Harnessing Employee Networks to Drive Positive Change

Our goal is to create and maintain an inclusive culture where every employee has opportunities to grow, express themselves, exchange ideas, and feel heard. It’s a journey and there is always more to learn and more to do.

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January 18, 20235 minutes read

When everyone feels they have an equal opportunity to belong and develop meaningful careers, we unleash our full potential to grow and thrive. Our Employee Networks help us achieve this. 

Around the world, hundreds of Micro Focus colleagues are a member of one or more employee networks which play a key role in encouraging and supporting all employees to bring their whole self to work. At Micro Focus, we believe that employee networks greatly contribute to creating inclusive environments and building a sense of community.

Each of our nine networks has a volunteer-led employee leadership team and an executive sponsor, who is responsible for ensuring that the voice of our employee networks is heard. Recently members of our senior leadership team met with our employee networks to better understand their lived experience, the challenges their community faces and also to discuss how they can better engage. These open and insightful discussions were well received by both the employee networks and our senior leaders. A set of recommendations was developed to ensure that the learnings and actions were  captured and embedded into our strategy longer term. This open, two-way exchange is critical to build understanding and awareness and contribute to sustainable change across our business.

Our goal is to create and maintain an inclusive culture where every employee has opportunities to grow, express themselves, exchange ideas, and feel heard. It’s a journey and there is always more to learn and more to do.

Introducing emPOWER to progress gender parity

Recently, we evolved our focus on female representation with the introduction of a new employee network called emPOWER. It brings together two of our long standing employee networks dedicated to helping our female employees thrive in their careers. emPOWER’s mission is to support the company’s goal to increase female representation to 33% by 2025, and to help our female talent reach their full potential through career development, engagement, and support. Importantly, emPOWER aims to engage male allies to support progress towards gender parity, which is critical in driving change. The employee network is open to all employees, male, female, and non-binary as everyone has a role to play in creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. 

Through a variety of initiatives delivered within focused workstreams, both locally and across the business, emPOWER aims to give employees an opportunity to be involved and help make a real difference. Whether it’s within our teams, across departments or countries, we’re on a mission to make a positive impact, collectively.

Over the last year, our employee networks helped drive meaningful change in many ways including:

  1. Our truABILITY Employee Network, which raises awareness and advocacy for a more accessible workplace, leads efforts to further enhance accessibility in the company. As a result, Micro Focus improved its 2022 Disability Equality Index score from 80 to 90, out of a total of 100.
  2. Through our partnership with ITSMF, which provides development for Black leaders in technology, our enABLE Employee Network is helping to expand opportunities for Black employees to advance their careers and increase leadership representation across the business.
  3. Our PLANET Employee Network engages employees on how to live and work more sustainably to help achieve our company’s net zero commitment. During COP27, the employee network hosted a discussion with The Nature Conservancy’s deputy director of global climate to talk about the urgency of taking climate action, and what each of us can do to reduce our impact on the planet.  
  4. Through our partnership with Out & Equal, which advocates for LGBTQ workplace equality, our PRIDE Employee Network, dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ colleagues, organised month-long celebrations during Pride Month 2022. A highlight included an engaging discussion with Gareth Thomas, former Wales & British Lions Rugby Captain & LGBT advocate, titled ‘Living your authentic and unapologetic truth’. Through our partnership with Out & Equal, our employees had the opportunity to join its recent Workplace Summit, the largest LGBTQ+ conference in the world.
  5. Over the last year, our employee networks dedicated to supporting female employees hosted various informative panel discussions, including a Women in Tech discussion where guests shared their personal stories of navigating successful careers in technology; and led Micro Focus’ sponsorship of the Grace Hopper Celebration in 2022, which was attended by several employees to help them further develop and grow their careers.
  6. Our SALUTE Employee Network organised a virtual volunteering session to commemorate Veterans Day 2022 in the US and Armistice Day in the UK, and supported non-profits that help veterans rebuild their lives. Micro Focus recently received the bronze award from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) in the UK for its support for those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, and their families.
  7. Our inspirASIAN Employee Network, which promotes awareness of Asian cultures, hosted a well-attended open discussion with colleagues around the world about the importance of belonging and ways we can all be more inclusive across cultures.
  8. Our FAMILIA Employee Network, which connects employees and raises awareness of Hispanic and Latinx communities, organised and hosted an annual Family Day event, inviting employees and their families to get together and join in a variety of interactive activities.  
  9. In supporting employees who are starting out in their careers, our genNOW Employee Network organised several informative discussions over the last year designed to help employees build their network and feel equipped to drive their career development.

At Micro Focus, we recognise each employee brings a unique set of qualities, attributes, backgrounds, skills, and perspectives to work. We aim to not only accept but to value and harness those unique differences – and our employee networks are critical in helping to nurture this.

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OpenText, The Information Company, enables organizations to gain insight through market-leading information management solutions, powered by OpenText Cloud Editions.

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