5 Reasons Why Having Employees from 15 Countries Makes Our Company Stronger

Diversity is a big word that is often thrown around. But I’ll try to go beyond the clichés, because diversity is very important for our company, and I want to explain why.

Why? Because we want to welcome talents from where they come from, anywhere that may be. As a result of this, our employees come from 15 different countries, pretty well spread across the world: the US of course, but also Latin America, Western and Central Europe, Africa, and Asia. And I believe this is a great strength for us. I’ll tell you why, in 5 points.

The first and probably most obvious reason is that it makes us speak English more. Of course, we all need to speak English when the San Francisco and Paris offices are in communication. But thanks to our diverse population inside the Paris office itself, and because not everyone of us speaks German, Spanish, Indonesian or Polish, we end up speaking English a lot, about the technical aspects of our work, whether it may be the production process, software development, strategy, or marketing, communication and PR.

This helps us be more fluid when in closer relation with our clients and contractors, who often don’t speak French. This also makes us closer to our main market, which is in the US.

The English language is not the only common ground we need to find. We have different languages, but also different cultural references, metaphors and expressions. In an all-French office, it would be easy to quote a famous French film we know we all have in common, or explain what we mean with an image that we find clear because of our specific cultural background.

When shared culture is not such a given, we need to be more specific, and explain very concretely what we mean, without the usual short-cuts. I find this makes us more efficient in the way we communicate, which increases our overall fluidity and productivity.

Employees coming from various countries also means they have been trained differently, and have different approaches to each problem. This is extremely precious because it is easier to think out of the box when we come from many diverse boxes, and what’s obvious to one of us can be a breakthrough for someone else of the team. This is a considerable push.

To give just one example: in our software development team, we have people who come from France, the UK, Romania and Macedonia. With the different trainings they have received come different approaches of mathematics and coding, which complement each other, and have always been an extra tool in our building box.

Our various cultures come with various expectations. These are assets, because we use our own expectations to imagine those of our customers, and to create a customer experience accordingly. Thanks to our various outlooks, we are able to meet the needs of a wider range of customers, coming with a wider number of cultural backgrounds. This is another one of our added values.

Last but not least, our very diverse team gives us lots to talk about and learn from one another. It might seem a bit silly, but it’s pretty amazing to sit at the lunch table with people coming from so many different paths, eating different foods, and having different things to say. I know I enjoy it, and I believe it is seen as a richness by the team as well.

I feel that it is one of the reasons why candidates are charmed by our company, and one of the reasons why they enjoy working with us. A multicultural environment fosters personal growth, by getting each of us out of our own heads and habits!

So here it is: the 5 reasons why I believe our team is made stronger by the diversity of the people who participate to it, and make it what it is. Do you share my point of view?

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