Diversity in Action - How We Helped BlaBlaCar in its Diversity Drive
💖 The purpose of The Allyance is to help both companies and candidates: companies wanting to reach excellence in hiring and candidates wanting to find the perfect companies.
➡️ Let’s meet Emilie Baliozian! The 25 year-old French-American, grew up and studied between Chicago and Paris. She graduated with a double degree in political science and sustainable development from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University. Today, she is working at BlaBlaCar and initiated a nourishing patnership with The Allyance to train BlaBlaCar employees identify unconscious biases in the workplace.
__ __ __🔗 DIVERSITY IN ACTION N° 10 - Emilie Baliozian
__ __ __Who are you? Tell us everything!
🙂 I started working by creating a consulting agency in climate communication, as part of the Women4Climate mentorship program to help women develop That's how I met someone from BlaBlaCar who convinced me to join the company, even if she was about to leave the company!
Since January 2020, I have been working as a Sustainability and Communications Manager at BlaBlaCar.
Apart from that, I am a young, French-American climate activist, but also D&I expert. I am deeply trying to find hobbies outside of work, so I recently started hip-hop. I also cook a lot as a way to relax!
When Emilie and her colleagues moved into BlaBlaCar’s new HQ. It was time to decorate the bathrooms! Source: Emilie’s post on Linkedin
What does Diversity & Inclusion mean at BlaBlaCar?
We’re at the very beginning right now but the D&I efforts are quickly mushrooming!
One year ago, it was not really a topic at BlaBlaCar but my American self urged me to question the lack of positioning on D&I. Being in the HR team, I had the chance to have this conversation with the People team, which gave me an occasion, a space, a window for exploring the topic. As a consequence, I had to set other matters aside but the management team was willing to take that risk.
Once the dynamic was launched, we did an internal audit and survey to understand the employees’ expectations and perception about D&I, equality, demographic data, salary… In April, the results and the strategy were presented to the Executive Committee and to the whole company the next month.
One year later, D&I has become a central issue at BlaBlaCar, as much in decision-making as it is in informal conversations. We've seen a lot of progress, but the road is still long!
How do you make sure BlaBlaCar is an inclusive workplace?
🟢 We have tangible and less tangible tools to get there.
First, we are developing an Inclusion Index, which aims to measure the feeling of inclusion at BlaBlaCar. It is based on 10 different feelings, such as psychological security, feeling like oneself, feeling like one’s in the right path. Each employee gives a grade between 0 and 5 for each dimension, and it gives BlaBlaCar a global score per team, gender, and other categories. Thanks to the average score, we will be able to adapt our internal policies in order to improve the feeling of inclusion for everyone. Right now, we already have included DEI in every one of our surveys, in order to stay informed about the general feeling on an ongoing basis throughout the year.
As for less tangible tools, we have many initiatives to build awareness and start conversations about D&I: dedicated Slack channels, trainings, our BlaBlaRainbow and Women&Allies employee resource groups, keynotes, and more.
The Allyance trained 150 managers at BlaBlaCar on unconscious biases and inclusive hiring methods.
How did you hear about The Allyance?
📯 I just posted on LinkedIn saying I was looking for someone able to provide training about unconscious biases in tech for our general team. Caroline’s name popped up. I contacted her!
How did you collaborate with The Allyance?
The training took place online in September 2021 and was followed by our recruiters and hiring managers. We organised three 2-hour long training sessions, including one that was simultaneously translated in Russian for our Russian-speaking colleagues.
💻 Although it was online, the training was perfect, dynamic and interactive. Caroline is open to discussion, reactive, transparent. She managed to keep everyone attentive for 2 hours. Indeed, it was not so easy to train 50 persons at the same time about unconscious biases… but she made it!
We systematically send out surveys after every training at BlaBlaCar. The main feedback we got was about how Caroline rose awareness about D&I, so much that since then, people ask more and more about follow-ups and advice.
According to you, why do companies have a hard time hiring people from underrepresented groups?
🟦 The first reason is that high-growth scale-ups are typically looking for plug-and-play profiles who will hit the ground running on their first day. For these companies, the technical environment is usually quite demanding and there is little room or time to train people who are new to the industry. There is also little room to take a "risk" per se and hire someone based on potential rather than skill on the resume. The fierce war for talent is also making it challenging for recruiters to question their ways, diversify their talent pools and source more proactively to reach underrepresented communities.
🟦 The second reason is the lack of awareness around biases and the potential of D&I within companies. When you’re blind to these problems, you cannot even think of a solution.
🔎 Finally, when it comes to sourcing, I don't buy the “we can't hire women in tech because they're not in school" argument. They’re definitely there! There is still so much tech companies can do to make their workplace more inclusive, to signal their interest in having more diverse teams, and to create the internal conditions to hire based on potential.
How do you convince someone to join BlaBlaCar?
It’s very simple: you want to work in a positive impact company, come to BlaBlaCar!
1️⃣ Our first impact is environmental: we fill out cars on the road, avoiding emissions and empty seats.
2️⃣ The second is social: we allow people who would never have met to share an experience. This fosters social mix as a reflection of society, which makes it possible to meet people from all horizons.
3️⃣ The last is socioeconomic: we’re offering access to mobility with a very flexible and organic solution. Indeed, carpooling is now international, with meeting points everywhere, but it’s also cheap, based on human contact and conscience.
As an employee, I go to sleep at night knowing I work for acompany I am proud of. The more we grow, the more our impact gets positive, and that’s not something you can say about every company.
➡️ At last, the corporate culture at BlaBlaCar is unique, caring and international. Our positive impact attracts people who are interested in ecology and sustainability. Everyone’s on the same page and contributing in their own way, which is really, really nice!
Why would you recommend other companies to work with The Allyance?
Because Caroline is a treasure! She’s a true expert, with a perfect mix between HR and tech. She is great with small groups.
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CONCLUSION
A few words from Caroline, The Allyance CEO:
“Emilie is so pragmatic, reactive and passionate that working with her and BlaBlaCar was one of my favorite projects. Thanks to her, I experienced being translated live in Russian during of one the trainings. That’ was quite something! In addition, I got advanced questions during the trainings which made them lively.”
✔️ Want more?
If you are interested in knowing more about The Allyance trainings, feel free to get in touch with us.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ✒️ Léa C, The Allyance Contributor