CULTURE
Our goal is to foster an environment where everyone is free to bring their authentic self to work each day. We want all Proximites to feel accepted and be able to openly discuss their identity, background and culture in a positive and supportive environment.
Our Gender Equality Network (GEN) aims to inform, educate, and champion equal opportunities. The network provides a positive and supportive environment for employees to share personal experiences, as well as hold and facilitate discussions that foster growth globally for all genders and the LGBTQ+ community.
The group also works as a networking platform that enables relationship-building outside traditional circles of colleagues and acts as a mechanism to support and promote training and progression for all genders and facilitate career development.
GEN has hosted a variety of events, produced content, and bought in external speakers to celebrate, explore, and discuss a variety of topics such as International Women’s Day, pride month, allyship and flexible working, the impact of gender on mental health, and the importance of inclusive language.
"The Gender Equality Network is an employee-run network that aims to inform, educate and champion equal opportunities. As part of the GEN committee, I help set our strategy, plan events throughout the year, from external speakers to employee-led discussions, and promote gender equality by sharing resources.We aim to create a safe environment where we can learn, share, and discuss without fear. What we do in GEN contributes to our diversity, equity, and inclusion framework, ensuring Proxima is a diverse and inclusive place to work."
Alison Weber, Principal Consultant
"Proximites are genuinely keen to be involved in the difficult conversations that we’ve been having and are willing to learn from other people’s experiences. Having people approach me after events to either continue the conversation or share what they took from it and what they’ve learned really fuels the passion for Gender equality."
Hollie Prouse, SCON
The goal of our Committee on Racial Equality (CORE) is to enable all employees to have a central support network to help facilitate conversations and educate colleagues on their workplace and world experiences related to race and ethnicity.
CORE provides a positive and supportive environment for employees to share personal experiences, and the small employee-led committee are available for all Proximities to speak to on a one-on-one confidential basis if personal support is required.
CORE has hosted a variety of events since its set up at the start of 2022, with discussions on understanding your colleagues’ experiences, education of Juneteenth, Black history month with Dr Ateh Jewel and Asian heritage month, and recently running a sponsored fast on the first day of Ramadan to show solidarity with our Muslim colleagues and to walk in their shoes for a day.
"The organizing committee is a diverse team that has built a program of events aimed at highlighting the challenges faced by groups within our society and reflecting on what this means to us as individuals and as a company and how each of us can do our part to help create a welcoming and safe environment for all. It's generated some tough conversations; we’ve shared some passionate and difficult stories, but that’s helped spark debate and drive change, both in perception and action."
Jessica Giannecchini, CON
At Proxima we are proud to publicly commit our support to champion diversity of all forms, including the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex (LGBTI) community. We are now official supporters of the ‘Standards of Conduct for Business Tackling Discrimination against LGBTI+ People’ put forth by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and have pledged our commitment to adhering to these standards.
Supporting volunteering opportunities is a way for Proxima to give back to society and help those less fortunate than ourselves.
All Proximites are encouraged to take up to eight hours of paid leave per year for volunteering, plus an additional two days if they use two days of annual leave to volunteer. In order to encourage supporting our local communities, Proxima facilitates volunteering opportunities such as working at a local food bank and working with a local community group, such as Instituto del Progreso Latino.
There are many cultural and religious holidays held throughout the year, as well as awareness days and/or months and it is important to us at Proxima that we recognize and celebrate occasions from all different cultures. This way we make Proxima inclusive for everyone regardless of what they personally may celebrate, and encourage learning for all colleagues on different types of celebrations and cultures.
As detailed in ‘Development’ we have an Allyship Portal to help Proximites educate themselves on how to be an ally to their colleagues, friends and family, and understand how they may be best placed to support someone.
In addition to education on allyship, this portal highlights all the ways a Proximite can seek support for themselves about personal or work-related topics, whether through our Committee members, Wellbeing Champions, Employee Assistance Programme, their Career Coach, policies or HR.
It is important to us that Proxima is an inclusive environment for everyone, and self-identification of gender pronouns is important to ensure that individuals are not misgendered.
Misgendering can be hurtful to individuals, so we have enabled all employees to have the ability to detail their correct pronoun usage which ensures everyone can be their authentic selves within the business.
We know that everyone needs support on occasion, and although our HR team are open and approachable, sometimes you want to speak to someone else. Therefore, we have in place Wellbeing Champions, who are volunteers at various levels within the business.
All of our wellbeing champions are readily available to provide support, guidance, and confidential help, whether related to work or personal life, whenever anyone may need it.
At Proxima we understand that statistically disproportionate numbers of women are not in work due to family commitments compared to men; and we want to do all we can to support women staying in the business when they start or expand their family.
Additionally, we recognize the important role fathers play and how vital their support is to enable women to return to work. Therefore, we offer significantly enhanced maternity and paternity leave to our employees to enable new parents to spend more time off to be in a place where they feel ready and able to return to work.
We support an agile working approach to work to provide autonomy to allow Proximites to work in a way that suits their needs, improve work-life balance, and empower employees to have flexibility when choosing how and where they perform their role. This promotes a culture of trust and flexibility and allows everyone to be open and honest with their needs and requirements, such as committing to doing the school run or attending a school play.
Our goal is to create an inclusive working environment and support all employees throughout their entire career. Some individuals go through menopause with little impact; however, others can experience symptoms that last for several years and can have an impact on their daily and working lives.
We have in place a Menopause policy and offer bespoke support to those who are suffering from symptoms, as well as encouraging open conversation to reduce stigma on the topic of menopause.
At Proxima, we have a variety of internal policies, and it is vital that they are reviewed frequently to ensure they are equitable and inclusive to all employees. Our People team ensure our policies are subject to frequent review, and any changes are communicated and made available to the business.
Did you know that 1 in 7 people are neurodiverse?
Neurodiversity covers a range of conditions that affect the brain and how it functions, learns and processes information – this includes autism, Asperger’s syndrome, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADHD, and Tourette’s.
A number of our Proximites are neurodiverse, or have family members that are neurodiverse, and so we have put in place two support groups to create a safe and private space to support each other by listening and sharing knowledge, tools, and techniques that may assist in general life and the many different environments we all work in.
Many individuals, as part of their beliefs or culture, have set times or periods throughout the day that they would like to dedicate to prayer, contemplation, or meditation.
At Proxima we want everyone to feel able to come into the office and enjoy collaborative working while still being able to practice their beliefs or take a moment to themselves. Therefore to support this, each of our offices now have a dedicated, private space that employees can make use of throughout the day whether for personal contemplation, prayer, or nursing young children.
“Having a specific contemplation space in our office makes coming into work stress free. It gives me a safe space to practice my faith without being reliant on meeting room availability and makes me feel welcomed.”
Mohammed Ismail, Principal Consultant
As well as running training for our managers on managing mental health, our Wellbeing Committee also provides frequent informative information throughout the year with suggests to help improve employee wellbeing and hosts informative events.
Recently, we partnered with the mental health charity, MIND, to hold a webinar entitled ‘Coping with Stress’ to educate our employees on managing their relationship with stress and encourage Proximites to reach out for support as needed, and an ‘Imposter Syndrome’ webinar led by Melody Wilding to highlight the importance of this topic and its implications.
