OUTfront LGBT+ @Capgemini - 'Herstory'

A short history of OUTfront: the journey to the Top 100

2017 was quite the journey, jumping 131 places to no.63 in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index – of course, no journey of this size happens in one year alone – or without the actions and commitment of a number of people. Here I share a brief history of how our LGBT+ network, OUTfront, has developed to where it is today – and some key faces from along the way.

In 2009, I first contacted my Business Unit’s head of HR, Frances Duffy, to see if I could start an LGBT+ network. Thankfully, she said “Yes!” and that was, really, the start.

I always felt that Capgemini was a positive employer in terms of LGBT+, which is why I wanted to start a network, but I didn’t really have a measure. When we first took part in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index and became Stonewall Diversity Champions, we ranked near the bottom of all the organisations who had taken part. Now that was a shock. How could that be? Our competitors and our clients were in the top 10 and I couldn’t see what they were doing differently?

So, we started to work with Stonewall to identify the things we needed to do to address the gaps in Diversity & Inclusion.

In 2013, I took part in an internal YamJam about Diversity and started a conversation with Alan Walker, with whom I had not spoken before, and after some conversations about the speed of our rise, we secured our first sponsor and our first budget. This period saw us step up to the index but still a way to go.

In 2015, I was approached by Chris Howard who looked after the social media arm of the Army & TA’s LGBT+ Networks, and who wanted to do more in his day job with us at Capgemini, and I welcomed him into OUTfront. Along with his experience with the forces, being based in London and knowing colleagues at Intertech and the Radius Business network, Student Pride & Pride in London, Chris really promoted our external visibility out ‘in the streets’ of London and made a huge difference and impact on the network. Look out for him at various events around London on tech and LGBT+.

In 2015, we also welcomed a new head of Diversity, writing Diversity & Inclusion policy and updating family policies, spending endless hours writing the Stonewall submission and becoming a training facilitator. Laura Gardner is, and continues to be, an absolute rock of the network.

In early 2016, Alan took the opportunity of a new role in the US with Capgemini. We were very lucky to take on a second senior sponsor in Daylon Lutzenberger, and during that next year we managed to get over halfway at for the first time in our journey. So, what next?

In the middle of 2016, we were contacted by a trans colleague, Penny Williamson, to speak with her colleagues at the start of her Real Life Experience and the response her team gave was so positive. This colleague, and other trans colleagues have got together to write our detailed handbook for transitioning at work and are in the process of writing Trans training in conjunction with two of our key clients. Moving on from here, we then started to roll out more of these training courses, with new allies and network colleagues to large swathes of our HR teams.

At the end of 2016, a new centralised diversity and inclusion initiative was introduced: Active Inclusion, headed by Bal Gill. During our formative years of OUTfront UK, we had been working independently of any central D&I initiative, but the introduction of Active Inclusion really put us front and centre, as did the introduction of face-to-face training lead by LGBT+ employees of Capgemini. This made the difference. Putting faces to names, considering actual people you know rather than abstract policy arguments, was what made the difference, and since then, we have been running.

At the end of 2016, we had a new senior manager on a key client, Matt Oakley, who asked: “Why aren’t we higher up the Stonewall list? What can we do? How can I help?” and with his sponsorship, I started to talk to the client’s LGBT+ network to jointly plan an LGBT+ awareness event.

One of our new LGBT+ Awareness ally facilitators, Tricia Driver, was so inspired that she set up a relationship with Trans*code and set up our first Trans hackathon, which was a huge success and a first for us as hosts.

Whilst delivering the LGBT+ awareness sessions, we went to another client and delivered our ‘usual’ LGBT+ awareness training. One of our attendees, David Clipsham, was so angry about the issues affecting his LGBT+ colleague raised during the session that he has become one of our most vocal allies, leading to a new relationship with an existing client and improving our ways of working.

Another colleague Richard Thompson started designing and planning our first LGBT+ awareness event. We decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to make some videos to show our LGBT+ colleagues’ experiences at work, starting out as an LGBT+ person in your first job and how we can all be better allies.

Whilst researching this, another colleague Lilly Duffield stepped forwards (on what was one of her first few days of transition) to speak on video about her experience of transitioning at work. The bravery she displayed was immense, and it is an honour to continue to walk alongside her while she continues her journey.

What I also discovered very early on was that arranging an offsite event for 160 guests and 8 external speakers soon required some serious project management, and another new ally Tracey Harley stepped up very quickly to the mark and co-ordinated and managed the many armed process so wonderfully delivering an excellent, and extremely well received, first ever conference. 

Since the event itself, I have been in the enviable position of having a wealth of volunteers, all of whom cannot be named, but include a young ally colleague, James McArdle, who volunteered to design a new range of posters, and having suggested it, is now planning our next series of social events; alongside the immense enthusiasm of Nicola Westwood who has been working tirelessly to arrange fundraising for LGBT+ charities alongside recommending her words of wisdom as an LGBT+ ally; and an experienced HR Manager, Dom Rust, who wrote very openly about his experience of being an LGBT+ ally in Capgemini in 2017, and the many conversations we have had about how we can make this company the best it can be for our LGBT+ colleagues, and we continue to walk that path.

These are just a few of the key people in this journey from my first conversations at the beginning of 2009 to our new position of finally smashing into Stonewall’s Top 100 Employers at number 63! An enormous leap of 131 places since 2016, and I am so thankful to all of these people who have worked so hard, laid their stories bare and done the glamorous or seemingly thankless tasks required to get us here.

Here’s to 2018 and more progress, hopefully leading us further up the Top 100, and proving that Capgemini is indeed the positive place that I always knew it to be.