OREANDA-NEWS. August 14, 2015. In an interview to be published in the Italian magazine Pride, Donya Urwin, vice president, HR, Ford of Europe, explains how Ford is helping to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers.

Is Ford a leader in the support of LGBT workers, and if so how?

We often say that one of the key things that drives us  at Ford is  creating a better world. That applies to everything. A lot of people think it’s  just about enabling mobility, fuel efficiency, or corporate giving, but in every corner of our business it’s one of the things  which guides us.

Part of creating a better world is about paying attention to the needs of different employee groups.  We’re all different even though we sometimes might look the same and so we need to find a way to respect and work with those differences.

When we started to really think about this as a topic, some people  had the view that you don’t really need structures or laws or regulations to make people behave differently but in fairness history has shown us that in some ways it does help. If you look at what’s happened in the UK, behaviour and attitudes would not be where they are  now if they hadn’t had some of the diversity legislation of the 70s.

Whilst it’s been painful in parts, it has actually made behaviours and attitudes change. If you hope that a few good people are going to change the world with the right values and principles, they will but it will probably take  a very long time. Right from the start we had a number of employee resource groups, one of which was Ford GLOBE (Gay, Lesbian Or Bisexual Employees), which was ground breaking when it was founded in the U.S. in 1994. That was when we began to focus on some of these topics, and diversity became a special area of attention. As you can imagine, in the 1990s that was quite an interesting thing to do.
However, even with these arrangements I have to say that the company has never needed any persuading because primarily we want our policies to be inclusive. You don’t want your employees only bringing a part of themselves to work. If they don’t feel they have the opportunity to be who they are in the workplace then then you don’t get the full benefit of what they can offer.

One of the things I often say to people, is think about a Monday morning, when you ask ‘did you have a good weekend?’ and you’ve got people immediately thinking they have to selectively pick out what they can and can’t tell people because they are part of a certain group. That immediately creates something that’s unnatural. People will make a personal decision to decide to be out or not, but you have to create an environment at work where employees feel they can be who they are. We have to create an environment of safety.

Are there differences in the attitude towards LGBT workers in Europe and in the U.S.? And what has been the biggest challenge implementing inclusion and protection measures?

We’re not just talking about Europe and the U.S. We look at Africa and even Australia, which you might think would be quite straightforward and actually it isn’t. The global village is an interesting concept. Europe has so many different cultures, customs, legal frameworks. Most of my conversations are at a basic level about what are we going to do in Germany, what are we going to do in the UK, Italy and so on. None of it is straightforward and LGBT is no different.

The big thing for me is being very clear about our corporate position and using that position in the right kind of way, be it diplomatic or  political, to persuade different locations to  consider our corporate position. Some time it’s easier than others.

Where we need the help is globally. In some places it’s the legislative framework that stands in your way, in some places it’s culturally difficult.

The U.S and Europe are no different. They have different legal frameworks and cultures. Whenever we try to implement things around the world, we try to learn lessons.

Has  the drive for diversity improved Ford’s production and profitability?

I get asked this question a lot. When I came into the business world, people asked about the business case for employing more women. The truth is there are so many factors that influence profitability. It’s really difficult to pin down. But as I said before, at work people want to feel safe, protected, valued and appreciated. As I’ve worked in different places around the world, it doesn’t change. Most human beings want those things, wherever they are

If you don’t provide that kind of safe environment then productivity and profitability are going to suffer.

One of the things our President, Jim Farley, talks about a lot is the desire to  create a vibrant Ford of Europe, and that only increases the focus on what we’re trying to do. Vibrancy is about a lot more than policy and procedure.  

If there are groups  of people who don’t feel supported then I don’t think you need any kind of maths to know how that’s going to turn out. But it is complicated to work out. You want people to come to work and do good things, having the support I’ve described. It can sound trite, but it’s about looking at the workplace and finding out if it has a place for me.

It’s like when people watched adverts in the 70s and in some cases there were no people who looked like them. That must have been really weird. It’s slightly different in the LGBT world, but if you look at the media recently and it’s handling of transgender issues, that’s raised the conversation and it’s made a huge difference. People start to think there are more people who are like me. So the world is starting to find a place for everyone, despite their differences and that’s really encouraging.

What can Ford do to further protect LGBT workers?

There are two things aside from what we’ve already discussed. What works best is when people who don’t belong to a group raise an issue on behalf of that group. For example, often the most powerful people to influence attitudes on gender are often men, not women. When men start to say I want more women in the workplace, I want an environment that looks out for what women need at work, that’s really powerful. You want people who don’t sit in the LGBT group raising issues when they think we are not  considering the needs of that particular group.

The other thing is actually LGBT employees telling us what they want to have in the workplace. You have to hear from people who are affected about what they want. We spent time last year talking to groups in Germany about transgender issues. They told us our position on transgender issues wasn’t clear enough in Germany. So we worked with them to clarify our policies and our website.

If we have the whole population driving the inclusive agenda, that makes a big difference.

At Ford we want to sell cars and trucks to the whole population and we have to represent the populations we serve.  If you’re out of touch with your customer group, that’s the first downward step  on a slippery slope to somewhere that’s not  good for business

From a manufacturing point of view, we are encouraging people in an industry which traditionally is not known for employing people who sit outside the usual norms. We don’t do it to be trailblazing but if we can be a role model then it’s a bonus.