important.
And yes, I have an experience that comes to my head quite often when I've asked, that is a silly thing, but it's an example, I was playing a game with people that I didn't know much and was quite a social situation, nothing important and some of them started cheating. And they started cheating, like, in quite a visible way, in a jokey visible way, not in a dodgy manner and someone was getting quite annoyed by that and there was a little bit of tension. I tried to avoid that tension, I tried to be like, come on, it's okay, it doesn't matter and the reaction back and this was an English person, the reaction was, look, Marta, maybe in your country, that is okay, maybe you guys are okay with that but here, we don't like cheating. And that really felt... I didn't really react much, you know, I just let it go, I let it go and if you tell me that story, I will be like, oh, God, why did you let it go but when it is yourself and this is many years ago, I don't know if I will let it go nowadays.
Nadia Nagamootoo 11:03
It brings you back. There's a high school moment and we were tasked as a group to go, I don't know why there was some important thing going on in the school and we had to go to the supermarket to buy and prepare some things to offer a spread of food for these people who were coming into the school. Again, it's something so small but it stuck with me. So, we were slicing cheese, and the way that my parents cut cheese, they give it as little sort of snacks, they used to cube them. Maybe that's the way in Mauritius, they used to serve it in Mauritius, there was this kind of processed cheese block that they used to buy because they didn't get fresh milk because, in Mauritius, there aren't any cows.
Okay, so importing cheese, it's all processed cheese, long-life cheese, basically and so they cube them. So, I got a block this block of cheddar, and they said, oh, can you cut up this cheese? I diced it, I put it into small little chunks, and then halfway through one of my friends sort of turned around to me and was like, Nadia, what are you doing with that cheese? And I was like, I just froze, I was like because, for me, I was like I'm cutting the cheese, right? Then they all stopped, and they all looked at me and she was like, you're cubing the cheese and they all laughed, and I had no clue. I didn't understand what I had done that would provoke laughter, I just felt stupid because it had never crossed my mind to slice this cheese. It never crossed my mind, I was 17 and I'd never prepared food buffets style before and everything I know is from my home, which is that my parents used to cube it.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 12:43
And it is the complexity of course they laugh without any bearing tension. It wasn’t anything that they will connect with but the feeling that leaves you inside is quite different, isn't it?
Nadia Nagamootoo 12:54
I was 17. You know, I'm now 40 and I still remember that moment but for sure there are times even relatively recently when it's happened. and I haven't said anything. It's a really interesting conversation, because what would you say now to that individual? If you were to have that moment again.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 13:14
First of all, I will probably be curious to understand what it is that made her think like that, like what is the perspective that people may have of Spain or Spanish people that made her feel that cheating may be more acceptable in my country. I think that curiosity is the beginning because it's easy to get annoyed and angry by it and just kind of block it out but I will try to understand what it is that is being said or understood about Spain that will make her feel that way and have that opportunity to have an open conversation about it. This is because that's one of the things I also learned through my years in inclusion and diversity, how important it is to have those conversations. And 10 years ago, I will probably be much more defensive, 10 years ago, I would probably be a bit more kind of attacking or found it more difficult to listen to other perspectives. I want to believe that now I have a little bit more of the capacity to try to stop myself from reacting like that and be curious about why what is it that made you think like that so that I can reply back with what may be the reality or my experience of what being Spanish or leaving Spain actually is.
Nadia Nagamootoo 14:26
I love that word capacity, that you have more capacity potentially now through practice and through working in this space. A lot of the time when I'm facilitating sessions with individuals and I think all of this comes down to building a capacity and building this ability to navigate our emotions. That initial defensiveness or anger or frustration over someone who is clearly categorized as or boxed us into, ‘well clearly all Spanish people are like this and all’, you know, which is so frustrating and to not be sucked into that closed-mindedness and with them, and actually to allow yourself to be lifted up into curiosity to bring them into a space where they can be open-minded and go actually…
Marta Pajón-Fustes 15:12
Exactly, because the other thing for me is when you get involved in inclusion and diversity, it is very easy that you always end up having the same conversations with the same people. So, for people that are curious about it and interested, it's great to speak with each other and learn from each other but what we're going to give the biggest benefit is to bring other people into the conversation and to give them the safety of being able to give their perspective and their opinions. So, the conversation and the discussion can start when we share different perspectives and we bring people to act on these topics and understand more of this topic. So, speaking about it with the people that are already there is not going to make a big change, it is bringing other people into the conversation they will.
Nadia Nagamootoo 15:54
Yes, let's bring this to Innocent then because you've told me and I understand from all Innocent’s brand, that people culture that Innocent has and it prides itself on, what does that mean for a company like Innocent to have a people culture?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 16:09
I guess I could speak for hours to answer this conversation. So Nadia, probably you're gonna have to stop me on the answer to this question. So the way I will describe it, is, first of all, the business is not the business and the people that work in the business. So, Innocent is not the leadership or innocent is not the brand, Innocent is the people who work there. So I am Innocent, I'm part of Innocent, and creating a culture where people feel that way when things or if something is not done in the right way. People feel like, Oh, this is me, this is my company, I'm gonna do something about it, I need to help make things better versus having that feeling of the company versus people. That's one of the things that I think I will describe as a people culture. I think another thing is in terms of the values, we have five values as a company and it is not just things that we use for employer brand or to communicate, we use them for promotion processes, we use them for recruitment and we use them for performance when you are assessing the performance media at the end of the year with your manager. Your manager is not only reviewing what you have done, but they are also reviewing how you have done it and the way you have worked if it is actually matching with the Innocent values and with the values of the company.
So I think another reflection of being a people culture, and an example really stuck with me. You will, of course, Nadia, have seen all the news about companies now giving leave for pregnancy loss, which is great to see and great to hear. At Innocent, we were doing that but we were doing that in the informal way that we work as a company and I can share my experience, I went through a pregnancy loss while I was working at Innocent, and I can share that. I told my manager very soon because you know, again, he creates that environment for me of safety and my manager knew at five weeks, I think it was four or five weeks, right before almost anyone else in my life because I was not feeling great with the pregnancy and I felt that that will impact that way.
I don't know I wasn't feeling good, so speaking with him and answering the how are you and saying, I'm fine, just didn't work with me. I had enough safety in the relationship to share that and then when the loss came, of course, his reaction was ‘take the time you need, whatever you need, have it’, so that was happening. Then with all this news that was happening recently of companies formalising that, a colleague of mine, who also went through pregnancy loss, actually contacted the people team that we call HR and say, guys, do our documents say that? On that day, she contacted them, and they replied back and were like, you are right, now they don't mention it but they do now.
Nadia Nagamootoo 18:59
That's the benefit of maybe a smaller entity, that can be more agile, isn’t it?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 19:05
Yes, I think we are growing now, we are a European company now. I'm scared not to say the number of people because I will probably say it wrong but I think we are at around 600 people, something like that. One of the things that we really have to be mindful of is that we speak a lot at Innocent, about its daily drive, we go big and this is the kind of thing that we mean. So, how do we create a company that even if it becomes bigger and bigger, this culture is still there? This is because obviously the bigger you become, the more you probably have to formalise and document it. So, how do we find that balance of keeping that culture without having to do every single thing and explain in a mention, so that we actually spread that culture across the business? That's one of the challenges with growth.
Nadia Nagamootoo 19:53
Absolutely because one of the challenges is when you're working in the space of diversity and inclusion, to do it well within an organization, there needs to be some empowerment of managers and of leaders to be able to understand the individual needs and say, this policy is great, I'm glad we have it. Actually, it needs to be applied in a slightly different way for this person compared to this person, it's only through that agility, that ability for leaders to go, I can make this change in one day today, in fact, let's do it, it doesn't have to go like a million miles up, wait 10 days or 10 years for this decision to be made in order to then give you the tick of approval. Yes, go for it. So that's possibly a challenge as you grow then, it is to maintain that level of autonomy at the local decision-making level.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 20:43
Absolutely but not only for leaders or managers to know that they can do it, but it's also for everyone to know they can ask for it. So one of the challenges I think as well as how to communicate so that people know, it's okay, that people know that there is no need for a document to say that they can do X, Y, and Zed for them to be able to do it. One of the things Innocent has been focusing a lot on through the pandemic, for example, is this message of taking care of yourself and others. So, we've been focusing a lot inside the business to say, it's a difficult time, we all need things differently. We don't know what we need because it's new for everyone, so whatever you're struggling with, and we have a very strong mental health offering anyway before the lockdown but that message of whatever you need, just say it, there is nothing out of option here.
You know, if you're struggling, and you need to go out and spend a couple of hours out and come back in, all of that flexibility has always been there but you have to really repeat it and repeat it for people to really believe you and lead by example. So, people that is more in leadership positions, demonstrate that they may leave the office at three in the afternoon and they don't have to explain the reasons behind that. So yes, over-communicate that, that is the case, lead by example and demonstrate that you're not only saying it, that you're doing it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 22:06
And that's the thing, especially when it comes to diversity, inclusion, or any HR-related policy, that I think many organisations feel ‘well, we've written it down, people should know what they can do’. Right? And actually, that isn't the case. You're so right, that it just needs to be repeated, emphasised, and role modelled, for sure. So, I'm interested then in this tension that can often be created around how do we maintain that people culture, that people element, and get the right people that can deliver the values in the way that we want our values to be delivered and executed but also have diversity in the people that we're bringing in who might not do it the same way. So can you speak to that a little bit?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 22:47
Yeah, that is one of the challenges and it's this idea of culture fit versus culture add. So how do we ensure that we look at the culture of Innocent and we recognise that that's created for every member of the business, we know that we have set the culture that everyone that joins has to adapt to that. I think it's a great point to discuss because values are a great tool for a business and the culture of a business if used in the right way. Values can also be actually an excuse for being exclusive. And I'll give you an example. One of the instant values is intrapreneurial, you could read that in the wrong way and assess oh, well, you know, this person who doesn't add much to the conversations and doesn't really seem to come with the first ideas and be an active member of the business, maybe they are not really intrapreneurial. No, maybe they are not adapting to the values and that person may be someone that needs to be a bit more reflective, someone that is a little bit more introverted, and the way they communicate their ideas are a little bit initially seen as passive but that’s just the way they do it.
So that's just a lead example of how important it is to recognise values and behaviours in a way that they are indeed inclusive, and being inclusive is one of our values. So, how we make sure that those values are used as a tool and not as a threat to diversity is really important but, you know, natural, intrapreneurial, generous, commercial, responsible, I cannot think about any characteristic or any background or any personality that couldn't have half of those five values. That should not be a limitation, and if it is, it’s that we are reading them wrong and that we have to really understand what they really mean.
Nadia Nagamootoo 24:37
It’s a challenge, isn't it, to get that consistent approach and for those recruiting managers who are potentially hesitating because they're not quite sure if they're the right fit and they're going to do it the way that I'd like them to do it versus are they going to do it the Innocent way. What is the Innocent way and how can we evolve with that? Do you offer any guidance to leaders in what you do to support them in that journey to help them understand what inclusion means?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 25:03
Yeah. So there are simple and more complex tools that we try to use, one of the simple ones that I always think about is asking yourself, what is this person going to add? So if you're going through a recruitment process, instead of that idea of how could they feed into the companies, that question of what will this person bring? How could they add to the culture of Innocent, in the way we do things? Just by doing that subtle change of fit versus add, it will probably put your mind on what is the different perspective that this person is bringing in.
Another important one is the templates and processes that are there for a reason. I know it sounds boring and structured but templates and processes really help with bias. So if you go to an interview and you ask exactly the same questions to different candidates, there is less of a risk, of course, the conversation just clicks more for the people that are more similar to you, it is human right? Like, if I'm asking questions for an interview and the person is giving me the answers that I will give, of course, that is going to sound more right to me. It is like, well, they're saying what I will say, so that must be correct versus actually, they may say exactly what I will say because it's my affinity bias. We have very similar experiences and we come from similar backgrounds, so what it is that I'm actually looking for in that answer is an important question to ask.
Nadia Nagamootoo 26:28
Yeah. And do you have any challenge mechanism apart from the question of value add as opposed to sort of the fit? Do you have any way of challenging the thinking around that, that is part of your recruitment process?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 26:41
Another important part of the recruitment process is what we call the challenge. So using a case of what can happen inside the business, once you are in the role, a real case, something that actually could have happened before, and ask the person to solve that because it’s one of the problems as well. A typical scenario challenge in interviews is, if you design it, you may design it with your own biases, you need to use something that actually has happened as a scenario of something that this person will have to do as part of their role. So, how will you solve this problem? And the problem probably doesn't have a right or wrong answer, it is just different perspectives. So looking at how the different perspectives of the answer to that challenge can bring a different way of doing things inside the business.
Nadia Nagamootoo 27:29
So, affinity groups, they're incredibly popular, many organisations have it, whether it's ERGs or resource groups or affinity groups, whatever the name that they use for them, what's your view on them? Are they valuable? And to what extent I suppose on the flip side could they promote us versus them as opposed to a collective because, for affinity groups, we kind of put people into boxes like this, the Women's Network, the ethnic network, or the Muslim network, they are incredibly popular, I understand the value in them. I'm just interested in your views really on how that puts another tension.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 28:06
Absolutely. And I can see why people will think about that, are we boxing people? Are we actually separating instead of uniting? Actually, quite recently, my colleague, Ivana Koochie, who is working with me on inclusion and diversity was mentioning how in a webinar she went to, how the affinity groups increase the feeling of belonging amongst all employees, not only the ones that actually are part of the affinity group because they lead to more openness and better conversations. I guess you're asking me more from my perspective. I think from my own perspective and at Innocent, the first thing we need to recognise is that we are not on a level playing field. So if we were on a level playing field, we will see the diverse characteristics across the business matching what is out there. So that's a fact, we are not on a level playing field. Things are different for different people with different backgrounds and therefore the potential opportunity of having extra support and extra opportunities for hearing specific voices will help to level that playing field.
From another side, selfishly, from the work I'm doing, it really helps me out as well because having the affinity groups inside the business helps people that join them, not only to identify but maybe those feelings of inclusion like the knowledge generated. Creating affinity groups is not going to generate exclusion, it is not going to make them feel excluded, it is going to give them an opportunity to speak between themselves and say, ‘well, I felt this way and I felt that way’. With shared experiences, hopefully, with that, they will identify things that maybe their business is not doing quite right, and therefore they can tell me that. They can tell me, Marta, this plan that you have on inclusion and diversity, you're missing this point, or this is not quite working for us because of these things that we have experienced.
Not only will they hopefully get that tool of connecting between them or between each other and having the identification of this inclusion but also the power of raising their voice, so everyone is confident enough to just speak by themselves. Even if we try to create that culture, people may feel a bit uncomfortable going to their manager and saying, I feel like this, you treated me like this or this happened. This affinity group will help them to raise their voice as a group. So hopefully the business will be able to identify those things easier and to be able to fix them because that's a very important part. Affinity groups are not there to fix the stuff, the business needs to fix it, the leadership needs to fix it, I need to fix it, and everyone working in the business needs to fix it, not the affinity groups. They are not there to fix what has been done wrong, they're there to support each other, help each other identify their own experiences, and give feedback, if they feel comfortable with the business, for us to fix it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 30:49
They need to be empowered to take that information somewhere, right? So that you can't just be like, oh, okay, well, we've got a load of affinity groups, they meet up, they have a load of speakers and they actually need to feel like they're contributing and have a channel to communicate upwards or across somewhere to do something about it.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 31:10
Exactly. So for example, every time I do anything inclusion and diversity-related, when we update the strategy, we create the toolkits we implement, I share it with them and I asked them for challenges, for them to tell me what it is that works and doesn't work. Look at it from your experience, and tell me what is not working there because I cannot represent everyone, of course, I don't have the background and experiences that other people have. I think what a beautiful thing as well about the way the affinity groups at Innocent is that they all decided to create their own allyship structure. So, all the affinity groups decided that they created a group for the members but also parts of the activities are connecting with allies and speaking with other people about their experiences. So that's, again, another great opportunity for the business to create those connections. I think what is really important is affinity groups working with each other, as you were saying, this is quite a boxing exercise like you can be a woman and have a disability or be from an ethnic minority.
So another thing we are very keen to have is our affinity groups working with each other and coping with pride with each other and probably just being the same, Nadia, but something that really frustrates me is when inclusion and diversity become almost like a war between one versus the other. So no, this is more important, or this is more important, or this is way worse than this and there's no need for that, you know, as we all benefit from inclusion, we all benefit from diversity. So having the different affinity groups connecting, working with each other, and coping with each other instead of kind of creating competition, I think is really important as well.
Nadia Nagamootoo 32:50
Yeah. So how then do we overcome? Because this naturally leads to the conversation around white men who typically don't have an affinity group. There are, for example, people who don't have a disability, they don't typically have an affinity group. Okay. So how do we overcome that element of backlash almost, it's like, oh, okay, well, we've got all these groups, there's nothing for me, I don't fit into any of these groups, so you're not hearing my voice now. What do you say to that?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 33:19
I think my answer will be the affinity groups are not the full inclusion and diversity strategy, I think it is understanding that what we're trying to achieve here is to have an inclusive environment and an inclusive environment that allows you to be yourself and actually not only be allowed but be valued to be yourself because you're bringing a specific different perspective. Each of us has a specific and different perspective, and each of us has a different way of communicating, of adding value you can be the most privileged person in this world, but you still have your own way and your own perspectives. So creating an environment that is inclusive for all is actually inclusive for you as well.
Nadia Nagamootoo 34:05
I love that. For me, when I hear that there is an element, I suppose, quite honestly of wanting to explain that structural disadvantage in society, that this is our society, organisations are designed for the majority group and by the majority group. So, therefore, when any policy is designed or any initiative has taken place, it's typically designed with those people in mind. So what we're trying to do is get those people in who sits in the minority, it doesn't mean that those people who are in the majority groups aren't as important or that their views aren't as necessary to hear but simply that by default, their views are naturally heard. The lens that we see the world is typically through their eyes, it doesn't mean we can't learn anything from them, it just means that typically because we understand less of those of an ethnic group and their lived experiences or we understand less the female because there are less female at senior levels. So, the way that the structure and the systems are designed isn't necessarily for them. That's why it's important to hear those views and ensure that it is inclusive of all. This is a really tough conversation to have.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 35:23
It is and it's also helping understand as you've very well said, Nadia, your voices are already being heard but also the richness of you starting to hear other voices. So the richness of you starting to understand other perspectives that you haven't had the experience to live and how much you as a person can grow and can learn from those experiences, and not only in, of course, in the professional life but in the outside space as well. You know, like, for your personal life, trying to understand other perspectives and learn from others is super rich, like it really creates a different perspective, now it has its challenges as well, we all started doubting ourselves much more, right? The moment you start thinking about biases, you start triple thinking and for people like me who overthink things way too much, that is always a challenge, am I being fair here or is this my bias you start questioning yourself more and more, and you have to be ready for that.
Nadia Nagamootoo 36:24
Yes, absolutely. I catch myself all the time going, oh, was I inclusive when I did that or said that? Yeah, that’s good. I think that's a good thing, it's just a little bit unsettling. Whereas before, I might have just said this with confidence and not even looked back at what I'd said but now I'm reflecting much, much more having worked in this space. So tell me, you've developed a process at Innocent for measuring progress in diversity inclusion, can you just explain, because this is an area that I think a lot of organisations struggle with. Okay, so we understand things need to change but how do we know where we're at? How do we know where we need to be? How do we measure that?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 37:03
I guess the first thing is how we got there in terms of the journey we put in place before the measure. And the first thing was to learn about inclusion and diversity, and what it is that it means and we had a lot of learning from the inside and the outside. So from the very beginning, we started gathering data, internal data on what inclusion and diversity are at Innocent. So not only do we have external expertise, learning what it means for society and what the tools are out there but also at Innocent, what is our current diversity? What is our current feeling of inclusion from everyone? So, we created this inclusion and diversity survey like many other companies that we started putting in place and we measure not only the diversity characteristics but also the feelings of inclusion. With a feeling of inclusion, I mean, your own, so how included you feel, what value or how much you can give in your own perspective but also what you think the company is, with all this, how inclusive you think the company is and we gather all that data. What we do in terms of diversity is that we compare the diversity characteristics that we have in the business with the diverse characters out there and I guess what we speak about is, what are the focus areas?
So what we don't want to do is we don't want to be picking and choosing, okay, we are going to have this beautiful target about females and this is going to be our focus area, what we want to do is to assess what are the areas that we have more work to do on, what are the highest priorities looking at the information. So we use the diversity data to compare with the country, in the case of cities like London with the city characteristics, when we see the biggest difference in diversity characteristics, inside and outside is the areas that we have more work to do. In terms of inclusion, what we do is we look at the overall numbers, how inclusive people believe we have been for themselves and others but also those trends about inclusion and diversity so that people with certain diversity characteristics feel less included, so we assess that as well and then we create the action plans based on those priority areas. Then for the action plans and the measures of success, we have to think, so for that tentative and for the tools we use, what are those measures of success? How do we want those numbers to be changing? Does that make sense?
Nadia Nagamootoo 39:27
Yeah, it does. It does, in fact, sound very similar actually to our cultural inclusion diagnostic, which allows that insight into how people are feeling from an individual perspective in terms of inclusion and in a team perspective, from their manager and senior leaders, and also from an organisational perspective. It then allows you to cut that data by different demographic groups. So it's really powerful. So you're going to run that, we do run it multiple times, like every year or every couple of years.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 39:56
Yeah, we're doing them every year, I think it is the third year, this year. So we are doing that every year and we compare year on year, the numbers and what activities.
Nadia Nagamootoo 40:07
Are you able to share kind of what's on the horizon? What are you focusing on? What's the biggest challenge from an inclusion and diversity perspective? What have you got on your mind for 2021/2022?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 40:17
So in terms of what is on the way, I guess, it is to continue the journey we started in terms of identifying what are the tools that will help us the most as a business. We have a good number of initiatives from even before we started speaking about inclusion and diversity and a good number of initiatives that were helping us but how do we make more of those? How do we speak more about it externally as well? We have this new brand narrative that we call Little Drinks, Big Dreams and this is an example of that, how we can just move it and use the company to help society to develop more and to help out more. So being a little bit more external with the things we do is one of the areas that we want to focus on, and we have to continue improving. I think we have more work to do on our recruitment processes to make them more diverse and attract a more diverse set of candidates and make sure that the affinity bias is not there. I think we have more work to do on that. In terms of the biggest challenges that you were asking me, I think, what comes to my head, is one, to make sure we don't make this a numbers game.
Of course, it's important to hire more diversity, it is important to look at the numbers and measure success but true success comes from hiring people and making the environment such that they can succeed. So it's not only about the numbers, it's about creating that real culture of adding value with yourself and being yourself inside the company. I guess the other challenge is to keep strong on the needs and to understand each other perspectives. You will probably agree with me on this, there is this tension again, we were speaking about tensions, these tensions of some people misinterpreting the fact that it's important to think about how others feel and how your actions and your words can impact all this, some people reading that as being too politically correct. That's a challenge because you need to make people understand that words matter and the feelings of others matter and sometimes you will not get it because it's not your experience but that's not being politically correct, that's being emotionally savvy, I guess. That's one of the risks that people think that it's been too politically correct. The other one is people being scared to talk because of that feeling of political correctness, people being scared to give their perspectives and therefore not getting involved in the conversation.
Nadia Nagamootoo 42:45
Totally. I'm really with you and that's one of the biggest barriers, I would say, particularly for leaders that I hear them saying, oh, there's this fear of what if I get it wrong? And yeah, oh, my goodness, Marta, I could continue chatting with you for ages. Thank you so much for your time.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 43:01
It's been a pleasure, Nadia.
Nadia Nagamootoo 43:03
So for anyone who's interested, how can they get a hold of you? How can they learn more?
Marta Pajón-Fustes 43:07
I mean LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to connect with me and I love to speak about this topic. I could speak with you Nadia for hours and if anyone has any ideas, any thoughts are anything that they think Innocent can help them with, I will be really happy to connect and speak about it. Yes, absolutely.
Nadia Nagamootoo 43:25
Amazing. Well, everything that Marta and I spoke about today is available on our show notes page, which is Avenir consulting services.com under podcast. So Marta, thank you, I will look forward to catching up with you and hearing more about the Innocent journey soon.
Marta Pajón-Fustes 43:41
Thank you very much, Nadia. Pleasure.
Nadia Nagamootoo 43:43
That concludes episode 13 of the Why care podcast. I love Marta’s passion for her inclusion and diversity work. She shared some incredible tips and advice for organisations looking to overcome bias, measure their culture, and create greater inclusion. It's inspiring to hear what Innocent has achieved in the space of inclusion and diversity in actually a relatively short space of time. Do let Marta and I know what you thought of today's show. You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram with the handle Nadia Nagamootoo and at Avenir consulting services. As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast or leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening to and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Huge thanks to Mauro Kenji for editing this podcast and Jon Rice for supporting with the show notes and getting it out there on social media.
