Denis Jašarević, IN2 Group CEO

U sklopu dvogodišnjeg projekta Lideri uključivosti na radnome mjestu donosimo intervjue s čelnicima kompanija potpisnika Povelje o raznolikosti

We are proud that we have 40% women in our workforce, which is rather a high percentage for an IT company; this pertains to another diversity goal in our organization. We also find gender diversity in our top management positions or great importance. We have 50% women occupying those positions, which is our third diversity goal. Moreover, regarding age diversity, 15% of our colleagues are 50+ and the same percentage of into our colleagues are in their 20s. We are very open and embrace people from all walks of life into our company because it is our experience diversity really is an important asset.

  Could you share with us some key milestones in the D&I journey of your company? IN2 Group operates in five countries with different ethnical, cultural, and religious background, so our primary goal is making sure we are inclusive for all religions and cultures. We are proud that we have 40% women in our workforce, which is rather a high percentage for an IT company; this pertains to another diversity goal in our organization. We also find gender diversity in our top management positions or great importance. We have 50% women occupying those positions, which is our third diversity goal. Moreover, regarding age diversity, 15% of our colleagues are 50+ and the same percentage of into our colleagues are in their 20s. We are very open and embrace people from all walks of life into our company because it is our experience diversity really is an important asset. What aspects of diversity management have the highest priority in your company? Our ultimate goal is to have a culture with diversity embedded in its core in a way that we don™t have to prioritize it anymore. It should become as normal as breathing. Since we as society in general are not there yet, in our company gender, age and ethnical diversity are among top priorities. Which D&I activities have been implemented in your organization so far? We began 2021 with ValuesIN2 workshops, with a goal to redefine the core values of IN2 Group engaging team members with the most widespread perspectives. The workshops were organized with bottom-up approach in a way that all sectors and countries of our group were involved. This enabled us to hear and consider all different opinions and views about what our internal values really are, which is very important to me as the group CEO. Since this is an ongoing process, I look forward to activities we are planning to further develop not only our values, but awareness about them, as well as to showcase the important role diversity plays in this process. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by the industry sector in creating a diverse and inclusive workforce? The biggest challenge in IT industry certainly is how to encourage more women to pursue education and a career in IT. Regarding age diversity, in IT sector, it has become normal that employees change employers every 3-5 years. We are now facing a challenge of knowledge transfer from more mature generations to the younger ones. Younger employees are seeking companies that will provide them with experienced mentors, but more experienced employees often seek new challenges and are making career shifts when they feel they gained certain level of seniority in current roles. What business benefits do you see as a result of increasing D&I? Advantages and impact of diversity and inclusion on business results are already confirmed by a number of research. What I can say from our company perspective is that thanks to diversity in decision making processes we are looking at the challenges we face from a broader perspective. Different opinions in decision making process are always welcome. Can you name three diversity challenges that companies have to pay attention to? Often companies stay focused exclusively on numbers: having more women on leadership positions, having balanced percentage of different age groups in the workforce etc., forgetting to think about the reasons behind why the numbers are not congruent with the desire of having more diverse and inclusive culture. The second challenge is whether we really identified all the dimensions of diversity. Most common ones are gender, age, ethnicity, but is this enough that we can say we have a truly inclusive culture because we addressed only these? The third challenge is a communication one - how to empower minority groups in the company without making majority groups feel like they were left out. What do you do to convince your colleagues to see the value in diversity management, or even more to truly get them on board? From my experience, putting people in contact (live or online) with each other and enabling discussion is the most effective way to foster connection, collaboration and inclusion despite or even thanks to the possible differences. Sometimes we are not even aware of the diversity and unintentionally we make decisions that are not inclusive. That is why I use collaboration and discussion as main means of raising awareness of our weak spots regarding inclusion and as a way to motivate my colleagues to become active participants in diversity management. Any plans for the upcoming #EUDiversityMonth this May? We are planning an awareness raising campaign for Diversity Month, utilizing our internal channels to share interesting content with our employees. They will be reminded of benefits diverse workplace brings to successful operations and will have the opportunity to learn and become more sensitive about diversity. Like our other activities, this is an ongoing process and will not end in May.     This interview was produced with the financial support of the European Union (project Workplace Inclusion Champion WIC). Its contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.