Celebrating Pride 2024

Avaloq had a fantastic Pride month with loads of activity where we got the opportunity to celebrate and learn globally, understanding better how to support and encourage each other and what makes us all unique.

We had a mix of hosted events throughout the month as well as some month-long options for Avaloqers to get involved in which included an anonymous "ask a member of the community a question" and a prize draw for anyone who completed the fantastic Allyship in the Workplace e-learning developed by MyGwork.

We started the month with a great learning session on "Perceptions and Bias", which was created and run by our brilliant Talent development and engagement team. This led to some really open honest and illuminating conversations where people were able to discuss their perceptions in a safe environment and learn how to challenge their own thought processes to avoid the biases we all have.

A few days before Zurich Pride we got the opportunity to mix up our monthly beer event in the Zurich office where we enjoyed Brooklyn Brewery’s Stonewall Inn IPA and Blaue Ente’s Love is Love beers together.

We then ran another global learning session, this one named LGBTQIA+ 101, in this session we talked through all of the letters that make up LGBTQIA+ and what they mean, we then took some time to understand different gender identities and how to get it right with pronouns.

The last section of this session was based around how to avoid and combat micro-aggressions in the workplace to support our Avaloqers around the world by being Allies to everyone. This session received fantastic feedback from our global community.

We rounded off the month with Dame Inga Beale who joined us to be the keynote speaker for the finale to Pride month, Dame Inga was remarkably honest about her life, career and feelings helping us all to understand how our actions can affect others within a professional and personal environment.

To bring us all together for this event we hosted global watch parties where colleagues got together in offices around the world to watch enjoying a myriad of pride-themed refreshments.

Now that the month is over we are also delighted to officially launch Avaloq's first ever Employee Resource Group - "Avaloq Proud" where we can continue the fantastic community-building and engagement we have enjoyed throughout Pride month.