As Diversity Champion of the LGBTQ+ Community at the NHRDN and Avtar Diversity Champions Awards 2022, Chandra Duraiswamy, Senior Director, GE India, has walked the talk in creating inclusive spaces for the community. He talks to Diversity Digest, about his journey as a champion, his lived experiences and the practical goals one must set to make the workplace inclusive.
Watch the full interview with Diversity Champion of the LGBTQ+ Community at the NHRDN and Avtar Diversity Champions Awards 2022, Chandra Duraiswamy, Senior Director, GE India, on ‘Pride Matters’.
You have been adjudged the Diversity Champion of the LGBTQ+ Community at the NHRDN and Avtar Diversity Champions Awards 2022. As a champion, share with us, what have been your focus areas for building inclusion for the LGBTQIA+ community?
I have been focusing on several fronts to drive inclusion.
- Investing time in pitching business case for LGBTQIA+ inclusion to India Inc, sharing of lived experiences to build empathy, creating awareness among employees (bystanders), and converting them into upstanders and nurturing allies.
- Mentoring people from the queer community and coach them to be vocal, visible, and successful.
- Cofounding Advisory Collective, an NGO that assist organizations embark on their inclusion journey.
- Helping NGOs working in the trans inclusion and upliftment. In the last year, I’ve fund raised close to 5L INR.
There is the concept of lived experience for champions like you? How did that shape your involvement?
My former manager, Daylon Lutzenberger, is the primary reasons why I’m being interviewed. He inspired and mentored me through his lived experience and enabled me to share mine. The stretch goal he gave me in 2017 to start an employee resource group (ERG) for LGBTQIA+ people in India widened my perspective and gave me confidence to step out of my closet at workplace and lead from the front. This empowerment felt like rebirth and there was no looking back or going back into the closet.
This transformation helped me further my outreach efforts pitch the business case for inclusion, to cofound an NGO to help India Inc. on their inclusion journey and fund raise for NGOs working on trans inclusion and upliftment. And also, mentor and catalyze transformation journeys of people and inclusion journey of organizations.
Tell us about how GE has built on the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ through policies and programs? According to you, why is it important for organizations to have metrics?
Policies, benefits, and infrastructure for LGBTQIA+ inclusion is a given in the knowledge industry. While GE has all those, we’ve gone beyond to foster inclusion and belonging.
To share a few:
- Allies play a key role in building our culture and sustaining our efforts. GE India has a strong ally network (3rd largest in the GE globally). We onboard allies with care and teach them how to be vocal, visible and intervene through case studies.
- Belong, our annual IDE conference focuses on all aspects of inclusion and intersectionality.
- Our people who’ve moved the needle on inclusion are motivated and recognized through awards each year at this conference.
- We focus on building empathy through sharing of lived experiences and breaking stereotypes, heteronormativity included. This year we will host a fire side chat with couples from LGTQIA+ community to show love is love.
- Our leaders have inaugurated pride cross walks (rainbow cross walks) in several of our facilities to remind people of our values – respect, equality, and inclusion.
- Our engineers have built a tool that scans job descriptions and to ensure they are gender neutral and inclusive.
- We participate in job fairs to recruit LGBTQIA+ talent and last year we focused on hiring interns from the community.
Peter Drucker said, “What’s measured improves” and Steven Convey said, “Begin with the end in mind.”
Organizations must keep both these quotes in mind before defining metrics.
LGBTQIA+ inclusion efforts could be measured through number of people sensitized, number of interventions done during the year, number of allies and LGBTQIA+ employees onboarded and even number of harassment and discrimination complains registered.
What is the rigor and routine that a diversity champion follows?
A diversity champion must keep the following pointers in mind.
- Set measurable and achievable goals
- Include breakthrough actions and make it happen through allyship
- Always think win-win and explore for collaborations within and outside the organization
- Never be crestfallen when things don’t progress
- Learn to celebrate small milestones and progress
- Throw ego under the bus and stay focused on the end goal
- Lastly, do not get distracted by rewards and awards.
For aspiring diversity champions, what are your suggestions about steps and areas they should build on when they set out?
I’m sharing a quote I have at my desk -“Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps your growing”. Keep in mind the eight points I shared above.
