Why Care? #12: Christian Hug - Making Global DEI Locally Relevant
This is part of Nadia Nagamootoo's series, Why Care? podcast series. To listen to the original podcast, you can do so below, or by heading to the website here.
“Discussions are not just about the [employee] population who we have, it’s about their network, their families members, their friends. … It’s not just about the demographics we replicate, it’s about everybody else, because we are all diverse ultimately.”
In this episode I talk with Christian Hug, the Vice President of LifeWorks & Inclusion at Discovery, the company behind the popular television channels: Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science Channel and TLC. Christian reflects with me on the journey that lead him to his role, including the passion for travel and diversity passed down to him from his parents.
After opening the episode with our discussion about Christian’s remarkable journey in his career, we move on to discussing the changes Christian has seen in the approaches companies have had towards DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) strategies over his 20+ years’ experience in the field. This includes the rise of employee networks, such as women’s networks or LGBTQ+ networks, and the spark that the recent Black Lives Matter movement has endowed to the DEI sector causing a real growth in engagement.
We move on to discussing how Discovery wants its employees to “bring [their] whole self to work”. To do so, they use a Multicultural Alliance (MCA) Monday to bring conversations about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into their employees’ working week, and we look at how this rotates around Discovery’s global regional groups to ensure it is not dominated by the US division.
Christian then expands on this topic, explaining how different regions and countries have different concerns, for example the UK has a greater focus on social mobility compared to the US and there are large conversations around skin tone in India. This means different approaches must be taken to tailor the discussions to engage regional employee bases. He expands on this further by discussing how some topics may have different stigma (or even legality) in different countries, such as LGBTQ+ issues, and how this must be considered whilst also not silencing the discussions.
Ultimately, this conversation develops into how to best manage a global DEI strategy for a multi-national company. Christian suggests that companies must have global principles on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that are then interpreted and implemented at the local level for goals and activities.
We then finish the conversation with Christian leaving us his advice on how to find employees with the passions necessary for DEI, and how to nurture these employees into change leaders.
For more from Christian Hug visit: www.christian-hug.net/, or find him at LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/in/christian-hug-2b19b61/
Or for more from Discovery visit: https://corporate.discovery.com/
