César Mejía, our People Manager for the Caribbean and Central America Regional and Corporate Areas, participated in the panel: How are Colombian companies doing? in which they talked about how we are closing gaps in favor of a more inclusive world of work. We share their perception on the subject.

How and why do we initiate actions that support LGBT + inclusion within the organization?

A beginning fundamental of our culture is respectFrom there we have been inspired to create value for society. This is how several years ago we declared our Diversity and inclusion policy that, clearly, invites us to learn from differences, respect, value and promote diversity as a source of competitive advantage, added value and sustainability.

In line with this vision, we have been making progress in creating higher levels of awareness and in building a more respectful, diverse and inclusive company.

After a management process in the company of the Ministry of Labor and the United Nations Development Program, we managed to become the first company in Colombia to obtain the Equity Gender Equality Seal, consolidating learning and building more equitable and inclusive environments and giving it a important positioning of women in historically masculinized environments.

These learnings, consistent with our higher purpose of building dreams that drive development and transform lives and consistent with our policy, they have basic principles such as:

• Respect for human rights.
• The elimination of discrimination.
• Creating positive environments so that all people can work with dignity and without stigma.

Therefore, For a year we have been generating dynamics in favor of other edges of diversity, Among them the sexual one, learning and taking our first steps, during which time we can highlight the following advances:

• A committee has been formed by diverse people that we have called from diversity to inclusion, which arises on the initiative of a group of collaborators of the organization and not by a mandate or external consideration.
• Integration the technical table convened in 2020 by the Ministry of the Interior and ICONTEC for the design of a normative specification for Colombia on inclusive and non-discriminatory organizations, which will later be taken to the Colombian Technical Standard.
• We make a diagnosis with the CCLGBT of Colombia that will undoubtedly help us to have a clear and much more organized work plan.
• Our we adhere to Pride Connection And today we are part of that important group of companies that in Colombia works for diversity, inclusion and the generation of respectful and safe spaces for the LGBT population.

¿What are the main challenges the organization has faced in addressing these initiatives?

We could say that fear and indifference to address these issues and why they will say, our education, our beliefs, etc. We cannot deny that as individuals we have biases, many of them unconscious, and well it is to say that this is not bad, it is part of our nature and of being human, the important thing is to make them conscious and work on them.

It is also natural that organizations that are made up of human beings have biases, the important thing is to advance in building more inclusive companies, which we can perfectly do through:

• Breaking paradigms
• Educate ourselves
• Respect us
• Rate us
• Recognize us
• Build together a better society for all the people that make it up.

Our company belongs to a sector of the industry traditionally made up of men, which we have been transforming to become a benchmark in tune with our society and with our markets with an immense wealth of diversity.

Moving forward will require an active and visible commitment, doing it with determination and being protagonists of the society we want for ourselves and future generations.

What change management have we implemented in the face of the organizational culture for the success of these initiatives in our productive sector?

The first thing was set up that work team that was structured in a voluntary, committed and enthusiastic way for the inclusion of LGBT + in the organization to, from there, begin to take steps from the generation of conversational encounters with different teams to learn about these issues, put the matter on the table, identify ourselves, raise awareness, collect impressions, understand each other, value us and make this history and work in diversity in general a common purpose.

We also have another series of actions that reinforce this dynamic:

• Diversity committees in each of the countries where we operate.
• Diversity multipliers: program that seeks to train and empower a group of collaborators in different positions and regions to promote actions within their countries and work teams that promote diversity and inclusion.
• Let's talk about diversity: sequence of training spaces open to the entire population in which we learn from the world of diversity and inclusion.
• Diagnosis
• Participation in the Pride Connection where we learn every day.

I reiterate that ours are only the first steps, steps of which we are absolutely proud, as we are convinced that with everyone's contribution we can build better and more respectful societies.