Diversity and Inclusion

At imc, we firmly believe in protecting, constructively promoting and showing appreciation for the diverse perspectives our employees contribute to the company based on their distinctiveness and versatility.

We care about the results achieved by individuals, irrespective of any particularities a person represents in their private or professional capacity. Gender, age, nationality and culture, health impairments, religion, sexual orientation, as well as formal qualifications and social background are not important to us. We are advocates for a broad understanding of diversity that lets the strengths, motivation and performance of our employees take centre stage. In other words: At imc, everyone has the same rights and opportunities, and we are leveraging our diversity constructively.

We are not willing to compromise on protecting the rights of diverse employee groups. We have clear standards and introduced transparent processes for dealing with any unacceptable behaviours.

The principle of diversity is anchored deeply in the DNA of imc, manifesting itself in countless ways. For over 20 years, our purpose has been to make people more successful through digital learning solutions, and to add value to an organisation’s value chain. The nature of learning in itself necessitates a diverse mindset and diverse action. Equally, these are prerequisites for our core business – the conceptual design, development and implementation of new ideas as well as advising our global customer base. The systematic inclusion of a wide range of perspectives and approaches is crucial and imperative for finding the best possible solutions for our customers. An active culture of diversity thus creates significant value for imc, and constitutes a clear, strategic competitive advantage.

Diversity and versatility also show at a different level: We serve a broad range of customers with a diverse spectrum of content, relying on interdisciplinary and multicultural teams for our success. Our customers are global in operations and presence, supporting our successful, mutual international growth over the years.

The diversity at imc enables us to act fairly in line with national and international standards, learn from each other, be more successful and have more fun together.

I am very proud to know that all colleagues at imc show great sensitivity , openness and tolerance at a personal level, and understand personal and professional differences in their collaboration as an opportunity and inspiration.

We are committed to developing our existing international business further and driving the global expansion of imc. We therefore need the individuals at imc and the organisation as a whole to adapt easily, enabling us to thrive in continuously changing market conditions and customer structures. Invariably, diversity management anchored in the corporate strategy can help boost operational effectiveness, problem solving and conflict resolution skills, as well as employee loyalty – when colleagues learn that their perspective is appreciated and incorporated in practice.

Attracting and recruiting talents around the world who design best practice in digital learning is another challenge for imc. A company culture based on diversity greatly enhances our attractiveness as an employer. Applicants explicitly ask about our culture in interviews and want to know to what degree diversity has been realised in the company. I am quite certain that this is a key criterion for many applicants’ decisions, not far behind success.

At present, colleagues of 44 different nationalities work for imc at 12 locations worldwide. Statistically speaking, that means one out of seven employees represents a different nationality. Groundbreaking innovations and best practices often start in our domestic organisation and are rolled out across the entire organisation from there.

The digital transformation that companies need to master in relation to their products, services and processes is obviously influenced by the use of new technologies. But we mustn’t forget creativity as a success factor for the development of new ideas and technologies. Diversity drives creativity and creativity drives innovation.

People who work in diverse teams practice special skills. They cooperate well despite their different views and work methods. They promote new contributions and integrate them, even though this requires far more active listening, empathy and communication. As such, diverse teams are more creative, more open and more productive than homogeneous groups.

Managers capable of unleashing and incorporating diverse potentials will very likely fare much better driving digitalisation in areas critical for success, such as process design, strategy development, business models and employee development. The reverse is also true: Digitalisation can drive  diversity. More and more companies invest in digital technologies to implement diversity programmes. Digital tools can effectively support efforts, such as training employees on a topic, objectifying decisions based on facts, or sharing knowledge with the goal of achieving greater transparency.

imc has developed outstanding digital training courses used with great success by large multinational organisations and institutions for training employees on topics like anti-discrimination, improving the quality of management decisions, codes of ethics, integrity, inclusion and so forth. This is our contribution to making the world a better place. We are proud of that.

As an organisation, the mindset and actions of imc are already highly diverse. The ‘imc Diversity Day’ is a very welcome occasion for celebrating diversity while also giving some thought to how we can become even better. Specifically, we aim to further develop the existing sensitivity and tolerance for diversity in perspectives, and the understanding for the need to protect and promote these, and to integrate this into our processes. In practical terms: We want to start a dialogue with our employees and understand how inclusive the culture at imc really is, and what specific aspects need to be improved.

An initiative by an Australian colleague is a great example here: She recently made recommendations for ways to better target women with our recruitment activities. We are very grateful for the idea and will implement it swiftly. Overall, our future focus will be on “institutionalising” tolerance through organisationally anchored diversity management that forms an integral part of the corporate strategy and is supported and prioritised by imc management accordingly.

My goal is to achieve an inclusive organisation: “Diversity plus inclusion is the source of real value” (Boston Consulting Group). In the context of diversity, inclusion means we don’t stop at measurable diversity in perspectives, views and approaches co-existing at imc, but see to the potential of these assets being developed to the fullest, creating a fair, creative and innovative imc enjoying long-term success.