Our Pride Employee Resource Group (ERG) continues to grow and, with 20 chapters and more than 1,700 members based in 35 different countries, is incredibly relevant to people’s lives. Together with our allies, we have a key role in supporting diversity and generating and sustaining an environment where each one of us can feel comfortable, safe and able to be ourselves.
June was Global Pride Month and Dell locations across the globe celebrated the event showing their support for our LGBT colleagues and friends. This year team members participated in many more parades, with more engagement than ever from our team members.
In fact, just last week, Central Texas team members in both the Pride and Wise ERGs volunteered at Austin’s campGEN summer camp where they taught 45 campers how to be themselves in the face of bullying.
“We showed them what to do when someone is being bullied and how they can help using PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center ‘You’re Not Alone’ training. The girls then made public service announcement videos of what they learned using Dell Tablets,” Wade Mangum said. He volunteered at the event as well as coordinated the local Pride ERG’s involvement in it.
This year also saw many firsts in showing support for the LGBT community with the launch in Sydney, Australia of the first Pride chapter in the Asia Pacific and Japan region.
This was also the first time Dell marched in Pride parades as an official organization in areas including Guadalajara, Mexico and Limerick, Ireland. In the week leading up to the celebration in Ireland, Carrie Dryburgh, an active member of her local Pride chapter, noted, “Over the past week we have been complimented on our colourful, fun approach to the week’s activities, from flying the rainbow flag to the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing. We’ve shared rainbow cake and recently tested our ‘Be yourself’ t-shirts in our video of ‘The Running Man.’”
We are incredibly proud to be considered a “Best Place to Work” by Human Rights Campaign in 2016 and to have jumped three spots to number 28 on Diversity Inc.’s Top 50 companies. We are also honored to be listed in the top 5 companies for LGBT employees by Diversity Inc.
Internally, we asked our Pride ERGs from each region to submit their favorite images from their celebrations and team members voted and told us why the image represented Pride@Dell. The winning photo comes out of Panama and was described as being, “Colourful, light, fun, free… exactly how a workplace should be.”
“Being part of PRIDE and participating on the PRIDE march in Panama is given me the sense that I am doing my part as a member of the LGBT community to help Panama accept and recognize our rights as productive members of society,” Panama-based Regina Alfaro shared. “I am extremely proud to be working for a company that not only accepts and celebrates diversity, but also is committed to help implement this working environment on other private companies in Panama.”
The sentiment over the last several weeks is captured perfectly in a blog post by Brazil-based team member Gabriel Villela Falleiros.
“Here, we are free to be who we truly are, without labels, without fear. And the fact that we have the possibility of transforming the society we live in something better is priceless,” he wrote. “Dell really believe that we can only be better if we can be ourselves, we live diversity because we respect the differences. Words of who work here and live this reality day by day, inside and outside the company.”
