Committee 2021 Roundup: Diversity & Inclusion

Extract from the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore Membership Directory 2021/22, available now to download

During 2021, the D&I committee whole-heartedly embraced the Zoom/WFH culture to continue in our mission to promote D&I within the business community in Singapore, adapting the content and medium of our events to the challenges brought on by COVID.

We continued with the Diversity and Inclusion poll which has been a useful pulse-check across the membership to benchmark their opinions on inclusivity. While many of the most pressing issues remain a concern to our members, the poll did highlight the emerging importance of addressing emerging topics. The deep-dive into Mental Health was important during these uncertain times and will help shape the broader programme for 2022. The output of the report is available on the BritCham website and we encourage all members to review and reflect on the feedback.

We continued the use of Webinars to bring some of the region’s leading subject matter experts together to address topics across the D&I spectrum. Interactive debates covered many of our D&I pillars such as Race (Managing Sensitive Racial Diversity Issues), LGBT (Building an Inclusive Workplace through Pride Networks), Disability (Ensuring Inclusion in Invisible Disabilities) and Unconscious Bias (How to Embed Diversity into your Hiring Process). We also expanded our collaboration with other committees, co-hosting Managing the Gender Attrition Gap, alongside the Women in Business Committee and Tackling Bias in Artificial Intelligence alongside the ICT committee. Recordings of all our webinars are available on the BritCham website and I encourage all members to take the time to listen, learn and act on the discussions.

We significantly expanded our PodCast library with a new series, Diversity in Practice, where a diverse group of executives from across the local business community were interviewed to explain what D&I means to them and their team. The content is fascinating and it is great to hear how so many companies are embracing D&I into their underlying business strategy. Many thanks to Shell, Deloitte, Barclays and the British Council for contributing to this series.

In September, we were fortunate to host HE Kara Owen at the annual (virtual) “Celebrating Diversity Photography Competition”. The event showcased all shortlisted photos and provided a forum to meet the finalists and hear the stories behind the images. The photos were truly an inspiration to all members the event was used as a forum to celebrate D&I in the community.

For 2022, we will be continuing to address the topics raised by our members, providing resources and information to support members in illustrating the importance of D&I to your companies, and reflecting on the progress made by our members in inclusion by continuing to benchmarking against our annual survey. The committee and the events are run by a strong team of volunteers – we are immensely grateful for their support and dedication to this important topic.

Watch the Committee's playlist of BritCham webinars on YouTube:

Listen to the Committee's playlist of BritCham Singapore Podcast episodes on Spotify: