Tina Arcilla

[Florencia Abila]

Thenetwork was established in 2007/8 with a priority to promote female representation at leadership levels. Looking at large multinational companies at that time, it was found only locals could progress up to a certain point. Beyond that, it was largely for talents that were flown in to take higher spots.

Racial inequality is not something new. It is incredibly ingrained into value systems and in what society believes in. At DIAN, we believe that when businesses choose to ignore issues around race, religion, culture anything like that, it's ignoring a large part of what makes their workplace and customers stick.

To achieve inclusion in the workplace, we need to look at policies and structures that ensure fair treatment. We need to guard against discriminatory practices and behaviours and help everyone feel physically and psychologically safe and included in their workplace.

Psychological safety means that people knowing that their identity as human beings will not be ridiculed. They know that they will be seen as valid and their ideas heard and valued. And they feel safe enough to raise concern or to tell others when a behavior is not OK.

If you're from the same part of the world, you get that connection with your customers. But if you're not from the same place or don't speak the same language, communicating your understanding of other people's culture is incredibly valuable. That inclusion can be from racial diversity.

Ignoring the racial aspect will mean missing out on so many opportunities. Include diversity within your team because doing market research cannot be enough. You need to have presentation and insight in your team depending on the type of work you do.

Inclusion within your workforce ensures that people feel protected and safe. This will increase productivity. In a workplace that lacks inclusion, it takes a lot of energy to be accepted, especially when only certain types of people get heard or promoted.

What you need to look at is psychological safety. Do people even with all these programs feel able to speak about how they celebrated their weekend, or do they feel that that's not something appropriate to talk about at work?

Inclusion is about looking at the things that make people feel included and excluded. Some of them are so subtle e.g. microaggressions. Microaggressions are small daily attack or offences. If you're subjected to it every single day where part of your identity is chipped away and attacked, you feel that it's a place that you don't want to come and work again.

To treat microaggressions, you need to look at both the intent and the impact. If the person acting has positive intent, but what they do hurts another person, we can only agree that the hurt has happened even though the person who committed that action had good intentions.

Generally, people have good intention. They don't go out there intentionally to hurt others. We need to understand that you can be a good person but do a miss. We need to be humble enough to acknowledge that.

In a situation where microaggression is happening, psychological safety is important because somebody experiencing that hurt needs to feel safe enough to say that hurts, it's not good or it makes me uncomfortable.

Be aware and look at the safety of the people involved. It's a constant thing and you are likely to fail, but you have to do it because you are living in a society where you want people to feel included.

First of all, company should know who their employees are and what is important to them. You can have a conversation with your staff. However, it depends because some organizations are cautious about what they can ask or not. Just knowing additional requirements or understanding your staff is incredibly important.

Food options in your cafeteria or events should look at different needs of your staff. It's important to do that not just from a religious inclusion perspective, but also from food allergies and health perspective.

The Professional Disability Network Hong Kong (PDNHK) hosted a thought-provoking panel discussion titled "Beyond Labels: Reframing Disability Semantics", bringing one of the largest audiences together since the organisation's inception in 2021.

The event featured esteemed disability advocates, professionals and academics who engaged in an open dialogue on recent shifts in disability terminology. Panellists shared experiences driving positive changes in semantics that recognise humanity's diverse abilities and move beyond outdated labels. Participants engaged deeply with the issues examined, such as navigating emerging trends like "non-apparent" substituting "invisible" and ensuring policies respect people with disabilities' agency in language selection.

Featured speakers including Nifraz Rifaz of Iron Mountain, Dr. Simon Ng from HKU SPACE, and Tina Arcilla of Manulife brought unique perspectives that stimulated important questions around how mainstream conceptions can evolve, and what they've implemented in their work roles to sustained success. Under the thoughtful moderation of Christina Pantin, the panel discussion served as a platform for exchanging diverse views and encouraged audience participation and questions throughout.

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