Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

On May 15th, 2023 we received a workshop by Robin Good about biases. We focused on six common biases that people unconsciously have and three dimensions that display differences between cultures.

The biases that we discussed are: confirmation bias, group/conformity bias, affinity bias, appearance bias, stereotyping & age bias, and the dimensions that we discussed are power distance, decision making & directness.

We know that change doesn't happen overnight. We're continuously practicing discussing our biases and trying to move from being “unconsciously” biased to being “consciously” biased. From here, we will actively improve our processes and ways of working together to reach an inclusive work environment for everyone.

When we have a new vacancy we think of results that the applicant should be able to reach, hard skills, and competences that we are looking for in a person for a certain position. With this knowledge, we create the vacancy. To attract a more diverse pool of candidates and to avoid having the vacancy written using overly gendered descriptions, we use a gender decoder that highlights the words that are considered more feminine and the words that are considered more masculine.

To make sure that everyone feels welcome to apply for a position at O My Bag, we've added a statement about DEI on our Job Opportunities page. Here we explicitly ask to not add any details like date of birth in the application. We also include in every vacancy that we encourage everyone to apply, even if they don't tick all the boxes, since we know from research, that many women would not apply if they don't match all the requirements mentioned in the vacancy.

While O My Bag employees come from twelve different countries around the world, one of our hurdles is to hire more diverse profiles. We acknowledge that the sector currently brings us more feminine presenting applicants. We hope that as we grow we can offer jobs to everyone.

Using recommendations from McKinsey, we decided to focus on gender, age, and ethnic diversity within O My Bag. We will continuously evaluate what we are doing regarding DEI and what we can still improve on.

To ensure we are being inclusive to all our employees, similar positions are paid equally regardless of gender. Employees can switch Dutch public holidays for their own country's or culture's public holidays and we continuously track the well-being of our employees through our HR tool, OfficeVibe.

At O My Bag, we have a cross-functional project group, that together with HR works on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion.

We have implemented a yearly international food day, to celebrate all the different cultures we have within O My Bag. This helps our employees to get to know each other and share a piece of their culture. 

We proudly stand behind the idea of equality and equity for everyone. One of the examples is our continuous support of the LGBTQIA+ community in India by maintaining our Pride Project, which we're working on with the Naz Foundation. All revenue from our Rainbow Webbing strap goes directly to Naz. This non-profit organization, based in New Delhi, India, was established to address issues of HIV/AIDS and sexuality in India and focuses on supporting marginalized youth. The foundation’s vision is “to create a just and equitable society by transforming individuals from socially and economically excluded communities into agents of change.”

As a company, we want to motivate not only other businesses in our industry but also our employees, partners, and customers to create the demand for change.

We encourage our employees to join pride celebrations, participate in organized peaceful climate protests, and volunteer and donate to various social projects. We like to inspire people to do the same by showing our participation on our social media.