As you can imagine, finding an internship during the pandemic was not a piece of cake. But I was lucky enough to find one at GrandVision later in the semester. GrandVision, now part of the EssilorLuxoticca group, is a global leader in the optical retail industry, and they sell (sun)glasses and contact lenses in over 40 countries. My position at the company was a CSR communications internship that took place at the headquarters in Schiphol. CSR work at GrandVision consisted of actions that made the company more environmentally friendly and socially inclusive. It was my responsibility to effectively inform employees and occasionally the public about the company’s CSR strategy and actions. This was done by publishing articles, making posts, using mailing lists and facilitating Teams calls and webinars.
My most rewarding experience during this internship was planning the company’s first global Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) summit. Named the “GrandVision for All summit,” it was one of the company’s first steps towards consciously fostering a culture of inclusivity. Due to COVID-19 and the global scale of the event, it was held on Teams calls that were attended by approximately 150 people. Together with my team, we held 7 sessions over the 3 day event to cover important topics for D&I.
The planning process began with identifying the topics of interest with the event and fitting them into a communications plan. We tried to create variety in these events, so we included a masterclass session, 4 share and learn sessions for best D&I practices and 2 interviews where we gave employees the chance to talk about their experiences with being themselves at work. I was involved with the preparation calls for the share and learn sessions where we prepared our speakers who each came from different countries to share their own unique best practices, such as promoting dialog about racial equality in the US, offering better service to people with disabilities and fostering a diverse and “colorful” work environment. During the live sessions, I facilitated Q&A sessions at the end by raising important questions from the audience to the speakers, such as how to implement these actions in different situations. I found these sessions to be deeply inspiring and rewarding as they consisted of collaborative work between many D&I passionate individuals like myself. Furthermore, I created interview guides for the sessions where we asked employees who dared to be themselves at work about their experiences, with the objective of promoting diversity and educating people about the importance of inclusivity.
Following the summit, I compiled a recap of the entire event and highlighted people’s reactions and engagement to highlight the far reaching impact of this social initiative across the company. In doing so, along with receiving many personal encouraging messages from colleagues about how valuable the event was for them, I felt overjoyed to be a part of managing such a special and progressive initiative. As a result, I learned about my passion for D&I and acquired skills in communicating about the topic. Moreover, I am sure I will be considering job positions which promote D&I in the future.