Diversity – Page 2 – The Equality Blog

The Business Case for Diversity

Increasingly, the term ‘Equality’ (and what used to be referred to as Equal Opportunities) is making way for discussions on ‘diversity’ as this term is much broader in its scope and gets to the heart of the integration challenges facing the UK workforce.

Over the past five decades our society has become increasingly complex and multicultural as population growth continues, subsequently becoming more diverse and with an aging population. Furthermore, changes to employment law coupled with an increase of the age at which an employee can retire and draw a pension means we now have increased competition in the workplace for fewer and fewer jobs.

As Vijay Eswaran, Executive Chairman, QI Group of Companies, explains: ‘In this era of globalization, diversity in the business environment is about more than gender, race and ethnicity. It now includes employees with diverse religious and political beliefs, education, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientation, cultures and even disabilities. Companies are discovering that, by supporting and promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace, they are gaining benefits that go beyond the optics.’

In the UK, it’s common for staff, when surveyed in the workplace, to perceive diversity as being a focus on ethnicity and race whereas issues of religion, education or culture are often overlooked or misunderstood. Subsequently, diversity is actually a much broader term than a few labels and includes those other – difficult to define – human qualities that are dissimilar to our own perceptions or those of our communities but are widely prevalent in other communities. It is this fundamental difference that diversity looks to both celebrate and include alongside our own perceptions.

Vijay Eswaran argues that workplace diversity leads to greater innovation. ‘The coming together of people of different ethnicities with different experiences in cities and societies is a key driver of innovation. The food that we eat every day is a result of this blending of cultures. The most successful musical genres, such as jazz, rock’n’roll or hip-hop, are the products of cultural amalgamation.’

Whilst recent equality laws have helped to challenge discrimination and prejudice we still face equality gaps in the workplace, some larger than others. In response to the increasingly diverse needs of our communities the government have delegated a duty of responsibility – known as the Public Sector Equality Duty – on councils and their partners, including publicly funded bodes, such as the education and health care sectors, to be more accountable for ensuring everyone has an equal chance in life regardless of background or start in life.

To this end, in order to meet both government legislation as well as the diverse needs of our workforce, organisations must ensure they build an inclusive culture where diversity and equality of opportunity work hand in hand. This is referred to as the business case for diversity, an organisational wide understanding of how diversity can benefit both the business aims of the organisation and the needs of the community.

Staff Equality Networks

Staff networks can be a powerful tool for empowering minority groups to have an effective voice in an organisation. In the context of diversity and inclusion, a minority group is a group of individuals who are known to have been discriminated against on the basis of a shared characteristic. It is worth noting that these groups may not be a minority in terms of numbers as in the case of women, who are a minority group, despite comprising over half of the UK population.

According to Advance H.E. (formally the Equality Challenge Unit), staff networks may not work in every workplace and/or for all minority groups, and their viability and success will depend on the culture and demand within individual organisations.
Networks need to be led by the staff groups that they represent.

However, there is a role for institutions to facilitate and support the development of networks:

Involve staff and discuss the need for staff networks. This could be linked to specific times of year to maximise impact, for example discussing the possibility of a women’s network on international women’s day. A specific event gives the opportunity to discuss whether it is viable and to look for volunteers to take the network forward.
Provide a budget. From refreshment for meetings, to organising specific events or training and development, a budget of any size helps to ensure the network is sustainable and effective.
Ensure senior management are open to dialogue. Networks can provide a useful perspective on institutional practice. Consultation should be genuine and views of the network taken seriously.
Publicise networks to all staff. A dedicated area on your website/intranet means that all staff are aware of support and opportunities. Promote the networks during staff inductions to maximise membership and ensure all staff are able to benefit.
Create a culture of acceptance for participation. It can be intimidating to join a network and there can be a perception that members of networks are ‘troublemakers’.
Ensure line managers encourage staff to attend meetings in work hours. Senior management engagement can help to legitimise the group, and positive endorsement can underline that taking part is worthwhile.

Aims and Objectives

1. Sharing experiences and providing advice and support in a confidential safe space

Often a staff network is the opportunity staff members have to discuss the challenges they have faced at work. To meet this aim, it is likely that membership will be limited to people with the particular shared characteristic. Organisations need to carefully consider how, when and where the group will meet, and how to get a balance between giving an opportunity to share personal experiences while retaining momentum and developing positive solutions.

2. Working collectively towards improving institutional policies and practices and implementing change

Networks with this aim can be useful for their members and their institution. They can raise concerns from members, act as a consultation group for policies and practice and help to generate ideas and solutions. However, to be successful and to maintain momentum, the organisation has to listen to the network and genuinely involve them in decision making and policy review.

Terms of Reference

Networks can have a variety of terms of reference, depending on their aims and context. These may also develop over time as the group evolves. The language used in describing and naming networks can also be crucial in their success and who joins.

However you approach staff networks in your organisation it is important to remember that an effective staff network is one that is run by staff for the benefit of staff.

Discrimination casts a shadow over football

The English Football League kicked of last week but the opening weekend was marred with a number of incidents of racist abuse. Like any other employer in the UK, a professional football club has a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to protect its staff from racial abuse. The Equality Act makes no distinction as to the type of workplace, a football player is a member of staff and the football pitch is a workplace.

On Saturday 3^rd August, Southend United’s Jamaican striker Theo Robinson claims he was abused “in front of family, friends and their kids” at St Andrew’s, the first match Coventry have played in their ground-sharing arrangement with Birmingham City. Similarly, Stoke City’s James McClean, Barnsley’s Bambo Diaby and the sister of Fulham’s Cyrus Christie were also victims of what’s been described as “unacceptable discriminatory abuse”.

Anti-racism charity Kick It Out said “On the first weekend of the season, these incidents should be a reminder for everyone in football that racism and discrimination cannot be ignored. Clubs and the football authorities must be relentless in calling out this disgraceful behaviour, and be prepared to issue strong sanctions and education sessions to any supporter involved. Discrimination casts a shadow over football in this country, and we will not stop highlighting the problem while it remains rife in the game.”

Whilst in this case the racial abuse is coming from a minority of fans in reality a football fan is a customer of the club and a consumer of the clubs product or service. As such, this is no different from hospital staff receiving racial abuse from a patient or service user. In such cases, NHS Trusts work to support staff and reduce racial abuse happening and football clubs must do the same. However, we hear much more outrage from the public and political leaders when NHS staff are racially abused. Why then are footballers, as well as other sports men and woman, seen as fair game to abuse at work?

Certainly, the money involved in football infuriates many fans, especially when they are being charged £40 a ticket and another £50 for a replica club shirt. They see the elite football players earning the big bucks and see themselves as effectively their employers. Oddly, if they were the employers then by law they should treat their staff better. That said, we know that when a football team is doing well the fans sign their praises from the stands but when things are not going well a minority of fans abuse the players, regardless of ethnic origin. This abuse from the stands has almost become a ‘norm’ but race is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act and harassment on the basis of it is illegal, just as would the abuse of a disabled member of staff, or an LGBT+ member of staff. In fact, I am sure the ongoing situation with racial abuse of players is contributing to the lack of any visible LGBT+ professional football players. Unfortunately, LGBT+ players are not confident enough in being accepted by all fans that they have to hide that aspect of their lives away and as such lead an unauthentic version of themselves, in itself this can lead to anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.

So what are clubs to do? In reality, expulsion from the ground and permanent exclusion from all football grounds is a strong deterrent. Clubs must demonstrate their commitment to stamping out racial abuse but those fans that do not racially abuse players must also be given the confidence to challenge the abusers and show them that this behaviour is not okay.

Either way, the Equality Act 2010 protects all staff from abuse in the workplace and unless clubs do more to protect their players from racial abuse they could be in breach of the Equality Act and subject to legal action.

Positive Action for Under Representation

Positive action is very often a misunderstood or misrepresented term. Unfortunately, some still talk of it as a deliberate act by Human Resources to recruit more ethnic minority staff into an organisation. Its misunderstandings such as this that show positive action must not be confused with positive discrimination, which is illegal.

Positive action is where you identify that your workforce is under represented in a specific area and do something about it. For example, as we have seen in recent years, many UK Company boards are under represented by women and companies have taken positive action to address this. Positive action in this case could be to promote board vacancies specifically to woman in the organisation, or to have a leadership programme for board members of the future that actively encourages participation by woman. However, you will notice that the example above does not dictate that UK Companies hire only woman and discriminate against male applicants to solve the issue – which would be illegal – it simply asks that we make the effort to involve woman, promote our board vacancies to woman and encourage them to apply. Though, it’s worth noting, despite much work to improve the representation of women on the boards of UK Company’s it has done little to increase representation of women of colour in these roles. As such, further work is still needed in this area for boards and governing bodies to be truly representative of the community we serve.

As such, positive action can be defined as the voluntary actions an employer takes to address an imbalance of opportunity or disadvantage that an individual with a protected characteristic could face in the workforce. Positive action can be used wherever your workforce is under represented or is not reflective of the community it serves including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnic minority, LBGT+ or gender.

A good example of where positive action can look to redress an imbalance is in construction industry where there are only 3 female apprentices for every 98 male apprentices. As such, positive action here might be to better promote the construction industry to girls in schools and other educational settings, or to show progressive imagery on construction industry posters and advertisements which show woman in construction roles.

I often hear senior leaders actively supporting the business case for diversity in the workplace but I don’t always see an effective strategy of positive action to meet the business case. Diversity is the celebration of the differences between us and valuing the how those differences make our workforce stronger. Diverse experiences can lead to diverse solutions in the workplace. If you hire the same type of people all the time you will get the same outcome all of the time. As such, ensuring your business has diversity in its workforce can ensure that you have diverse solutions amongst your staff.

The first challenge then is to know where your workforce lacks diversity. The only way to do that is to examine the make-up of your own staff and ask yourself the following question: does your workforce represent the community it serves? But this is a big picture situation. We need to examine the context of the community you serve. For example, if you generally serve a region of the UK then you need to look at the make-up of that region. If the latest Government Census indicates that the population of that region predominately – say 95% – identify as being ethnically white British then how does your workforce compare? Again, you can look at gender and establish what percentage of the community is female and what percentage are male and compare that to the make-up of your own workforce. The same applies to those members of the community who identify as disabled or LGBT+. Only when you know the make-up of the local community can you identify what aspects of diversity you actually need to improve.

Subsequently, only when armed with this knowledge can you then look to positive action to help recruitment build you a more diverse workforce.

Employers should work harder to engage LGBT+ allies, say experts

I wanted to share a recent article by Emily Burt, from People Management, who attended the Stonewall Workplace Conference, 26 April 2019, in which she discusses the need to engage LGBT+ allies in the workplace. The article is both thought-provoking and relevant during Pride Month, particularity if you work in HR or are engaged in improving workplace equality and diversity. What is made abundantly clear by the conference speakers is the need for further support to improve LGBT+ inclusion in the work place and often people are not looking in the right place.

Stonewall conference urges better communication, with 35 per cent of LGBT staff having hidden their sexuality at work

Organisations must work to encourage, support and empower their LGBT+ members of staff and recognise the business case for inclusive cultures in order to drive genuinely diverse workplaces, experts have told delegates at the 2019 Stonewall Workplace Conference.

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Hafsa Qureshi (pictured), recruitment specialist at the Ministry of Justice and Stonewall’s bisexual role model of the year, said engaging people who do not identify as LGBT with the challenges faced by the community was an important part of creating inclusivity at work.

Speaking to People Management, Qureshi said: “One of the biggest hurdles is reaching people who don’t identify as LGBT to be allies. Too often, people assume that because someone is not from a visible protected characteristic, they don’t have any issues at work.”

Qureshi added that it was imperative for LGBT allies to promote inclusive cultures at every level of a business.

“Having worked with smaller and larger organisations, the ones that struggle with diversity and inclusion often do so because they fail to communicate it beyond management level,” she warned.

“The culture stops before reaching the employees who have face-to-face interactions with customers or clients.”

More than 1,000 people attended the opening session of the conference, with the theme ‘Equal At Work’, where CEO Ruth Hunt delivered her final keynote ahead of departing from her role at the charity later this year.

“We sometimes forget that it wasn’t that long ago that being LGBT meant you could be fired from work or denied service because of who you are,” she said, adding: “While it’s important to celebrate how far we’ve come, we cannot be complacent.”

A 2018 survey from the charity found almost one in five LGBT staff (18 per cent) were the target of negative comments or conduct from work colleagues because of their sexuality. More than a third (35 per cent) had hidden or disguised the fact they were LGBT at work for fear of discrimination.

The community has also faced a series of rows on an international scale over the last 12 months, including President Trump’s policy to prohibit some transgender people from serving in the US military, and schools in Birmingham dropping classes that include discussion of LGBT relationships following protests from parents.

In a speech to conference delegates, Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Women and Equalities, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to LGBT-inclusive workplaces, stating: “Organisations cannot afford to exclude talented people, or to limit their potential.”

She said the Government and Equalities office (GEO) would continue to provide targeted interventions seeking to improve the experiences of LGBT people at work and announced that the GEO would coordinate a series of events to gather employer views, and share expertise and experiences this coming autumn.

Mordaunt acknowledged the GEO was asking HR departments to commit to a number of significant initiatives – including gender pay reporting and the Race at Work charter – which were “not remotely joined up or coordinated”.

But she added: “In order to build the businesses of tomorrow, we need workforces that are able to authentically be themselves.”

Speaking to delegates, Qureshi concluded: “Sometimes, all it takes is one person to step forward in order to make a workplace culture feel more accepting.

“I encourage you all to use your voices and platforms to raise awareness for your LGBTQ community. Your voice is more important than you know – and you may say something that a person like me has waited their whole life to hear.”

LGBT Inclusion Tips for the Workplace – Stonewall

I have recently been working with Stonewall, the leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights charity in the United Kingdom, in order for my organisation to partner with their Diversity Champions Programme.

As I looked further into setting up my own staff networks for protected characteristics I came across the following ten tips to help build an LGBT inclusive culture in an organisation via Stonewalls website and wanted to share it.

People perform better when they can be themselves, and if you’re looking to make sure that lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) people are fully included in your workplace, Stonewall have got some tips to help.

Ensure that your policies are fully inclusive of LGBT people

This includes pensions, family and leave policies, health insurance and relocation allowances. You should make sure your policies explicitly mention LGBT people.

Get people involved across your organisation

This could include setting up a network group specifically for LGBT employees; they’ll help you know where you’re doing well and which areas may need a new approach.

Reward those involved in your LGBT network group

Embed their involvement in their appraisals; make being part of the network a desirable thing to be.

Decide upon a clear strategy and tactics

Whether you want to increase the number of staff who are open about being LGBT, or revise your policies to make them fully inclusive, it’s crucial to know where you want to be and how you’re going to get there.

Engage staff members who don’t identify as LGBT

Allies, as we call them, are a crucial element of ensuring inclusion for all. They can help spread the message that diversity is celebrated by your organisation.

Ensure senior support

Making certain your senior leaders actively communicate their support for LGBT inclusion sends a positive message of acceptance for all across your organisation.

Speak to your staff

Consulting employees – both LGBT and non-LGBT – about what inclusion looks like in your organisation will help ensure your strategy is appropriate and that all staff share your vision.

Understand your staff

Getting to know the make-up of your staff through techniques such as monitoring will help ensure you effectively cater to any needs they may have.

Celebrate your successes

Making sure your organisation is LGBT-inclusive is an ongoing journey, so it’s important to celebrate your successes, whatever size they may be, along the way. Every step is a step towards acceptance without exception for LGBT people.

Become a Stonewall Diversity Champion

Diversity Champions is Britain’s leading programme for ensuring that your workplace is truly inclusive.

Equality, Diversity & Human Rights Week 2019, 13-17 May

From 13-17 May 2019 the NHS will be celebrating the eighth Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week #EQW2019. Co-ordinated by NHS Employers, #EQW2019 is a national platform for organisations to highlight their work to create a fairer, more inclusive NHS for patients and staff.

This week of activity aims to raise awareness of equality, diversity and human rights issues in the NHS and celebrate best practice. As the largest employer in Europe, with over 1.3 million staff, the NHS has a responsibility to remain at the forefront of the inclusion and fairness agenda for patients and staff.

Diverse, inclusive, together

The theme is diverse, inclusive, together and has been chosen to reflect the move across the health and social care sector towards even greater collaboration and integration – as reflected in the publication of the recent NHS Long term Plan. At the heart of the plan is changing culture, with a commitment towards ensuring respect, equality and diversity within the NHS.

Working together makes the NHS stronger, we meet standards, enable change and collectively invest in the creation of a diverse and inclusive NHS workforce to deliver a more inclusive service and improved patient care.

To celebrate the event, my organisation has a range of interactive and informative events across the week. Throughout #EQW2019, we will have a daily equality and diversity bulletin, each examining a different aspect of equality and diversity; furthermore we have a video webinar on the importance of diversity in the workplace as well as an interactive Q&A session with the Trusts own Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead.

Take a look at the informative video series from John Deffenbaugh (NHS Leadership Academy) who leads a discussion panel on the equality challenges faced by the NHS and the steps that can be undertake to overcome them, discussion 1 is shown below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dJB4Hm3zVs

Who Leads Equality & Diversity in an Organisation?

Hopefully, you do. In a large organisation the leadership of equality and diversity may take a number of different forms ranging from the Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion to EDI Coordinator or EDI Lead. Sometimes the role is a dedicated full or part-time role but other times it might be a secondary role of an existing manager. Frequently, with equality and diversity’s focus being on people EDI leadership often falls to the Human Resources department.

Once in post, the EDI lead needs to establish what the expectations of role will be? Are there key performance indicators? How will performance or impact be measured? What does success look like? What is the vision for equality and diversity? However, it is also worth considering that one member of staff cannot singlehandedly change the culture of an organisation. Instead, the EDI lead needs to be able to form effective teams because only through collaboration and effective project management can success be achieved. Furthermore, skills in influencing are vital because often the EDI lead will need to challenge and influence staff who he or she does not directly line manage, this is where high level skills in communication are essential.

When a clear set of goals have been agreed it is important to put together an effective action plan that can drive changes and the success of which is easy to measure. Targets set should be SMART, that is Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time Bound. By using SMART targets, you have a better chance that they can be achieved because by being Specific you can focus on a and specific need which is easy to understand and not open to interpretation. Then, by making the target Measurable you know you can measure its completion or success. It may sound simple but by making the target Achievable you know that you are not asking for the impossible. When a target is Realistic it gives confidence to those who will be tasked with delivering the target that it can be done and in the timescale provided. Finally, when a target is Time-bound it gives you a clear time scale for completion and it is easy to measure whether something has (or has not) met its time scales.

The action plan below demonstrates the use of SMART targets to implement EDI actions in an organisation. RAG rating an impact column is a quick way to see where you are having the most impact and where additional support might be needed.

Workplace Bullying and Harassment

Whilst bullying and harassment in the workplace is clearly something no organisation wants to see happening in their own back yard the law can actually confuse the matter further because bullying in the workplace is not actually unlawful but harassment is. However, employers are expected to have a zero tolerance towards bullying and harassment and to take action when it has been identified to protect working relationships.

Bullying and harassment can take different forms, some highly aggressive and obvious whilst others can be more subtle and less obvious. Bullying is rarely isolated and is often a pattern of behaviour where a number of incidents demonstrate that it is taking place. For ACAS, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, bullying and harassment in the workplace may include:

spreading malicious rumours, or insulting someone by word or behaviour (particularly on the grounds of age, race, sex, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief)
copying memos that are critical about someone to others who do not need to know
ridiculing or demeaning someone – picking on them or setting them up to fail
exclusion or victimisation
unfair treatment
overbearing supervision or other misuse of power or position
unwelcome sexual advances – touching, standing too close, the display of offensive materials, asking for sexual favours, making decisions on the basis of sexual advances being accepted or rejected
making threats or comments about job security without foundation
deliberately undermining a competent worker by overloading and constant criticism
preventing individuals progressing by intentionally blocking promotion or training opportunities.

Harassment should not be tolerated in the workplace and under the Equality Act 2010 it is unlawful and whilst an employer has a duty to implement the act it is not required in law to have a policy regarding bullying and harassment. That said, it is certainly good practice to do so and most human resources departments will have one in place in order to be very clear on what is and what is not acceptable so workplace bullies can be held to account.

It is often useful for an EDI lead to examine the records of bullying and harassment claims/allegations in an organisation to see if there is a wider issue that requires intervention, training or policy changes in order to reduced such incidents.

Workplace Bias

Generally speaking, bias is a preference or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair. For example, an employer may give preferential treatment to potential employees from the same socioeconomic background as themselves. Alternatively, a manager my show bias through only offering development opportunities to female members of staff.

According to Robert Booth and Aamna Mohdin, writing for the Guardian newspaper in 2018, the extent to which ethnic minorities still suffer from bias is quite staggering. They commissioned a survey for the Guardian newspaper of 1,000 people from minority ethnic backgrounds who found they were consistently more likely to have faced negative everyday experiences – all frequently associated with racism – than white people in a comparison poll.

The survey found that 43% of those from a minority ethnic background had been overlooked for a work promotion in a way that felt unfair in the last five years – more than twice the proportion of white people (18%) who reported the same experience. Furthermore, the results show that ethnic minorities are three times as likely to have been thrown out of or denied entrance to a restaurant, bar or club in the last five years, and that more than two-thirds believe Britain has a problem with racism.

The article went on to explain, the Runnymede Trust, a racial equality think tank, described the findings as “stark” and said they illustrated “everyday micro-aggressions” that had profound effects on Britain’s social structure. What’s more, the survey revealed that Muslims living in Britain – a large minority at around 2.8 million people – are more likely to have negative experiences than other religious groups. They are more likely than Christians, people with no religion and other smaller religions to be stopped by the police, left out of social functions at work or college and find that people seem not to want to sit next to them on public transport.

The effects of bias are not the same for all ethnicities. Half of black and mixed-race people felt they had been unfairly overlooked for a promotion or job application, compared with 41% of people from Asian backgrounds. Black people were more likely to feel they had to work harder to succeed because of their ethnicity.

It also found troubling levels of concern about bias in the workplace, with 57% of minorities saying they felt they had to work harder to succeed in Britain because of their ethnicity, and 40% saying they earned less or had worse employment prospects for the same reason.

Workplace bias needs to be combated by both training and a change in attitudes across an organisation. Where a culture of inclusion exists in an organisation you will find bias is greatly reduced and staff survey results will indicate a better level of satisfaction from groups open to historical workplace bias.