Be yourself: it pays!

Fabien Bouyer

Chairman of Mobilisnoo,the Orange group’s LGBT+ network

Companies are increasingly receptive to diversity – including people’s religious beliefs, charity work, political opinions, union membership, sexual orientation and gender identity. But there are still a few lingering misconceptions. Here are the top three we still need to debunk.

#1 What makes you you has nothing to do with your job, so leave it at home from Monday to Friday
All the various elements of diversity – the things that define us and make us who we are – are what makes us unique. And that’s good for companies. Cedric Herring, a researcher at the University of Chicago, surveyed more than 500 businesses and established that diversity has a positive bearing on three financial indicators: revenue, number of customers and earnings.

#2 Keeping a low profile gives you an advantage
There’s no need to keep quiet about who you are anymore. In the age of social media, we identify ourselves by the communities we belong to and our social dimension is becoming unavoidable. So a high profile, rather than a low one, is becoming an advantage.

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#3 Your personal development is your responsibility
We all agree that it’s up to you to steer your own career. But managers are also there to help you build your hard and soft skills. So managers have a duty to get to know their team members on an individual level and find out what makes them unique. This trend is opening up opportunities to enrich teams and learn together – and both those factors contribute to business performance.