Diversity in Action - Strapi x The Allyance - A fruitful collaboration 🍇
💖 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.
Once upon a time, The Allyance coached Marion Kamoike-Bouguet who got hired by Strapi. This first collaboration turned into a fruitful partnership. The Allyance has been working hand in hand with the company to hire engineers and train their interviewers. ➡️ Let’s meet Aurélien Georget, Strapi’s Chief Product Officer.
__ __ __🔗 DIVERSITY IN ACTION N°6
AURELIEN GEORGET
__ __ __Who are you? Tell us everything!
😀 My name is Aurélien Georget, I am 27 years old and I am Strapi’s CPO and co-founder. I grew up in Acigné, a small village in Brittany. I moved to Paris seven years ago.
My background is mainly focused on engineering: I began developing when I was 13 years old via Openclassrooms and created my first Content Management System (CMS) when I was 15 years old. Initially, I did not see programming as a job with a great future, and so I wanted to be a Product Manager.
Then, developers became trendy again, and I decided to combine my passions for technology, analysis and problem resolution and became CPO at Strapi. Basically, my job is to set up a team, share a vision and adapt content enabling everyone to be creative.
Want a fun fact about myself? I am ambidextrous, but only with my feet! 🦶
Is Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) an important topic at Strapi?
🙌 To give you some context, Strapi was created in 2016 on the basis of a project initiated in 2014. At the beginning, we were totally ignorant about diversity and inclusion. These topics came to our attention a year ago during a “free day” where every employee could raise topics related to the company by organizing activities, presentations… One group made a presentation about D&I, which was quite harsh on the co-founders…! That is when we started to read about these topics.
Coming from a rural environment, I was never confronted with diversity, so it was a lot to process. Now, we are all very attentive to these matters, and especially Fanny, our Head of People.
How do you make sure Strapi is an inclusive workplace?
🔊 Before anything else, I would like to apologize for the messy answer I am about to give. Indeed, we are doing quite a lot of small things to ensure Strapi is an inclusive workplace, but I am convinced they make a big difference.
📜 First, we reviewed our recruiting process by training HR and managers to unconscious biases and D&I. We also make sure we do not publish our job offers solely on websites like Welcome to the Jungle, where candidates are almost all white cis men. We changed the way we draft our offers. For instance we write things like “even if you do not tick all the boxes, do not hesitate to apply”, and have discontinued fun formulations which did not reflect Strapi’s policy and environment.
🌈 Within Strapi, we do talk a lot about D&I on Slack, and we have even set up a bot alerting employees when they use non-inclusive phrases. We also have a D&I committee, which meets every other month to speak about those topics. I would say that it is really a general realization at Strapi: as soon as we detect a flaw in the company’s culture, we immediately act to stop non-inclusive behaviors and mechanisms. Every week, we send anonymous surveys to raise any problems about D&I within Strapi.
✨ On the external part, we work with Girls in Code, 50inTech and The Allyance. And, we have stopped working with non-inclusive recruitment companies, which has really changed everything at the very beginning of the recruitment process. We just naturally filter by skills like any other recruiter.
Obviously, we cannot quantify the results of all these actions. But, we have already noticed that more women (from 5% to 25%) are applying for some technical jobs at Strapi, which is a good thing! Another good thing is that we are seeing the difference in the way we are perceived within our sector.
How did you hear about The Allyance?
✔️ Well, it is quite simple: we at Strapi wanted to talk about D&I. Caroline had coached Marion Kamoike-Bouguet and her profile had immediately fitted. Then, we met Caroline again and started working together, in a very spontaneous way.
How did you collaborate with The Allyance?
💌 We exchanged emails about recruitment and I sent Caroline the type of profiles we were interested in.
Then, we had a one-hour meeting whose aim was to detail our needs in terms of skills, knowledge and profiles. Based on that, Caroline sent us several profiles. What I really appreciated about this phase is that she adapted well to the way I like to communicate (i.e. via e-mail). Also, I did not feel any pressure to close her deal. On the contrary, I felt a lot of professionalism and respect for Strapi's way of working, which was very nice. As of today, Caroline is in charge of the “hunting” part every time we publish a technical job offer.
🌞 In November 2020, Caroline led a training session at Strapi about unconscious biases, both online and on site. Everyone had the chance to ask their questions individually and talk about the flaws in the process. After that, Caroline made a presentation and sent us an e-mail listing all the resources she used, her slides… 100% tailored to Strapi, 100% relevant!
In November 2020, Caroline led a training session at Strapi about unconscious biases, both online and on site.
We know you hired Marion, how is she going?
💝 The third part of our collaboration with The Allyance was the coaching of Marion, our Engineering Manager in September 2020. She is doing extremely well! We are very happy with her integration and her team.
It is not always easy for a woman to be integrated in that kind of position in the tech sector.
According to you, why do companies have a hard time hiring people from underrepresented groups?
There are so many factors that I could not give a simple answer. In my opinion, it is mainly linked to education and the environment in which we grow up.
For instance, I grew up in the countryside and was never confronted to ethnic diversity. I had to come to Paris to get a better view of what diversity is! I really think people are not aware of the problem. But when you become aware, it is essential to read about it, to train oneself, to stay tuned and informed. I am still learning about diversity and inclusion as I go along, so I will not be the one teaching lessons.
📌 What I can say is that when there is a will, there is a way. When a company wants to get into these topics, it is possible to make a change. If tomorrow every company had a D&I policy, then things would change for good. When a company decides to include diversity in its recruitment process, it is a different way to distribute its wealth and gains, through salaries but also through the quality of life it is giving to its employees and their family. A lack of diversity in recruitment causes a lack of diversity in the product: that is a fact. A diverse team will change the way the product will be developed: for example, depending on cultures, color codes are completely different.
📌 Bringing diversity as a factor makes one change and “unlearn” biases, which obviously opens the employees’ minds and makes them more caring and welcoming. In fact, I just stopped listing the benefits of opening oneself to the world around. They are just obvious!
How do you convince someone to join Strapi?
🖥 I would do it in no more than 30 minutes, by giving them our vision. I would tell them that working at Strapi means joining an ambitious startup, as well as an inclusive and caring working environment. We are currently building that environment, because we are convinced that culture and caring comes first, even before products and results.
So yes, I would invite them to come and see that creativity is higher when work is organized that way, mainly because everyone is more involved in the company’s daily life.
Why would you recommend other companies to work with The Allyance? How do you know Caroline?
💝 Because The Allyance’s work deconstructs so many aspects of recruiting and HR. Plus, Caroline is always in a good mood, and very caring with people who, like me, are kind of clumsy when it comes to D&I.
In fact, I should not have to recommend her: she should teach D&I at school! 👩🏫
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CONCLUSION
A few words from Caroline, The Allyance CEO:
“The first time I heard about Strapi was when I coached Marion. She spotted them online and I immediately put her in contact with Aurélien and Pierre, the co-founders (with Jim!). More than 1 year, it has been a pleasure to collaborate with them. They really get what D&I is : s strategic topic. I believe Strapi is going to be a D&I leader in the French Tech because it’s not words… they really built an inclusive company!”
✔️ Want more?
➡️ If you are interested in knowing more about The Allyance, you can get in touch with us and book a free conversation with us, at the bottom of the page: https://www.theallyance.one/ or write to her: caroline[at]theallyance[dot]one
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ✒️ Léa C, The Allyance Contributor:
“I joined The Allyance after Caroline and I met at a ionnalee’s concert! I am a freelance translator and content writer (French, English, Spanish and German). I also work as an administrative employee in the health and data science sector. So, I am not far from Caroline’s core topic! I am very active as a volunteer in social and environmental NGOs, where I always try to put intersectionality at the center of actions because I am convinced that every cause is linked to one another. It is readily apparent that Caroline and I share a lot of common interests, which is why we as friends decided to work together!”