A rainbow in every LinkedIn profile

Perhaps the subjective impression is deceptive, but in the self-portrayal of many companies today, it seems to me that topics are dominating more and more that concern less burning questions of working and employment conditions, but are primarily intended to represent a progressive image.

Instead of addressing what really hurts in communication and personnel marketing – such as rigid working time guidelines, plans for a home office law, expansion of corporate co-determination to include smaller companies – it is increasingly a matter of demonstrating one’s own compatibility with social trends. Chasing these trends is not only misunderstood as an expression of modernity, but also as a guarantee of higher chances of success in the competition for the best talent.

This begins with a one-sided understanding of diversity, which the economy documents with its more or less broad approval for statutory quotas for board appointments. It continues with the unreserved adoption of punctuation or asterisks instead of discussing and promoting the development opportunities of women and men alike.

Whether we are getting closer to real equality and tolerance by inserting short speaking pauses within the words in radio broadcasts, whether we act inclusive when we do something that runs counter to most people’s sense of language, seems at least questionable to me. Presumably, the media and politics even risk the opposite of what is desired, namely to be perceived as elitist and patronizing.

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Attitude is shown when consent is certain

We at Trumpf have therefore decided on a different path and continue to talk about those we want to reach, and as personally as possible: our employees. If companies in Germany are now following the example of Anglo-Saxon companies, they are open and diverse in terms of the public, shareholders, employees and applicants, then the direction is right – but not the volume.

In addition, I can not get rid of the feeling that “attitude” is increasingly displayed when the public approval seems certain and the response space is calculable. A good example of this are the social platforms that suddenly discovered the symbol of the rainbow for themselves. Will companies and executives let the rainbow-colored LinkedIn logos or the flags in front of the corporate headquarters shine just as visibly during the next soccer World Cup?

Will you do the same when it comes to China and other major markets, i.e. your own business? Possibly not, which shows how difficult it is to maintain certain attitudes in practice. Quite apart from the question of how confidently and fairly you act as the host city towards athletes from another country if you actively politicize against their nation before a game: Attitudes to socio-political issues, which rightly make up a central corporate value today, are not allowed become self-righteous. And especially not for attitude marketing.

We should therefore not make it too easy for ourselves to make quick judgments about who is up-to-date and up-to-date with society – and who is supposedly not. In many family businesses in particular, there is an established culture of social commitment, not least from the deep roots in the respective regions. Or motivated by a Christian worldview.

These are the same companies that were recently referred to by the Allbright Foundation as “Thomas and Michael” companies in terms of board quotas, which is to say that there are fewer women in management positions than board members with these first names.

Playing with spectral colors narrows the view

Apart from the peculiarity of such a stigma: The synonymy of “attitude” with quotas and the game with spectral colors narrow our view not only by making nuances inaudible. In addition, diversity and equality are too important and historically too hard-won for us to make them the object of striking gestures that say little about the actual culture and the openness that is lived in a company.

Real diversity not only needs time, but also needs empathy in industrial production facilities for those employees who may weight this topic differently. And who today often have the impression that it’s all about such things. Incidentally, I live with my husband in Munich, the city of the Hungarian soccer game during the European championship, to determine my own position.

For me the events of June 1969 in New York, which are remembered today in so-called “Pride Month”, are more than a historical footnote. Even if I wasn’t an activist myself, I have great respect for those who fought for our community. When the rainbow flag flies in front of Munich City Hall on Christopher Street Day and pedestrian traffic lights show two men and two women with one heart, it is also an achievement of many years of political discourse in an open and tolerant city.

But this is something completely different from the described “pink washing”, which cannot be an answer to the concerns of the LGBTQ movement that are close to me any more than “green washing” is in the area of ​​sustainability. Or banning currywurst from the works canteen.

No active top footballer comes out

Don’t we managers in particular have to implement issues sensitively in the company with a maximum of responsibility, but also sensitivity and willingness to deal with the complexity of the arguments? Anyone who looks at the decline of the industrial cores in the USA, despite all the differences, recognizes a warning that we are not allowed to do in Europe: also emotionally not to take those with us, for whom a lot, maybe everything, changes. This applies not only to the work itself, but even more so to the cultural environment in which work takes place today.

When the rainbow shines in a German football stadium, it does so in an industry where so far only a few players have dared to come out as homosexual. If the available sources are correct, no player in the top leagues has yet done so.

The fact that insurance companies, banks, software companies, mobile phone shops who want to sell “rainbow smartphones” and people in public life are now adding a rainbow to their social media profile may give the debate more visibility. I have serious doubts that it will gain in seriousness and argumentative diversity as a result.
The author: Oliver Maassen is Managing Director Human Resources at the mechanical engineering company Trumpf.

More: Rainbow debate reveals double standards in the German economy

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