Celebrating Pride and IDAHOTB 2022​ : Manulife Cambodia

Celebrating Pride and International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biophobia 2022, we ask Manulife Cambodia to reflect their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy and how they realized this strategy making their workplace environment friendly for all.

Mr.  Sudesh Thevasenabathy, AVP, Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion of Manulife Asia joined us to share their experience as following:

“At this time of the year, we join the whole world in celebrating PRIDE. However, we also recognize the difficulties faced by members of the community and are committed to protecting the safety, health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ lives wherever they are in the world. LGBTQ+ inclusion is one of four focus areas for us and we hope to make strategic progress on this as part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy.

At Manulife, we believe that strength lies in embracing our differences and that diversity plays a key role in driving innovation and growth within our company. Thus, our DEI strategy involves: (1) fostering diversity at all levels in the organization; (2) creating a workplace culture of belonging where colleagues thrive and can bring their authentic selves to work; (3) creating strong partnerships with external communities; and (4) integrating a DEI lens to our business, from our products and services to our supplier diversity.

In order to make this strategy a reality, we have invested time and resources into: the creation of additional DEI roles across the region; tracking of DEI targets and KPIs; a greater involvement of our employees and leaders through employee resource groups (ERGs) and diversity councils; the enhancement of our employee benefits; and funding to ensure a more varied engagement with community partners. We also believe in inspiring and empowering our people – creating a fertile ground for the development of true DEI allies. This means supporting our team in Cambodia by providing resources and guidance to the leaders and employees. Additionally, in order to encourage more learning and allyship, we are working to create a sense of safety for anyone to ask questions, learn, and have difficult conversations in a respectful and inclusive manner.”

We would like to appreciate Manulife Cambodia for their valuable participation by sharing this good practice that could make an impact, and their sponsorship to some of RoCK 2022 activities in order to raise awareness and reduce discrimination against LGBT+ community in Cambodia.