Ananya Sabharwal, Human Resources Director at Unilever Sri Lanka, reflects on the importance of diversity and inclusion in her own life and career. She also discusses how Unilever is championing equity, diversity and inclusion to solidify a diverse and inclusive workplace that helps everyone thrive.
Why diversity and inclusion? Throughout your life, how have these concepts and their acceptance evolved?
Let me start by sharing one of my favourite quotes on inclusion by Liz Fosslien: Diversity is having a seat at the table, Inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard.
As individuals and organisations, we have a duty to create diverse and psychologically safe spaces where people can feel free to thrive and collaborate beyond all kinds of differences, not just gender. People must feel safe, feel equal and feel that they belong and only then can they bring their best selves to a conversation, team or project.
Each woman, man and diverse individual has their own story on why diversity and inclusion matter to them; Let me share why it matters to me. As a child, my parents engrained diversity and inclusion into my upbringing. Growing up as an only child in a gender-sensitive India, they would always tell me; you are our daughter, and our son, you can be and do anything! That one statement shaped me to not attach any form of identity, such as gender, age or religion, to how I view myself, my capabilities and others.
Now married to a Jewish American, and despite the many hurdles that came our way with an interfaith marriage, my husband and I are true believers that this Earthship is one big home for all humans, connected by one simple and powerful thing – being human.
Inclusion has been a big theme in my career as well. I got the opportunity to live and work across many different countries such as India, the US, the UK, the Netherlands, and most recently Sri Lanka, performing this role for the past year and a half.
Moving around the world, I have realised that we all have more similarities than differences. And yet there is so much diversity to appreciate in the wide variety of this human existence. While I have seen diversity and inclusion more role-modelled in some parts of the world, and we sure have made a lot of progress in recent years, there is immense potential for doing much more for a more equitable world.
Can you tell us why diversity and inclusion matter to Unilever?
It matters to Unilever because it makes economic, business and human sense.
It makes economic sense because various studies now prove that having diversity kicks off a virtuous economic cycle. For example, by empowering women and girls to reach their full potential, we help lift not just women but entire families out of poverty and build stable, growing and equitable economies. I recently read a study where McKinsey forecasted that a gender-balanced Sri Lanka has the potential to add $20 billion a year to its GDP over the next couple of years. Empowering women and diverse groups benefit society because women reinvest a majority of their earnings in their families and communities.
It makes business sense because if our employee base does not reflect our consumer base, how do we develop and sell products that resonate with these consumers? In order for us to be intimate with and relevant to the world, we need all kinds of diversity within our organisation – be it diversity of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation etc. because only then will our products speak to the diverse needs of these consumers. Our chances of richer consumer insights increase as we build diversity in our teams. It makes human sense because why would you want to leave anyone behind? A diverse team always performs better and is far more successful than a non-diverse team, due to the culture that ends up flourishing in a diverse team. While this is common for all kinds of diversity, in particular, when you have a balanced number of men and women in a team, the listening quotient, empathy and psychological safety factors increase, resulting in higher creativity and innovation. People feel free to share their ideas, be themselves and be more collaborative. And various studies now prove that when you have gender diversity, it starts to flourish all kinds of diversity in that ecosystem.`
What are some of the initiatives of Unilever to improve diversity and inclusion?
At Unilever globally, we want to see a society where everyone is treated equally, so we are working to create a fairer more socially inclusive world. This means going further than ever to break down barriers and create opportunities in our workplaces, our supply and distribution chains, and in society at large. Recognising the dignity and worth of every individual will help us give them the freedom to fully embrace themselves.
At Unilever Sri Lanka too, we have been striving to create an inclusive workplace where our people can truly collaborate and thrive beyond all differences while bringing in their own unique voice and authenticity. I see the Unilever inclusion approach with 2 key aspects – ‘hardware’ and ‘software’. Hardware includes the policies and processes through which we enable inclusion. Software includes all aspects of our culture where we shape inclusive leadership, mindsets and behaviours. Speaking of the ‘hardware’, we have put in place several progressive policies and are working towards a balanced slate when it comes to female representation at all levels of management. 2021 was a year of many historic firsts for Unilever Sri Lanka in terms of diversity and behaviours.
Speaking of the ‘hardware’, we have put in place several progressive policies and are working towards a balanced slate when it comes to female representation at all levels of management.
2021 was a year of many historic firsts for Unilever Sri Lanka in terms of diversity and inclusion, and I take a lot of humble pride in sharing these. For the first time in the history of Unilever Sri Lanka, we hired about 25 female employees into our main manufacturing facility at our Horana Factory. It took a lot of effort because it was not just about hiring women but helping them adjust and do well and helping men welcome and support them. The tea industry is male-dominated, but we are making critical inroads here too with a woman heading our tea factory at Agarapathana.
Women make up 55% of the Unilever Sri Lanka Management Committee or our Country Board, 42% of the management is female and 31% of all our non-factory employees across the country are female. We aim to reach a 50:50 gender balance over the next couple of years, and globally, Unilever has already reached that mark at the management level. Last year, we also employed differently-abled people to our Consumer call centre in Sri Lanka.
With the global pandemic, females across the world were disproportionately affected with a significant increase in domestic violence. We launched the ‘UNMUTE’ campaign globally, and in Sri Lanka last year we also launched a Domestic Violence Support Policy that includes paid annual leave, financial support, flexible work arrangements, access to counselling, accommodation, a helpline etc. We launched our Fertility Support Policy where we cover the cost of fertility treatments to support women on their journey towards motherhood. We also offer six months maternity leave, above and beyond the statutory requirement and fathers get three weeks of paternity leave because enabling fathers to play their role as caregivers can really help ease the stress of motherhood. We make sure that as an inclusive organisation, our policies benefit both women and men.
We also offer career break opportunities, open to both men and women, and about seven years into my career, I myself took a seven-month sabbatical to pursue my hobbies like Yoga, mountaineering and volunteering. It’s liberating to think that this is something that Unilever has always been very supportive of and I believe this investment in myself really supported my development and leadership.
Speaking of ‘software’ and how we ingrain inclusion into our culture, we train our leaders to understand and build inclusive teams and influence others with more inclusive behaviours. We also have many external partnerships, globally and within Sri Lanka, to help us learn and hold us accountable. One of the biggest enablers in recent times is our Unilever Leadership Framework called High Support, High Challenge. This basically means that we groom leaders to embody both compassion and empathy as the High Support element of leadership, as well as the ability to hold people accountable and nudge them into being their best selves, as the High Challenge part of leadership. It’s a combination of making employees feel safe, being role models of vulnerability, and setting a culture for lifelong learning. We truly believe that people deliver their best potential when both supported yet challenged.
Also, common across many countries is the work Unilever does in enhancing livelihood opportunities for women in our communities. In Sri Lanka, we have a programme called ‘Saubhagya’ that empowers more than 5,000 rural women to earn sustainable livelihoods by selling Unilever products within their communities and be leaders of their own lives. Lastly, to cater to the diversity of generational needs of flexibility, we are even planning to launch some new employment models where we envision that employees can freelance with Unilever for a few weeks in a year, whilst retaining some precious security and benefits of being an employee – in other words Flexicurity. This is another way in which we plan to be more inclusive, by having diverse employment models and ways of working.
In the world of work, in what areas have we made progress, and where do we need to do more? Overall, do you think we are moving fast enough?
At Unilever globally, our focus is on building awareness that the one-size-fits-all approach can no longer work because every individual is unique. We need to not only accept but embrace this uniqueness by tailoring our leadership, culture, strategy and products to that uniqueness. In other words, it is not about giving everyone a shoe but giving them a shoe that fits.
There is a lot of awareness around diversity and inclusion, not just in sustainability-conscious companies like Unilever. For instance, not only does Unilever has transgenders featured in some of our ads, or men doing household chores, but I noticed that Victoria’s Secret too recently featured a differently-abled model in one of their ads too. This goes to show that diversity and inclusion are present across other industries.
So, has there been progress? Yes, with many conscious companies such as Unilever, Victoria’s Secret, etc. making an effort. However, when you zoom out and ask yourself, out of the 195 countries, how many heads of state are women? In the world of business, how many CEOs are female? How many Founders of start-ups are female? While the figures may be rising, they are still very low. There has been intention and progress over the past few years but not enough. We still have too many people denied opportunities simply because of who they are.
Looking at the market in Sri Lanka or maybe this part of the world, what can we do to accelerate diversity and inclusion across the board?
Firstly, I believe organisations need to move beyond vanity metrics. It is easy to set a gender balance target but making real progress on diversity and inclusion requires moving beyond these targets and quotas. Numbers can easily shift to meet targets, but lasting change can only happen when mindsets, behaviours and actions shift.
Secondly, I strongly believe that all of us have unconscious biases we need to confront at the workplace and in our homes. Let me be honest, my husband is an extremely supportive and wonderful partner and companion, but we still have situations where gender stereotypes sometimes manifest themselves in who handles what chore in the household. Breaking those biases in the household and workplace should be the first step.
At Unilever Sri Lanka, we have workshops on inclusion sensitisation for line leaders and mental health training (almost a third of our employees are trained as mental health champions). I personally never start team performance reviews and calibration meetings without listing out the top ten unconscious biases that we as humans can carry, so that we are well aware of them and hold each other accountable during the meeting as we rate individuals.
Thirdly, we need to find a way to unlock the talent of differently-abled people, and I’m happy to say that Unilever has begun this journey. One in seven people in the world live with a disability and are marginalised in terms of gaining access to employment, education and other opportunities. Removing the barriers obstructing the inclusion of disabilities in the workplace is long overdue. However, it is not as straightforward as building infrastructure or making leaders and employees sensitive to the unique needs of differently-abled people; it is about providing skill-building opportunities and the right jobs for their abilities to fit in. Many tech companies are doing a great job, and I think Unilever has also made encouraging progress in many parts of the world.
And last but not the least, I think the number one thing we can do to accelerate diversity and inclusion across the board is to encourage diversity of thought and build a culture of authenticity around the world. Only when we all learn to have an open mind, try to objectively see the many identities we hold dear, and allow people to be themselves, will diversity flourish. My single biggest reminder to myself and everyone around me always is – Be Yourself, that’s the best gift you can give to the world.