Business Event with the Rainbow Circle Community

The Swiss LGBTI Label was a guest at the Rainbow Circle Community event at The Circle at Zurich Airport, focusing on diversity management, current developments, and challenges.

For the first time, the Circle Community spotlighted the topic of diversity at one of its approximately eight annual business events. Organized by the Rainbow Circle Community, the event aims to connect the various Diversity Business Groups and allies of companies in The Circle, while raising awareness for greater workplace diversity.

The panel discussion, which formed the core of the event at The Circle Convention Center, took place against the backdrop of the growing importance of this topic in both society and the workplace. In Generation Z, one in five people already identifies as queer. Furthermore, 83 percent of Gen Z believe that employers should actively promote diversity and inclusion, and 75 percent hesitate to apply for jobs if they are dissatisfied with a potential employer’s commitment to this cause.

Coming Out: Easiest at the Beginning

In an engaging panel discussion, four experts shared their personal experiences: Christian Gersbacher, Community Manager at the Swiss LGBTI Label, Maciek Sikorski, Director of Training and Development at Hyatt International EAME, Julia A. Müller, Head of the Zurich Pride Festival Office, and Detty Berta, CEO and Principal Consultant at StratoServ Sciences AG. The panel was moderated by Florian Winters, Strategy & Operations at Horváth.

The panel participants actively discussed the best timing and approach for coming out in the workplace. It quickly became clear that coming out is easiest at the beginning and becomes more difficult over time. Maciek Sikorski, in a moment of self-reflection, noted that often it also depends on oneself: “I have experienced how my coming out was received extremely well, but I hesitated for a long time before I had the courage to do it.