It is a well-known fact today that a diverse workforce is more productive and yields better results. Lewis Hamilton, who has been a champion of the same idea for a while, back in 2022, criticized Mercedes for slacking on the diversity aspect with inadequate female representation within the team.
“Just challenging a lot of people in our industry because I think no one else is having those serious conversations (about diversity),” Hamilton explained in an interview for Mercedes. “I am basically a thorn in the thigh for the industry”. Being part of a minority group himself in motorsports, Hamilton felt the need to address this gap.
“I have been in this sport for 29 years; started when I was eight. And 16 years in professional,” the Briton explained how his not seeing any change in the demographics of this sport resulted in him taking the onus to help bring about the change he desired. “Majority male-dominated industry, has always been a white-dominated industry”.
In order to help bring about the change he wanted, Hamilton worked with Mercedes to launch initiatives such as Ignite, “a joint charitable initiative to support greater diversity and inclusion in motorsport”. This UK-based initiative was aimed to motivate students of diverse backgrounds, who don’t have the financial means, to pursue careers in STEM.
Lewis Hamilton explains the impact and change Ignite and Mission 44 have had pic.twitter.com/vUW0tX6y0i
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) February 15, 2023
By launching this initiative alongside his own personal foundation — Mission 44 — Hamilton worked alongside institutes to bring in more diverse educators “to role model and inspire students from under-represented groups in STEM”.
How Hamilton pushed Mercedes to have a diverse workforce?
What has really helped Hamilton bring about the change he desires is that he has always put his money where his mouth is. The Briton understood that just having conversations within Mercedes were not enough to push them to diversify their workforce.
He understood that the team needed to undergo sensitivity training to understand why they needed a diverse workforce in the first place. In order to lead by example, he took the training first.
Since Hamilton knew he could not do it all on his own, he expressed his gratitude toward Mercedes for understanding why this was an important issue that needed to be addressed. Although Hamilton will no longer be a part of the Silver Arrows moving forward, his legacy will remain forever.
Such things matter so much to him that even when he was departing Mercedes, he revealed that more than the success he helped the team achieve on the race track, he would want to be remembered as someone who helped the team bring about positive change.
“I’d like to think that I challenged the team in ways that they’ve perhaps never been challenged before in terms of how we engaged in the background,” he revealed in an interview late last year.
