Being confident in who I am: Kim’s story
Raising awareness is crucial to fostering an inclusive workplace
Kim joined BP in February 2018 and now works in the analytics foundations team within BP’s supply and trading information technology and services function. The team works on multiple projects to support trading data and analytics and is also building a data science platform for traders, which Kim is currently supporting on. Beyond the day-to-day, Kim is an active member of the BP Pride community, focused on raising awareness of transgender issues.
Kim values the multitude of extracurricular activities and communities at BP. “I’ve worked in Sunbury and the Canada Square offices, and there are so many employee networks and activities that you can get involved in – whoever and wherever you are, at BP there is so much going on!”
Working towards inclusivity
Raising awareness is crucial to fostering an inclusive workplace. “At BP there is always something to learn about. We do lots to raise awareness of different issues, from mental health to transgender equality. It’s about helping people learn about the challenges that some individuals or groups face”, says Kim.
Kim wasn’t out as transgender before joining BP and getting involved with BP Pride. The community and the role models that Kim met gave Kim the confidence to bring their entire self to work: “I met people who were out and doing well professionally – that gave me the confidence to come out in a professional environment”.
There’s more to come!
Kim is now part of the transgender working group, which has been making good progress over the past few years. Recently the group introduced all gender toilets at BP Sunbury. They are now working on developing a second version of BP’s transgender transition guidelines, which give advice to line managers about how to work through the transition of a transgender person.
But there is still a lot to do. For example, Kim recently experienced bias when filling out a BP registration form. “I realised that the online IT registration had a ‘male’ or ‘female’ gender question, which just doesn’t work for non-binary and transgender individuals. So I flagged this to the team”.
Route ahead
Kim would like to see more BP activities outside of flagship events: “It’s great that we are joining London Pride and participating in things like transgender awareness week, but I would like to see more activities in between. There’s always room to keep advancing”.
For example, Kim could envisage smaller, monthly meetings for BP Pride members to come together as a community: “This is what BP Pride is all about – providing a safe space, encouraging experience exchanges, and giving people confidence in who they are”.