Bringing Yourself to Work

It's 8.30 on a Wednesday morning and I'm with three others at the front of a conference room, ludicrously high up in the all-glass KPMG building in Birmingham city centre.  It's KPMG's "Inclusion week" and I've been asked to be part of a panel that addresses what "bringing yourself to work" looks like, from a Christian perspective.  The other three sitting with me are a friend from church, Jon, and two KPMG employees who represented other elements of diversity within the company.

The event was one of a week-long series of events addressing various diversity issues within KPMG.  The idea of "bringing yourself to work" was discussing how we can be true to who we are as we come to work - a rather interesting topic for a large company that understandably wants a corporate image and culture amongst its employees.

The room was filled with quite a cross-section of managers and the discussion was good and robust and flowed between issues of race, sexuality and gender as it related to recruitment and development.  I must admit I was impressed at their commitment to move from the current employee stereotype ("male, pale and stale" as someone quipped) to a wider representation. 

One of the problems with HR's "best practice" relating to diversity in recent years has been to focus on the "business case" for diversity in employment.  It's good to be able to prove that having a diverse work force is good for the bottom line of a company but, unfortunately, if an organisation's sole rationale is built on the business case then as soon as someone can come along showing why its better for business to employ just middle aged white men or attractive 20-somethings women, then you lose that battle.

One of the subjects I was able to bring into the discussion was the need for an ethical basis for our decision making in this area and John Maxwell's idea that you cannot separate out personal and business ethics - acting ethically is about who you are not just what you do.  Resisting the urge to jump up, slam a Bible down on the table and start preaching (OK, not much of an urge really) I did get an opportunity to talk about the link between their own values and my favourite verse:  Micah 6v8 and the need for all of us to act justly and love mercy in all our interactions with people as well as trying to figure out what walking humbly with our God might involve.

It was an amazing opportunity to have.  A local organisation called Chaplaincy Plus had made the connection to have me invited.  My part was just to hopefully kick-start some of the conversation, but KPMG are keen to have Chaplaincy Plus increasingly involved within their company as a city-centre chaplaincy to the business community.  I'm very excited to see what might emerge from this.