AccorHotels has relaunched its international network to promote diversity and renewed its commitment to diversity and inclusion. Renamed “RiiSE” the network is active across five continents and already has more than 14,000 members globally. Open to both and women, its areas of focus include a mentoring programme that ensures women are given equal opportunity for promotion to positions of responsibility; and combatting all forms of discrimination.
Originally created in 2012 as “Women at Accor Generation”, AccorHotels is now giving fresh impetus to the network and highlighting that diversity is a key driver of collective performance.
Maud Bailly, Chief Digital Officer of AccorHotels, and John Ozinga, CEO of AccorInvest, Joint Ambassadors of the network, reaffirmed RiiSE’s ambition by emphasizing the extent to which “diversity is a powerful driver of collective performance: it is important to involve men, women, and managers at the highest level to set an example. Promoting gender diversity is everyone’s duty regardless of their own gender.”
Another of RiiSE’s core values is that no progress can be made in terms of gender equality, fairness and diversity without the support of men, who currently represent 42% of the network’s members.
RiiSE will also strive to combat stereotypes, everyday sexism, and sexual harassment, through communication campaigns, conferences and awareness-raising workshops.
In line with the commitment made by Sébastien Bazin to the United Nations in 2015 as part of the #HeForShe program, RiiSE will pursue the Group’s objective of combatting pay inequalities and actively ensuring women have equal opportunities to be promoted to positions of responsibility. As such, AccorHotels, which has already made tangible progress in relation to equal pay and female representation, has set itself the goal of having more than 35% female hotel managers by 2020 within its network of more than 4,600 hotels.
In addition to gender equality, RiiSE’s diversity concept will also aim to encourage the emergence of mixed teams in terms of generations and cultures. “We are an international company operating in 100 countries, with a wealth of talent that RiiSE must also develop”, according to Maud Bailly and John Ozinga.
