March 2023 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 13
// D&I //
Shining lights
The pivotal and enlightening journey to conscious inclusion
Our goal at Inizio Medical is to celebrate our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) by ensuring everyone – no matter the business unit or geographic region – has equal access to career opportunities, professional development and personal success.
Therefore, as part of our 2023 DEI transformation, we are currently working to define our parameters for success.
We are also developing a plan for implementing a DEI strategy that will help further our goals, including the recruitment of diverse talent, progressing opportunities for development and reimagining our inclusion-learning opportunities to underscore its importance to the well-being of our staff and our business.
‘We want to create an environment where our colleagues feel safe to be their authentic selves’
We now have a DEI council that is comprised of volunteer staff from all backgrounds, areas and levels within our business. They are all working together to help shape our strategy. Ultimately, we want to create an environment where our colleagues feel safe to be their authentic selves in our workplace, which, in turn, will help them thrive.
The key to our success will be our focus on being consciously inclusive, rather than solely educating our colleagues and raising their awareness about unconscious bias.
Promised land
I am excited about the journey we have embarked on to transform the way we embrace and embed DEI within our organisation.
We are working towards achieving transformational change within Inizio Medical so that DEI becomes so engrained in our culture, it becomes part of everything we do and not a standalone piece. DEI will become an essential capability, from how we operate internally to how we do business and interact with our clients.
Our success will be achieved at the point when DEI is integral to everything we do, from our recruiting practices and client interactions, communications, learning and development, to being inquisitive, and fostering inclusivity in our workplace.
Colleagues across the organization are taking responsibility to help shape our culture and during this process will become increasingly aware and knowledgeable about existing inequities, implementing change and measuring success, thereby helping advance DEI at Inizio Medical and enhancing value to our clients.
To achieve our goals, we have a long journey ahead. We will not attempt to implement copious amounts of change simultaneously but will do so at a measured pace. We will need to listen openly to feedback, take time to reflect, and strategise/re-strategise before taking the next step.
We understand this may seem a slow process, but to ensure the future sustainability of DEI at Inizio Medical, in the end, it will have been productive and worthwhile.
Naseem Ahmed, Global Director Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Inizio Medical