Yummygum hopes to cultivate a place where everyone feels welcome and safe, be it while giving feedback on a design over Slack, or talking during lunch about that movie you saw. Creating an inclusive environment makes for a more welcome and safe place for everyone.
To create a space for that, we are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, physical appearance, body size, professional experience and education (or lack thereof), ability, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion (or lack thereof) and other personal conditions and choices.
This Code of Conduct outlines our expectations as well as the consequences for unacceptable behavior.
We believe this code can't work by itself. It needs to be part of a broader initiative that includes training, enforcement, monitoring, evaluation and adaption.
Don’t be scared off by these rules! They are in place to protect us, not to intimidate people from interacting with each other in a positive manner.
This code of conduct is open to any suggestions and criticism: we are happy to learn and improve. Please use the #diversity-inclusion channel or any other method for requests.
This code of conduct applies to interactions in various areas of our shared professional lives, including the office, our online environments (Slack, Notion, Basecamp, email, etc.), pull request feedback, off-site company events, social media, and events where you represent Yummygum. This code applies to employers, employees, clients and anyone who is a guest in our office or online environment.
By creating this CoC, we help foster a safer space which “might be less about an absolute security in which there is no risk, no pain and no difficult conversations, but rather more about a redistribution of the risks and discomforts of speaking and organizing” (Dreher 2009,p.17).
We would prefer to live in a society where we do not need Codes of Conduct. However, Codes of Conduct are essential to establish spaces that are different from – and more inclusive than – general society. If you don’t set up your own rules, you implicitly endorse those prevalent in society – including the unwritten ones – many of which we recognize as unfair to many people. When privileges are not explicitly addressed by the ethos of a space, the burden of education will often be placed upon the people who are living the oppressions. Moreover, since we still perform – consciously or unconsciously – behaviours that have oppressive potential (i.e. patriarchal, racist, sexist, capitalist, (neo)colonialist, etc.), it is essential to reflect on our privileges and on the ways in which they have an impact on our lives and the lives of others.
A code of conduct can help do just that: to bring awareness, consciousness, reflexivity and ultimately change.