Proud supporters of Pride 2023

By Terence Guiamo, Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Just Eat Takeaway.com 

Our people make Just Eat Takeaway.com the great business that it is. We’re committed to building an attractive and rewarding workplace with an inclusive and diverse culture where all of our employees are provided with the right opportunities to succeed, and where every member of our wider community from couriers, partners to customers feel like they truly belong. 

Being advocates of the LGBTQIA+ community is a huge part of this and we’re so proud to be celebrating Pride Month across the world this year. The pinnacle of the LGBTQIA+ calendar, it’s a time of celebration, demonstrations and learning opportunities about LGBTQIA+ people, culture and rights. So we’re really pleased to be able to mark this month in a number of ways. 

Parades:

We’re sponsoring eight Pride parades across four markets this summer. In Canada we’re on parade in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. In Europe, we’ll be participating in London’s huge Pride event, with more than 30,000 participants, Berlin’s Christopher Street Day and in Amsterdam, we’ll be on the water in our Free to Be boat, enjoying the citywide party #YouAreIncluded.

Internal events:

To help continue raising awareness and understanding, we're hosting many internal initiatives and awareness sessions to increase inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community. This includes organising roundtable discussions, running quizzes, and showcasing the stories of our people. 

Charity support:

To kick off pride month, we partnered with two icons in Canada -  Canadian Drag Queen Lemon of Drag Race fame, and legendary Toronto sandwich shop Grandma Loves You - to create the ultimate custom Pride sandwich which is available for delivery exclusively on Skip during the entire month of June. A portion of the proceeds from the sandwich will go to local 2SLGBTQ+ charity, Friends of Ruby.

In the UK we've partnered with charity, Football vs Homophobia, who are on a mission to kick homophobia out of football. Together, we’re providing workshops to maximise inclusivity at every level and improve allyship throughout the game. We’ve also partnered with the Unity Fund, a charity that provides support to grassroots LGBTQIA+ organisations across London. 

In Germany, we’re shining a spotlight on the creative fashion minds within the LGBTQIA+ communities with a design competition for up and coming drag queen talent. Drag queens with the best food-themed outfit designs will join Lieferando on our Free to Be truck to show off their creations at Christopher Street Day Berlin.

Beyond Pride

As a business we’re committed to supporting our wider LGBTQIA+ community and we’re pleased to be driving forward initiatives to ensure we as a business fully reflect a truly inclusive culture for everyone. As an example, we have expanded our HR Systems to introduce pronouns and non-binary genders, rolled out gender-neutral spaces in our offices, created inclusive language guidelines that are used in all Just Eat Takeaway.com products.

We have also globalised our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) which are employee-led communities for people with similar interests and identities to connect with each other. Our employees are welcome to join a variety of groups including JET and Proud (LGBTQIA+). Throughout the year, we have connected our ERGs with sponsors from our Executive Committee to drive leadership support and visibility. 

The ‘JET & Proud’ employee network play a key role in fostering a sense of community through raising awareness of LGBTQIA+ inclusion whether that be supporting relevant teams to ensure inclusive language is used in all Just Eat Takeaway.com products to creating educational moments for both members of our community and allies.

Overall, research shows that many of the wider LGBTQIA+ community still experience discrimination and feel uncomfortable coming out in the workspace generally. This is why we believe it is so important to celebrate Pride but beyond this, to be an ally everyday. We do this by all doing what we can to nurture inclusive environments so that everyone feels comfortable and confident being their true authentic selves, no matter who that is, what role they are in, or which country they are from.