Now at the midpoint of 2024, it’s a great moment to look at how our global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) development is progressing at Reaktor.
In April 2023, we shared an update at the four-month mark of our global DEI work. We had just finished our global DEI survey and were working on our DEI strategy at the time, and we asserted that "DEI requires vision, persistence, and patience."
Reflecting on everything we've done since that last update, we'd like to add a word to that assertion: "perseverance."
DEI work requires an immense amount of perseverance. This is because of how we've approached DEI at Reaktor — embedding it across our operations. In practice, this involves collaborating with our leadership teams and key global functions to integrate DEI into their goals and core work. At the same time, we offer a customized Learning and Development (L&D) program that is available to everyone but tailored to meet different needs. Achieving this balance of implementation and education requires perseverance.
So, what's happened since our latest update in April 2023?
Reaktor’s Global DEI Strategy was launched in 2023
We launched our Global DEI Strategy in August 2023. It was built from our global DEI survey findings and combined with our core business strategy. The DEI strategy encompasses our key strategic choices, long-term target state, and five key objectives coupled with measurable essential results and actions (OKR framework). Our short-term objectives for 2024 were:
- We equip our leadership teams and those with decision-making power with better DEI competencies.
- We embed DEI in all of our talent communities globally.
- We build a more inclusive culture and community.
- We build paths for more equal opportunities for all.
- We develop DEI competencies across Reaktor.
What progress have we made so far?
Objective 1: We equip our leadership teams and those with decision-making power with better DEI competencies
We held over 10 targeted sessions for various Reaktor leadership teams and key decision-makers across our business. The goal for these sessions was to establish a shared understanding of how DEI impacts the work of these leaders and what tools or support they need to help incorporate DEI into their core work.
As a concrete result of these sessions, each team committed to 2-3 action points going forward. For Reaktor Finland's leadership team, we co-created DEI OKRs for them to work towards together as a team. This objective occupied most of our time, but it was time well spent: Finland is Reaktor’s biggest talent community, and there’s potential for significant impact.
Objective 2: We embed DEI in all of our talent communities globally
The second objective saw us scaling DEI development from our offices in Europe to all global offices. In addition to collecting feedback from each office for our global DEI Strategy, we established a global DEI team consisting of representatives based in North America, The Netherlands, Finland, and Portugal. The goal of this is to drive the DEI work in local contexts.
The Global DEI team has worked together with these locally-based teams to build location-specific OKRs and ways of working that are meaningful to them within their communities. Currently, all teams are kicking off their first actions.
Objective 3: We build a more inclusive culture and community
To achieve the third objective, we established a close collaboration with our global HR. We supported employees from different dimensions of diversity with various needs they had at work and about challenging topics that arose from daily life.In addition, we implemented specific DEI metrics into our self-built employee survey and exit surveys.We organized neurodiversity and unconscious bias workshops for key functions like HR and Talent Acquisition with the goal of broadening their understanding of these topics.
In addition, we organized global events around different DEI themes and invited notable speakers to share their insights with us. For International Women's Day, we learned about Viewing AI Bias through a Human Rights Lens from Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, CEO of Women at the Table. During Neurodiversity Celebration Week, we had the honor of listening and learning from Axelle Ahanhanzo, founder of LAUDACE, about Neurodiversity from an Intersectional Lens.
For LGBTQIA+ inclusion we established cross-company collaboration for inclusion development, partnered up with Helsinki Pride and Turku Pride, set up a queer library, organized internal events for the community, and invited LGBTQIA+ and trans educator Max Siegel to a global fireside chat about tangible workplace allyship.
Objective 4: We build paths for more equal opportunities for all
We established a strong relationship with our Talent Development function and partnered with them to embed a DEI lens to the talent development renewal work. There are several projects that we've already collaborated on – adding a DEI view to our career development paths, adding some key DEI competencies to our Competence Library (a codified collection of competencies that we've found to be valuable, and encouraging employees to develop and practice throughout their career at Reaktor), and co-building and participating in a bias-mitigating interview process.
We also supported our global HR and Talent Development team in researching our gender pay gap globally. Based on the results of the analysis, we made immediate corrections for all impacted individuals. We are currently working on longer-term actions and supporting global functions in building a more equitable global compensation model.
Objective 5: We develop DEI Competencies Across Reaktor
In the latest update, we mentioned that we had just internally designed and launched the Reaktor Fundamentals of DEI training. Since then, 40% of our people have graduated from the training!
Based on the results from the post-training survey,
- 87.8% of attendees say that they're highly motivated to learn more about DEI
- 81% say that they are better able to reflect on their own unconscious biases and privilege, and
- 75.5% say they can develop 1-2 ways to create a more inclusive and equitable environment within their team.
The real impact shines through in the feedback from some Reaktorians:
"I'm going to step up with allyship and move from DEI awareness into accountability in my team."
"Thank you for doing this! Can’t wait to attend the possible advanced version of this and to see where Reaktor goes with this ❤️."
We're now setting our sights on scaling the training by widening our trainer pool. The longer-term goal is to free up some time to develop training on more advanced topics, such as active allyship or principles of inclusive language.
Exciting times ahead!
Where to next?
We will continue carrying out our DEI strategy, track our progress in 2024, and build new objectives for 2025. We also plan to run our second Global DEI Survey later this year.
DEI isn't just something that sits on the shoulders of the DEI team, it's a practice that needs to be operationalized and embedded across the company’s functions. It requires continuous development, and we're happy to have established a foundation for the work to continue.
About the authors
Cassandra Shapiro and Jasmin Assulin form Reaktor’s Global DEI Lead Duo.
Through her tenure at Reaktor, Shapiro has been a trailblazer of DEI. From building surveys and shaping strategies to organizing intensive courses and finding ways to enhance diversity in recruitment, she’s a trusted DEI voice.
Jasmin Assulin is the CEO and co-founder of the Nordic-based diversity, equity, and inclusion agency deidei. Following a customized training series for Reaktor in 2021, the collaboration expanded, and deidei was brought on to be the external partner for Reaktor’s global DEI development efforts.
