By Philippe Delpech, Sonepar President
Corporate interest in diversity and inclusion (D&I) is nothing new. When I worked as sales and marketing director for ABB back in the 1990s, it was already a forward-thinking player. It had targets to recruit more women engineers and enlightened initiatives like paternity leave. That was 30 years ago, and, given that companies recast their strategies every few years, you might expect gender balance to be a problem solved. But it is not: the period has seen some progress, but it is slow and patchy.
Why is that? The key problem is that for many companies, D&I remains a paper exercise. Under pressure from investors and civil society groups, companies can announce high-minded aspirations but they remain just that – aspirations.
External attempts to force these companies into action tend not to work either. When I worked in the USA, the stock exchange mandated companies to report on D&I KPIs. But not much changed – having indicators of performance does not always equal performance itself. Coupled to this are wider societal problems over which companies have little control. It is no good setting extremely ambitious targets to recruit women engineers, when women are heavily under-represented in our engineering schools.
So how can we solve the problem? After observing D&I efforts in a range of settings, I have come to the view that the solution is what I call the “snowball effect”. If you want to roll a snowball downhill, at first it simply will not roll. However, if you put in an intense initial effort to help it gather snow, once it reaches a critical size it begins to move and accelerates quickly. Taking such an approach has two advantages for organizations. First, while making an organization fully diverse and inclusive might be a 10 to 15-year journey, intense effort can deliver tangible results in the space of two to three years – helping the snowball gather pace. Second, early successes signal clearly to managers and others where the organization is headed in D&I terms; if they do not like that, they tend to move on – no bad thing and one less blocker to progress.
We see our role as creating an organization that can leverage our associates’ differences as the strengths to drive forward sustainable performance.
There are three keys to achieving this effect:
Make D&I a strategic issue: To make any real progress on D&I, it must be a strategic priority championed at board level. That might seem obvious, but in companies that I have seen make this change, the effects can be profound. Senior management has to be convinced that D&I matters and that it can contribute to competitive advantage.
Develop an action plan, communicate and be consistent: The buy-in of senior management must be clear at all levels in the company, right down to the shop floor. In my experience, D&I is an overarching issue – it is not just about managers or HR departments. There should be a clear and practical roadmap that contains both short and long-term interventions. Short-term progress is especially important to show employees that ground is being gained. This must involve clear internal communication at all levels, absolute consistency across the organization, and repetition and reinforcement.
Change the management culture: The classic hierarchical company structure was almost universal 50 years ago, and it worked well in a world where change was slow and corporate planning departments thought they could see for decades ahead. Today younger employees – in many ways the key to a diverse and inclusive organization – expect to be able to speak to senior management directly. I have had two recent experiences of this, in questions asked of me at internal events. In both cases, the communication from young employees was free and frank – far from disrespectful but challenging all the same. I cannot imagine anyone daring to do this when I began my career – but I welcome it, and it is certainly efficient!
If you have a stake in D&I in your working life, I invite you to reflect on your organization’s own snowball: how big is it and how fast is it rolling?
I believe we are making good progress in all these areas at Sonepar. We see our role as creating an organization that can leverage our associates’ differences as the strengths to drive forward sustainable performance. This means building an inclusive, safe, and caring environment where associates can realize their full potential and customers feel valued. That is why we have made D&I central to our strategic plan. We have developed a specific D&I strategy drawing on experts in the field and –most importantly –sponsorship from our Executive Committee and shareholders. These efforts were recognized recently when Sonepar entered the Financial Times’ 2024 Diversity Leaders ranking for the first time.
This strategy flows into our D&I Roadmap. It is an essential tool to raise awareness among associates and managers, and it also serves to consolidate and communicate D&I initiatives across all the countries where we operate. Having diversity at all levels of the organization is accelerating the snowball effect as people who feel represented at all levels will be most likely to be willing to join, stay and evolve in the organization. It goes beyond internal changes too: we also aim to engage our suppliers in Sonepar’s D&I journey and work closely with external communities whose people are marginalized and excluded. A good example of this is Sonepar in Chile partnering with both NGO RedMaestra and our suppliers Nexans and Schneider Electric; to create the first community of female electricians, now providing around sixty Chilean women with a certified training program.
If you have a stake in D&I in your working life, I invite you to reflect on your organization’s own snowball: how big is it and how fast is it rolling? If your answer is not as encouraging as you would like, perhaps it is time to review and work on your senior management buy in, action plan, and management culture.