The Clarasys D&I team have been shortlisted as 2021’s ‘Diversity Team of the Year’ by the European Diversity Awards. This is a great achievement and the award ceremony on the 11th November will let us know if we’ve won. Despite the acknowledgement of our hard work, the success of the D&I team didn’t happen overnight. We focused on being intentional, consistent with our key initiatives, maintaining senior stakeholder buy-in and creating a tailored approach for our people.
Below is an overview of the initiatives we’ve focused on which led to the team being shortlisted as ‘Diversity Team of the Year’.
Creating a bespoke D&I training programme
We’ve focused on creating a bespoke D&I training programme specifically for our people and providing them the foundational knowledge on diversity, inclusion and equity. This included education and discussions on unconscious bias, intersectionality, allyship, microaggressions and internal support routes.
It was important our training was not only educational but provided the opportunity to have difficult, honest and candid discussions on key topics. The D&I team also wanted to ensure they provided a safe space for individuals to ask questions.
Our training programme gathered input from various individuals within the company and we ran a focus group session where the material could be iterated and improved.
We ran an extensive comms campaign to explain the purpose and importance of the training and set the expectation for everyone to attend.
We’ve collected feedback from training and 100% of employees strongly agreed or agreed that the training has improved their understanding of diversity, inclusion and equity as well as intersectionality, microaggressions and unconscious bias.
D&I is a golden thread woven into every thought, word and action
Delivering a successful training programme is great. However, training alone isn’t enough to embed D&I into an organisation or to change/increase specific behaviours.
We have focused on consistently running educational sessions on intersectionality, ageism, invisible disabilities, black lives matter and LGBTQ+ history month, to name a few. We have used the sessions to create an open, safe and inclusive environment for individuals to learn and ask questions.
The D&I team also run panel events and discussion groups on important topics. Previous sessions have included role models, social mobility, cancel culture and coming out in the workplace.
We have created a D&I hub – a one-stop-shop where all D&I external and internally created resources can be accessed all year round, by everybody in the company. This has proven to be beneficial and allows individuals to access the materials they want/need at any given moment.
It’s important we understand how our employees feel within a D&I context and we have data to support this. Therefore we run bi-annual surveys to understand if our employees feel included, there are learning opportunities within the D&I space and if they feel the leadership team show a visible commitment to D&I. Our summer 2021 survey showed 85% strongly agreed or agreed that D&I values have a presence in the company.
Diversity is in the data
Data is important, I think most organisations can agree. It provides a current snapshot and can inform future decision making.
We have been on a journey to capture diversity data on our current employees, to caveat there is a ‘prefer not to say’ option for those who feel uncomfortable disclosing this information. The data captured will allow the D&I team to monitor equal opportunities, drive decision making, create a benchmark and to complete data analysis, including understanding the intersectionality of our employees. It has been a journey to collect the diversity data and we launched a campaign internally to explain why the data was being collected and how it will be used. For more information on how gathering and analysing diversity data can support your D&I initiatives, have a read of our blog ‘Diversity is in the data: How collecting diversity data can support your D&I initiatives’.
Recruitment is key
The D&I team have focused on understanding the recruitment process and identifying pain points and improvements that can be made. The improvements identified are; implementing blind CVs, capturing diversity data and improving the training given to interviewers. The improvements are currently being prioritised, with the plan to be implemented and rolled out in the future.
Inclusion means involving everyone
Clarasys is a global organisation with offices in both London and Boston. We want to ensure everybody in the organisation feels included and represented. Therefore we hold events that include the Boston office and ensure a US representative is involved in key initiative decision making.
What’s next for our D&I team
We have achieved a lot in the last year however there is still a long way to go. Our new D&I initiatives for the upcoming year have expanded and we’re focusing on:
- Understanding the minority employee experience
- Reviewing decision-making forums with a D&I lens
- Policies are updated/created for all employees to create an inclusive environment
How can you connect with our D&I team?
Creating, implementing and measuring the success of D&I initiatives is challenging and changes cannot happen overnight. However, change is possible and beginning the conversation is important. If you’d like to learn more about our D&I initiatives or understand how yours can be developed, please reach out to our D&I team lead Nicole Griffith-Brown.
