The crew of ‘Be You’ sees itself as worldwide ambassadors for the diversity of the company. “Our goal is to create an environment for our employees, agencies and
partners in which everyone, regardless of sexuality or gender identity, can
make a contribution and feel free to talk about their own life situation and
family structure,” explains ‘Be You’ member Thiago Machado, Global Senior
Brand Manager NIVEA Creme. “It’s just good to be able to deal openly with
your private life at work – and I’m glad that I can do it in my job. The warm
and natural interaction among us colleagues is one of the reasons why I feel so
comfortable at Beiersdorf and enjoy coming to work.”
As a visible community, ‘Be You @Beiersdorf’ is active both inside and outside the company to improve the understanding of LGBTIQ+ in the workplace and to break down unconscious biases and stereotypes. “We active members have organized our work in the individual areas in working groups. In addition, we have gained a lot of official ‘friends’ of our network, who have not taken over any tasks within the network, but who support us again and again and open doors for us. And the network is growing,” says Thiago. “This enables us to raise the organization’s awareness of LGBTIQ+ issues, hold events and promote positive changes in processes and guidelines – for example in recruiting, HR policies and onboarding. At the same time, we can maintain and expand our internal network and also get involved externally, such as with ‘PROUT AT WORK’, a foundation that promotes LGBTIQ+ in the workplace. We have also been working with ‘Queere Vernetzung Hamburg’ since our #PRIDEINSIDE and together with them offer workshops for employees and managers. Topic: ‘Sensitivity for gender and sexual diversity in the workplace’. This is how everything intertwines with each other.”