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PUMA India Hosts Diversity Week with Experts to Create Awareness on Diversity and Inclusion
November 14, 2022PUMA India Hosts Diversity Week with Experts to Create Awareness on Diversity and Inclusion
November 14, 2022Diversity and inclusion make a stronger workforce, and we at PUMA strive to foster this type of environment! From September 26th to October 2nd, PUMA India held a Diversity Week to create awareness about diversity and inclusion by hosting many sessions with experts for their retail team. They also held specific sessions for empowering female staff with inspiring female leaders.
“As a brand, we have always celebrated an inclusive culture. We did the same this time but adopted an offbeat art-inspired route in place of routine classroom sessions and it got us huge participation and positive feedback. Employees felt these sessions were very different, interesting and packed with wholesome knowledge. Over and above, we also got our women leaders to talk about their professional journeys with our female store employees in order to inspire them for taking on bigger roles and navigating challenges.”
PUMA’s own Soumya Dayal, a member of key leadership as associate director and head of operations at PUMA India, shared her own personal and professional journey and challenges during her session. In an impactful talk to female store employees, she spoke about her multiple role changes over the years from merchandising to operations. She encouraged the female store employees to take up new, bigger roles and to always be open to new challenges in life. Most importantly, she stressed PUMA’s commitment to the prevention of sexual harassment.
Gowri Priya Sethuram
Other sessions during the week included awareness sessions with a counsellor, a classical dancer and an artist who explained diversity through Indian paintings: Gowri Priya Sethuram. Gowri Priya Sethuram is an Indian artist who during her session used paintings to explain diversity and how different characters make one great piece of artwork, just like the people make a great organisation. She offers employee engagement programmes to communicate subtle and sensitive topics to employees. This is exactly what she came to PUMA India to share: a way to help rediscover company values through art forms.
During her session, she explained diversity, celebrated togetherness and recognised inclusion in all its forms. She highlighted how Santhal tribal paintings, see below, depict various genders in shades of grey, blue, red and yellow – but make no affirmation that their status depends on their skin colour. No racial barriers arise because of skin tones.
“Indian paintings represent communities in various hues. There are no paintings from India which depict the skin colour commanding opportunities and positions in society. The age-old Warli and Gond art forms that the PUMA India team observed and drew insights from had Kings and Queens in blue colours. Men and women were represented in shades of red, yellow and grey and coexisted happily. These paintings threw an insight into how the perception of skin tones changes and racism seeped into our minds over time, that we need to battle away. If we need to create a more inclusive society, these paintings that hold centuries-worth of wisdom, give us all the needed lessons by just observing them.”
