As The Airline of Switzerland, we embody the traditional values of our home country. At the same time, we also stand for diversity: Our SWISSness comes in many different shapes and colours at all times, and during Pride Month in June, we celebrate it in a special way.
This month, Alana from Human Resources Employee Experience Design and Peer from the internal LGBTIQ+ Community Core Team and Revenue Management explain in three chapters why a rainbow is more than just a coloured light for us, how we strengthen our Pride Community internally and how our award as an “LGBTI-friendly employer” was achieved. They also tell us transparently where we still have room for improvement.
Let’s start with the most obvious topic: Why are we hoisting the rainbow flag in front of our headquarters in June and changing our red SWISS logo to a colourful one on our social media channels?
Alana: SWISS is a cosmopolitan company that connects cultures and economies. That’s why diversity and equality have always been important components of our SWISS culture. On the occasion of the 25th Pride anniversary in 2019, we officially showed our colours to the external world for the first time and took an even more active stance in the area of LGBTIQ+ diversity.
Peer: Since this initial, explicit positioning, a lot has happened within our company and we are celebrating this June as “Pride Month” together with the LGBTIQ+ community in various ways: For example, we are inviting a trans pilot to an internal panel discussion, we as a community have visited other departments at the start of the month to engage in dialogue with colleagues over coffee and croissants, and we are taking part in Zurich and Bulle Pride. As a company, we demonstrate our solidarity with the community with a large rainbow flag in front of our headquarters and a logo change on social media. Then in July, we have a very special competition planned. So it’s going to be colourful!
And how do we as a company get committed to the LGBTIQ+ community outside of Pride Month June?
Alana: On the one hand, we had ourselves certified as an employer with the Swiss LGBTI Label in 2020. This aims to promote inclusion of LGBTIQ+ people and diversity in the workplace. We will tell you more about this (how it was achieved, but also where we still need to take action in this area) in the rest of this blog series.
On the other hand, equal treatment of all our employees has long been a standard for us. Everyone has the right to be themselves. Our personnel guidelines do not distinguish between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. All partners of our employees – regardless of their gender – benefit equally from offers for employees as well as pension fund and accident insurance.
Peer: In the area of young professionals, we are involved in the “Get connected” network for the intergenerational exchange of experience between students, young professionals and seniors. Here, the exchange of information on LGTBIQ+-related topics is practised and networking among people with different backgrounds is promoted.
We have also been involved in the queer Pink Apple Film Festival for many years – this year as the proud main partner. We have also been successfully cooperating with the Swiss lifestyle magazine for gays and friends “DISPLAY” for a long time.
And last year we invited various employees to publicly express their opinions on the topic of “Equal rights for all” and also introduced inclusive language. In our opinion, a sensitive use of language is an important building element for gender equality, because it means that female clients, female employees and people of other genders are not only “included”, but also specifically addressed. In this way, we want to express that diversity and inclusion are not just empty words at SWISS, but lived reality.
Next week Peer will tell you more about our internal “Proud@SWISS” community.
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