TriMech Enterprise
Thought Leadership Interview - Diversity in the workplace - John Kitchingman
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For me and Dassault systems workforce of the future is all about building our legacy and a core part of our future is around our commitment to leadership in business sustainability, not just our net zero plan for 2050, but also how do we build new capabilities? What do our clients and our partners need? And of course, it's not just workforce for the future, it's workforce of now building diversity into the business, building new capabilities that we see are absolutely needed by our clients. And, you know, we've been through an awful lot in the last few years, the COVID 19 period, the economic challenges that resulted. So building that sustainable workforce is critical for us, our partners and our clients. So how is sustainable innovation driving the workforce the future? For me, sustainable innovation is the absolute foundation of any business for longevity. And how do you actually drive new ideas, new innovation and implement them in a business is imperative. That means new process, new methods, new learning. How do you share knowledge and know how across the entire product development lifecycle? And that needs good process. Clearly, cultural change winning hearts and minds. But it also needs technology, business platforms like ours, 3D experience, platform that can share that knowledge and know how in a collaborative fashion and build it over time to become real valuable intellectual property for a business. And then it becomes sustainable because you continue to iterate and adding value, bringing new capability, looking at how you can diversify, thinking as well about the client's client. That design thinking is imperative because if we build that persona, then we understand how we can deliver competitive advantage for our clients and partners. Why is it important that a company invests in the workforce of the future is the lifeblood of any business. If you want to build a legacy, it's the people you want to retain. You want them to actually reference and attract new capability to the business. So if people are feeling that it is an inspiring environment, a collaborative environment, they're learning, they're really bringing value to the end customer, That's absolutely essential. And I think when that happens, you're adding technical skill, you're adding soft skill, You're looking at how the people who are in the workforce now are bringing that longevity and that knowledge from historic events and activities to the new people who are joining to make sure that onboarded and adding value quickly into the business and then join themselves. What does diversity inclusion mean for me at a deep personal level as leader for Dassault systems in Northern Europe is an essential ingredient to make a really high performing workforce. When I first came here, I was concerned about things that weren't diverse enough. We didn't have an internship program, we didn't have a graduate program. We weren't consciously thinking about that men or women balance in our workforce. We're doing all of those things now. We're championing many diverse initiatives around Pride Week, around LBGTQ+ type initiatives, not just to get a tick in the box so that actually people can embrace, understand better, because this is a learning thing, even at a real personal level. The things that I didn't truly understand well enough, and by digging deep, immersing myself in it with my leadership team, we're fully committed on that journey now, certainly not where we need to be yet, but on a journey and progressing really well. Why is diversity, inclusion, belonging important? Because we need to better learn from each other, learn from different cultures, learn different perspectives on business issues, business challenges, people think differently. And if we absorb that, if we understand it, we'll get a better outcome for our teams and ultimately for our clients and partners. It's essential, and I believe we've made some big strides towards that in Dassault systems as we were talking a third of our new hires last year, 282 people across northern Europe were women. That's great. 50% of my graduate program are women. And of course, diversity, inclusion, belonging it's not just about men and women, just an example. So we're making big commitments, big strides, and first and foremost, we're understanding the challenge better than we've ever done before. So how does diverse teams across the workforce drive sustainability? I think at three levels. I think, first of all, at that innovation level, just that sharing of ideas, different perspectives from different cultures, different backgrounds, different experiences, it gets a better outcome. I think then if you can drive that innovation agenda, you can start to look at more business model transformation and look at the journey you want to take, the steps you want to take and how you get there. And the third is it also defines not just the legacy, the future legacy of the business, but also the types of workforce, the types of people, the types of skills that you need moving forward. So many dimensions really, it's it's very, you know, inclusive and also the underlying making sure that there's an education process because, you know, for many people like me who've been in business for 35 years now, know some of these concepts are new and therefore you've got to invest your time to truly get your head around some of these subjects. So how can virtual universes and 3D experience platform support what we've been talking around diversity, inclusion, belonging, learning, sustainable innovation. That's what it's there for. It's looking at a business in its entirety. How do we model that business? How do we create a virtual twin of the business before we actually create the business? So you can create the concept, You can do the what if validations from a design perspective, from a manufacturing perspective, before you even get into the real investment in maybe physical prototypes, if those are even needed anymore. So I think it enables you to start the entire sustainability innovation journey earlier, make all of the decisions very early in that design cycle lifecycle and then drive it through making sure that the information, the knowledge and know how that you're capturing is shared across the business. And that's what 3D Experience platform does with Swim ensures you've got collaborate communities, conversations with people where you can share information data very early and ensure then that you work in a very iterative and agile way to get the outcome far sooner than we ever did before.