Caroline Leroy is Chief People and Fulfillment Officer at Payfit, where she spearheads various diversity initiatives. She really values the company’s humble working culture.Well-being, motivation and happinessI’ve been an HR professional for over 18 years. I'm also a mother of two young boys. I've been fortunate to have worked in many different types of companies, with varying sizes and cultures, which is really helpful when you want to put forward a new vision of culture, because you know what you want and what to avoid.&nbsp;In my current role at Payfit, I'm not only a people officer, but also a fulfillment officer. By fulfillment, we mean that we work on the drivers corresponding to its definition, “a <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/feeling">feeling</a> of <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/happiness">happiness</a> because you are doing what you <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intended">intended</a> to do in <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/life">life” </a>for our employees in a professional context. My job is really exciting. We take fulfillment really seriously by measuring fulfillment and having a data driven strategy to it. We have a long term approach of fulfilling people's experience, rather than measuring happiness, which is more of a snapshot.Living out one’s valuesI think the reason Payfit is in LinkedIn’s Top 10 startups in France, and why people say it's a great place to work, is because we have a strong culture. We really live out our values, and new hires are often pleasantly surprised to find that their employee experience exactly matches their candidate experience. I even experienced this myself when I joined; I learned so much from some colleagues and team members. And that's awesome, because that helps you grow and become a better manager, and ultimately a better person.The other thing that is striking within our culture is our value of humility. People at Payfit are very eager to learn from each other, and there's no ego. We also allow you to work anywhere, as long as you’re physically present at essential meetings and events and that you are mindful of the law. It’s based on trust and autonomy.Setting an example with diversity&nbsp;I think one of the key challenges is that diversity is quite a polarizing subject in our organization. We need to find a way to discuss it across the whole company, which isn’t always easy because there's a lot of emotion and confusion about whether diversity should be a work topic or not.&nbsp;I also really believe that having diverse leaders and managers helps recruit more diverse people. That’s the first thing that needs to improve. The second thing is having a powerful sponsor involved in diversity efforts, like the CEO. Those organizations change the fastest. That’s why my aim when it comes to diversity is to really make sure we have role models and sponsors at the top management level. It’s especially important for a company that is humble and caring. You have to set an example.&nbsp;Fortunately, our CEO and founders are involved and understand what is at stake. It took a while for us to get used to the idea of targets and quotas, but now we are comfortable with it. We made a decision to bring in more women in top management, and I'm&nbsp; proud we‘ve already reached our&nbsp; 40% target. You can't improve what you don't measure, which is why we have objectives with key results. Our onboarding process now also includes a section on bias training and awareness.&nbsp;Focusing your diversity effortsYou need to focus your diversity efforts as a company, because you can’t fix all problems at once. For us, we have three main focus areas: gender diversity, social diversity, and disability. Besides working on improving gender balance, especially in tech teams and in our top management, we found that the best way to create a more diverse workforce is by selecting people with different academic backgrounds. We also support initiatives that help us hire more people with disabilities. Of course, we need to get a more diverse workforce with other types of diversity, and we’ll get there. We had to choose to focus and we took the ones that were the most actionable and the most acclaimed by our employees. We also need to pay attention to your inclusiveness; equality and sense of belonging in the meantime, otherwise our Diversity efforts will be meaningless.

"Having diverse leaders and managers helps recruit more diverse people"

caroline leroy