Kelly Metcalf,
Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing, Fujitsu
Fujitsu's Kelly Metcalf has climbed the corporate ladder to reach her current role of Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing. Below, we find out about how technology is supporting with the initiatives that she is working on...
Words by Sophie Parrott
Technology has many uses in the workplace, such as keeping staff connected, opening up opportunities to tap into non-local talent and streamlining processes with automation. With many companies adopting digital or hybrid working practices, technology plays an increasingly important role. One company that is no stranger to the use of technology is the information and communications tech firm Fujitsu.
Well-known for its vast product offering – which ranges from PCs to servers and network solutions – technology plays a central role in day-to-day life at the organisation. So much so that Kelly Metcalf, Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing at Fujitsu admitted that, “without technology, I wouldn’t have a job at Fujitsu”. At role-level, Metcalf explained that technology has enabled her to keep in touch with co-workers around the world, and has allowed both her and her team to be able to process people data with a view to improving the employee experience.
Speaking to myGrapevine magazine, Metcalf sheds light on how technology helps in her current role (from acting as a good collaboration tool, to helping with the collection and analysis of diversity information), and how technology is supporting with some of the initiatives that she is currently working on. Plus, she tells us about her proudest moment with the company so far, and the goals that she has bookmarked for the year ahead.
Organisation Design, EMEIA
First and foremost, technology plays a critical role in bringing people together during remote and hybrid working. This includes everything from organising virtual social events and providing new digital ways to collaborate, to giving leadership teams the chance to be more visible across the organisation.
Beyond this, technology significantly helps the collection and analysis of diversity information to inform our action planning and to monitor the impact we're having at Fujitsu. We use diversity dashboards to do this, and we also hold our leaders to account for making progress in their areas of the business. In fact, these dashboards form part of business reviews.
It’s important to understand that while technology acts as an enabler to wellbeing, it can also bring risk. It’s an enabler because of the freedom it gives people to decide where and when they work; but it’s a risk because of ‘e-burnout’ and how much time people can end up spending on virtual meetings. Organisations must be mindful to strike the right balance. That said, as a wellbeing aid, our physical and mental wellbeing challenge for Fujitsu colleagues across Europe and our global delivery centres enabled colleagues to work together in virtual teams to improve their wellbeing over a 90-day period. This engaged more than 1,600 colleagues in Europe alone, of whom 58% reported an improvement in physical activity and 34% an improvement in mental wellbeing as a result of the challenge...
"Without technology, I wouldn’t have a job at Fujitsu"
At Fujitsu, our data teams play a massive role in supporting our D&I strategies. For instance, with the collection of diversity data. It helps us to access and understand a huge amount of useful data, including gender and ethnicity pay gaps, which means we can focus our attention on the areas that need it. At Fujitsu, for example, we use our ethnicity pay gap data – which we published voluntarily in 2021 – to inform the actions and initiatives we make to ensure all ethnicities can thrive and to hold ourselves accountable for making progress. Understanding this data more has directly contributed to our decision to introduce career sponsorship for ethnic minority talent with all of our UK leadership team.
Then there is career progression and workforce analysis to understand where we need to improve to be more representative of society – that is ultimately our customers! More recently, we have paid more attention to wellbeing data too. Through the creation of a ‘Wellbeing Dashboard’, we can now measure the wellbeing of our workforce, using a holistic set of measures. Essentially, it’s about using data to understand the wellbeing of our workforce – based on absence rates, EAP usage, and engagement rates. I’d encourage all organisations to use such data to inform their own internal processes...
To gain as much breadth and diversity of experience as possible that ultimately helps improve employee experiences, business performance and has a positive impact on society along the way. I started my Fujitsu career as an HR Advisor in our Government service desks. Since then, I have progressed through the career structure, held generalist HR roles across the business, led multiple big change programmes, held specialist roles in leadership and management development and organisational development and change. Additionally, I have spent time in global client management to develop my insight out of HR.
Elsewhere, I’ve worked with Business in the Community as a Business Connector. I thrive when I am delivering outcomes that I care deeply about, when I can bring my creativity and ideas into work and when I work with inspiring people who keep me challenged.
Without technology, I wouldn’t have a job at Fujitsu. Technology is what we do, it’s our industry and reason for being. At a role level, technology has enabled me to: connect with colleagues across the world in Fujitsu to achieve more than what would have been possible operating just within geographical boundaries; it enables me to more easily connect and network with peers across all different sectors and learn from each other’s insight (for example through the Be Inspired retail D&I programme, which operates hybrid meeting approach). Technology enables my team and I to process huge amounts of people data to build a picture of the experience our people are having at work and where we should focus our attention to ensure everyone can thrive in their career.
And technology is an enabler for all employees too, and being in HR, I am responsible for them. It gives freedom of expression to our people across the world; enables real-time feedback which helps inform our engagement strategy; helps to raise leader visibility; bring teams together to collaborate virtually; takes away hierarchical borders.
"Technology plays a critical role in bringing people together during remote and hybrid working"
As discussed before, the use of comprehensive data sets to understand employee experience, inclusion and wellbeing is increasingly important to ensure the workplace is a productive and successful space for everyone post-pandemic. It’s about establishing how technology can facilitate the workplace as a purposeful space for collaboration.
Covid-19 had an enormous impact on our employees’ wellbeing and highlighted that we need to be diverse and adaptable in our response. Technology is the backbone of this. It can allow for secure remote working and means the workplace can become adaptable to what individual employees need to succeed in their job and protect their wellbeing.
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