Diversity in Action - Ubisoft x The Allyance
💖 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.
In addition to offering an “Unconscious Biases” training, The Allyance is partnering with companies willing to engage more diverse candidates via creative sourcing techniques.
👌 Ubisoft is one of them! Hence, we wanted to highlight the partnership we started with the video game company as we delivered a Diversity Sourcing training for Ubisoft recruitment teams in France.
__ __ __🔗 DIVERSITY IN ACTION N°4
HARMONIE FREYBURGER
➡️ Let’s meet Harmonie Freyburger, Diversity and HR Project Manager at Ubisoft!
__ __ __Who are you? Tell us everything!
☀️ My name is Harmonie Freyburger and I am from a small village in Alsace, in North-East France. After my graduation, I decided to study HR at CELSA, and moved to Paris. That is how I became passionate about HR and diversity, though no one in my close environment worked in private companies.
I began as an HR communication apprentice at Air France. For the last 3 years, I have been working as an Diversity & Inclusion Project Manager at Ubisoft. I mainly deal with projects on 2 subjects : parenthood (daycare, paternal leave…etc 👶🏻) and Diversity and inclusion (organizing conferences, workshops, initiatives and HR policies).
In 2018, with the D&I Team, we created the D&I Week, which I am very proud of ! My goal is to propose several actions to improve D&I comprehension and engagement for all teams.
🎭 For more personal insight, my free time is often dedicated to improvisation theatre, transverse flute and cajon, a box-shaped percussion instrument from Peru. Fun fact about me: I never had a games console growing up! So yes, Ubisoft was kind of a brand new experience for me, but I learned on the field thanks to my strong curiosity.
Harmonie sent us an amazing picture from her theatrical improvisation group.
You are in charge of organizing internal workshops on D&I, what’s the goal? What kind of topics do you address?
Yes, I do organize different types of workshops about D&I. The first one is quite recent: it was born in October 2020!
🌈 Every year, in November, the Ubisoft D&I week takes place. This year, we trained and sensibilised small groups of HR teams to questions they never dared to ask. Among them, there were: LGBTQ+ and trans identity topics from HR, communication and general services points of view, importance of inclusive communication, feminist culture and the consequences of Me Too in the professional sector… This was also a time to make sure that everyone (HR and managers) in these HR teams are on board with the D&I requirements. They received coaching sessions where we gave them concrete examples of D&I actions: inclusive writing, sensibilisation of managers… Oh and obviously, Caroline was conducting one of these sessions!
The second type of workshops is intended for everyone at Ubisoft except HR teams. Every employee can raise a topic they are interested in, and then, based on that, we and the Ubisoft HQ teams organise workshops. Here are some themes we raised recently: daily microaggressions at work, diversity in recruitment, integration of international colleagues, humour in the workplace… This latter was then transformed into a conference named “Can one still joke around the office?”. I think this is the best way to address many aspects of diversity, above all in a video-games company, where people are quite young and decontracted, and therefore jokes are omnipresent.
🌐 We also have a pilot project of women co-development. Every month for 2 hours, 10 women from the Ubisoft Montreuil (Paris’ surroundings) studios gather in a non-mix environment to share their experience and speak about their professional life as women. The aim is to mix profiles so they can boost each other and gain confidence at work.
One workshop that I am closely following is the French Queer Bureau. It is the first Employee Ressource Group of Ubisoft in France. People, whether they are part of the LGBTQ+ community of allies, can support each other ans share their cultural recommentations and adivice. I mainly help them find out what they need in terms of support and communication.
Read the full article here
Is Diversity & Inclusion an important topic at Ubisoft?
🔊 Yes, in various aspects. As a company, it took us some time to realize that we needed to be proactive and show that there is an interlocutor on those subjects, notably on disability. Indeed, it is essential that everyone feel included in Ubisoft.
From a production point of view, we did realize that our video games are richer and will please to a broader audience when the content is developed by people from diversity. Obviously, it is not easy to convince everyone, their personality and world views. But it is clearly an important topic for the company.
When we began workshops, we were astonished by how many people were interested and showing up. We then understood that it was our role to offer events and workshops in order for the interest for D&I to grow among Ubisoft employees. It is also our role to suggest topics close to video games and their content, like representation, accessibility and sexism in e-sport for example.
How did you hear about The Allyance?
✔️ I was looking for someone who could conduct workshops and conferences about D&I. François Gauthier, who works as a recruiter at Ubisoft, recommended Caroline to me.
How did you collaborate with The Allyance?
💖 Caroline conducted a workshop about diversity sourcing for our recruiters. Due to the sanitary context, we did a 2-hour online training, with 40-50 participants from Ubisoft all over France. Honestly, I did not know what to expect, mainly because of the context… But in the end, I am super satisfied with this workshop!
What did you want to achieve by delivering a training about diversity sourcing to Ubisoft recruiters?
🔎 I wanted to prove to recruiters that diversity sourcing may not be as hard as they think. So we suggested practical actions they could implement in order to attract new people at Ubisoft: rewriting job offers, add a new information channel… I wanted to give this blurry territory a concrete aspect and show them what it means to recruit people from diversity.
What sourcing techniques did the recruiters test following the training?
📍 Well, honestly, this workshop being online and recent, it is quite difficult to measure its concrete results yet. What I can say is that I witnessed a will to change from their part. I wished there had been more interaction and questions, but these online workshops are not the best to ensure that kind of implication.
In general, I am not sure change can come right away. It is a long-term job, where I’ll have to let them think about what’s been said and later remind them of what they could implement.
According to you, why do companies have a hard time hiring people from underrepresented groups?
📊 There could be several reasons…
Firstly, it often implies to challenge practices that have been here for a long time. To do so, there has to be a will from the management to make these changes and challenge their visions. Depending from the industry, it can be difficult to recruit women, for example. In the video games sector, they are clearly underrepresented, mainly because they’re still few to attend video games/engineering schools. Fortunately, I can see it moving and changing, but we need education and orientation to undo current social conditioning about women in tech.
Another reason is that often, hiring diverse profiles can come as a risk for companies. Indeed, self-taught, different paths and curriculum may need more training, which can affect productivity.
About disability, I think companies are skittish because they think that they would need months to come out with an adapted job for the candidate.
About hiring people coming from racial and LGBTQ+ minorities in an all-white and cis environment, it could raise doubts and hesitations about integration and their will to stay in the company if they do not feel included enough. But hey, the more you integrate people from underrepresented groups, the more integrated they will feel! We have to see it as it is: a virtuous circle.
A company will sure gain from such a recruitment dynamic, and I think they’re starting to get it.
You are a volunteer at Women in Games France, what is the goal of the organization?
🖥 Women in Games France is a network of video games professionals created in 2017. We aim at promoting diversity in our industry. We are focused on mutual aid, networking, training and creating role models.
My job is basically to help organizers, journalists and other professionals find women in the video game industry to show they are represented in every job. I am happy to say that we now count 2000 members!
Why would you recommend other companies to work with The Allyance? How do you know Caroline?
💝 Well, from what I saw of Caroline (please remember that I have not met her IRL!), she is impressively attentive to one’s needs. This allowed her to adapt her speech to Ubisoft’s specificities and take our discussions in consideration in the creation of her workshop. She is really committed to give her best as an expert, notably in diversity sourcing! So yes, I would definitely recommend her to address D&I topics.
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CONCLUSION
A few words from Caroline, The Allyance CEO:
“My collaboration with Ubisoft was a success thanks to Harmonie. All along the way, she was sharing content about Ubisoft and the needs of the recruitment teams. She enabled me to prepare a tailor-made training on Diversity Sourcing techniques. Even if it happened online, I had lots of fun!
To me, Harmonie is a dream client because she understands I am here to empower the teams she works with! Her trust made me efficient and relevant.”
✔️ 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 Caroline Chavier, 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!”