RSS feed for Diversity and inclusion in the workplace

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Welcome to this free course, Diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The course lasts 24 hours and is comprised of eight weeks. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete a further study week. The eight weeks are linked to ensure a logical flow through the course. They are:

Week 1: What is a diverse workplace and why is it important?
Week 2: Diversity characteristics and discrimination – Part 1
Week 3: Diversity characteristics and discrimination – Part 2
Week 4: Barriers to diversity and inclusion
Week 5: Skills and strategies for success
Week 6: Diversity and inclusion in recruitment and career progression
Week 7: Examples of good practice
Week 8: Next steps

Each week should take you around 3 hours, but remember to work at your own pace. There are no time limits on this course. There are a number of activities throughout the course where you are asked to note down your response. A text box is provided for you to do this, however if you would prefer to record your answers in another way that is fine.

At the end of each week there is also a quiz to help you check your understanding. And, if you want to receive a badge and statement of participation, at the end of Weeks 4 and 8 there is a quiz which you need to pass. You must also be enrolled on the course in order to track your learning and reach 100% completion.

As you work through the course you may find you want to learn more. There are further reading sections at the end of the weeks to help you with this.

After studying this course, you should be able to:

recognise the value of a diverse workplace and the potential benefits to both individuals and organisations
identify a range of diversity characteristics and better understand discrimination in context
consider barriers to effective diversity and inclusion, and describe the skills and strategies needed to overcome them
explore strategies for recruiting and retaining staff, and for creating an inclusive culture that supports career progression
reflect on personal experiences and potential biases, identifying individual and organisational goals to enhance workplace culture and productivity.

Box _unit1.1.1

Spotlight on… While all themes are equally important, in Weeks 2 and 3 you’ll see this box used to indicate a topic that employers have identified as an area of particular interest in surveys conducted by Open University careers staff.

Moving around the course

In the ‘Summary’ at the end of each session, you will find a link to the next session. If at any time you want to return to the start of the course, click on ‘Full course description’. From here you can navigate to any part of the course.

It’s also good practice, if you access a link from within a course page (including links to the quizzes), to open it in a new window or tab. That way you can easily return to where you’ve come from without having to use the back button on your browser.

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

What is a badged course?

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

While studying Diversity and inclusion in the workplace you have the option to work towards gaining a digital badge.

Badged courses are a key part of The Open University’s mission to promote the educational well-being of the community. The courses also provide another way of helping you to progress from informal to formal learning.

Completing a course will require about 24 hours of study time. However, you can study the course at any time and at a pace to suit you.

Badged courses are available on The Open University’s OpenLearn website and do not cost anything to study. They differ from Open University courses because you do not receive support from a tutor, but you do get useful feedback from the interactive quizzes.

What is a badge?

Digital badges are a new way of demonstrating online that you have gained a skill. Colleges and universities are working with employers and other organisations to develop open badges that help learners gain recognition for their skills, and support employers to identify the right candidate for a job.

Badges demonstrate your work and achievement on the course. You can share your achievement with friends, family and employers, and on social media. Badges are a great motivation, helping you to reach the end of the course. Gaining a badge often boosts confidence in the skills and abilities that underpin successful study. So, completing this course could encourage you to think about taking other courses.

Show description|Hide description

OpenLearn badge for Diversity and inclusion in the workplace course.

How to get a badge

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Getting a badge is straightforward! Here’s what you have to do:

read each session of the course
score 50% or more in the two badge quizzes in Week 4 and Week 8

For all the quizzes, you can have three attempts at most of the questions (for true or false type questions you usually only get one attempt). If you get the answer right first time you will get more marks than for a correct answer the second or third time. Therefore, please be aware that for the two badge quizzes it is possible to get all the questions right but not score 50% and be eligible for the badge on that attempt. If one of your answers is incorrect you will often receive helpful feedback and suggestions about how to work out the correct answer.

For the badge quizzes, if you’re not successful in getting 50% the first time, after 24 hours you can attempt the whole quiz, and come back as many times as you like.

We hope that as many people as possible will gain an Open University badge – so you should see getting a badge as an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned rather than as a test.

If you need more guidance on getting a badge and what you can do with it, take a look at the OpenLearn FAQs. When you gain your badge you will receive an email to notify you and you will be able to view and manage all your badges in My OpenLearn within 24 hours of completing the criteria to gain a badge.

Get started with Week 1.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Welcome to Week 1 of the free badged course Diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Congratulations, you’ve taken your first step towards understanding and enhancing the role that both diversity and inclusion must play in the future of your organisation.

‘Diversity and inclusion’ is a significant topic and an 8 week course can’t cover every aspect in comprehensive detail, so the aim is to introduce you to key themes and issues, and to provide inspiration for further research and action. There is no quick fix for understanding and embracing diversity, it’s a long term commitment and this is just the beginning of your journey.

The amount of online information available can seem overwhelming, so this course will highlight some of the best advice available at the time of writing, and set it into a logical order to help you progress with your diversity and inclusion plans. As the issues discussed in this course are continually developing, you can use the content to inspire your own research into the very latest thinking

You’ll also find case studies and quotes from employers and individuals who have already started their diversity journeys. Real life experiences are at the core of the videos you’ll see in the introduction to each week. These videos include excerpts from interviews conducted with a variety of employers, sharing their observations and experiences and providing inspiration on the week’s key topics.

Watch this first video, in which our interviewees explain why diversity and inclusion is important in their organisations.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 1

Video _unit2.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 1

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 1

Craig Pemblington

For us, diversity and inclusion is so important to our workforce and the people that we have working with us.

Mark Ealing

You’ve got a multitude of ideas, insights.

Yusuf Nagdi

If you can have a diverse workforce, a workforce of people who are part of the community, who are part of different communities, it means it will increase understanding and knowledge about what’s important for those communities.

Sophie Washington

We work with hundreds of young wheelchair users across the UK, all with a variety of physical disabilities. So diversity is quite a naturally occurring thing for us at WizKids.

Craig Pemblington

And we’re only able to work towards tackling some of the complex social issues that are existing in the world if we have perspectives, lived experience from a much, much broader and diverse range of backgrounds.

Yusuf Nagdi

The officers understand exactly what those communities need because they are part of those communities, they understand the background, they understand the culture, they understand the religious beliefs.

Mark Ealing

If we don’t have that diversity of thought, then we may make mistakes, and that has huge consequences for us. So not only is it a more exciting place to live and the atmosphere is better, but we end up making the right decisions for our customers.

Craig Pemblington

One of the things we realised when we were putting together an approach to recruitment and diversity was that there was no magic bullet to increasing diversity. And at the same time, we didn’t need to implement any kind of expensive interventions.

Yusuf Nagdi

First of all, there needs to be a commitment from the organisation from the people up at the very top understanding why diversity is important and having that commitment that we as an organisation are going to value diversity and push diversity, and we’re going to ensure that our workforce is as representative as it can be.

Mark Ealing

It’s not about cost. It’s about knowing what to do.

Yusuf Nagdi

Be ready because you might get some negative feedback. And that’s OK because it gives you something to work on.

Mark Ealing

You don’t need to do a new recruiting process, you need to modify your recruiting process. You don’t need to do a new way of assessing somebody’s talent, just modify what you’ve already got to make it as inclusive as practicably possible. So it’s about lots of small tweaks, there is no big silver bullet. Small tweaks, lots of little changes create a big change. And knowing that is quite encouraging, I think.

Sophie Washington

Everyone can improve on their diversity and inclusion. And it’s really important to go to the experts. There are people out there that do audits and can advise you on how to improve, show you what you’re doing really well.

Craig Pemblington

I think the most important thing to get across is that there are lots of small, inexpensive things that organisations can do that can enable them to access a wider range of talent and ensure that talent is included. And I think inclusion is just as important a part of this conversation as diversity to make that happen without necessarily having to invest a lot in terms of time and also in terms of the financial implications as well.

Yusuf Nagdi

Don’t ever feel what you do is the finished article, get the advice and guidance from others and be prepared to continuously evolve and develop. And I think if you can do that, it’ll put you in the best possible step going forward.

Sophie Washington

Actually, there isn’t a one size fits all approach that will work for diversity and inclusion. You’ve got to have equity rather than equality to make it work.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 1

Download

Video _unit2.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 1

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

You’ll start this week by exploring some definitions, to enhance your understanding of diversity and inclusion. You’ll explore some of the associated social and legal responsibilities, and learn about the benefits a diverse workforce can bring.

By the end of this week you will be able to:

define diversity and recognise its variety
understand the importance of inclusion in creating a diverse workplace
explain some of the wider benefits diversity can bring to an organisation.

Before you start, The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations of the course. Your input will help to further improve the online learning experience. If you’d like to help, and if you haven’t done so already, please fill in this optional start-of-course survey. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

1 Defining diversity and inclusion

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Although diversity and inclusion are closely linked and often discussed at the same time, they are actually distinct terms for different concepts. You’ll explore each of them in more detail in this section.

View larger image

Show description|Hide description

Graphic showing lots of different faces.

In its ‘4-step guide to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace’, consulting firm Korn Ferry (2021, p. 3) provides useful explanations of some key terms.

Diversity = ‘the mix’ – encompassing the full range of human differences and similarities, both identity-based and cognitive.

Inclusion = ‘making the mix work’ – unlocking the power of diversity. This includes both behavioural inclusion (inclusive mindsets, skillsets and relationships), and structural inclusion (equitable and transparent structures, practices, policies, and algorithms).

Equality = ‘the promise’ – equal access to opportunity, advancement, support and reward for all.

Equity = ‘the fulfilment of the promise’ – the removal of any behavioural and structural barriers in fulfilling the promise.

Listen to Asif Sadiq explaining why equity is such an important part of this agenda.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 2: Diversity today

Video _unit2.2.1 Video 2: Diversity today

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 2: Diversity today

Asif Sadiq

I think, to me, the most important thing is to understand that in the last couple of years diversity has completely changed, inclusion has completely changed. Equity has become really important within that journey. For me, it’s really, really important, because it’s not just about the fact that it’s the right thing to do. It’s about the difference we can make within our organisations, our institutions, our establishments to really create an environment that reflects the world that we live in so we are truly diverse in every aspect.

End transcript: Video 2: Diversity today

Download

Video _unit2.2.1 Video 2: Diversity today

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Diversity

To Atcheson (2021, p. 13), diversity means ‘that there is an array of differences existing in one place, together’. She goes on to explain that ‘people are not singularly diverse, groups are’.

Diversity is a complex and multifaceted topic, but there are ways to categorise different types of diversity that might help to simplify the concept.

1.1 Different diversity characteristics

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Some of the most commonly discussed diversity characteristics are protected by law through the Equality Act, 2010. Known as protected characteristics in the UK, they are:

age
gender reassignment
being married or in a civil partnership
being pregnant or on maternity leave
disability
race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin
religion or belief
sex
sexual orientation.

You’ll explore them in more detail in Weeks 2 and 3.

View larger image

Show description|Hide description

Graphic of a side profile of a face, made up of many smaller side profile faces.

But these are not the only aspects of diversity that need consideration in the workplace. Later in the course you’ll also explore the influence of social capital.

One useful way to break the concept of diversity down is to consider inherent versus acquired, or cognitive, diversity. Another way to look at this might be to think of it as the impact of nature versus nurture.

Hewlett et al (2013) describe inherent diversity as involving ‘traits you are born with, such as gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation’, (i.e. nature) whereas acquired diversity ‘involves traits you gain from experience’ such as education or living/working in a country other than your own (i.e. nurture). When both types are present within an individual, Hewlett et al refer to this as 2D diversity.

Activity _unit2.2.1 Activity 1 Exploring acquired diversity

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes thinking about what factors might be included in Hewlett’s acquired diversity category, sometimes also known as cognitive diversity, i.e. traits you gain from experience. If it helps – think about yourself and the ways in which you differ from those around you – for example, did you have a different educational experience?

Comment

There are many potential options to choose from. For example, you might have chosen themes relating to education and knowledge, personal values, skills and strengths, or broader life experiences, such as where you grew up, or extra-curricular opportunities. Acquired diversity can be more complex to measure, requiring a much broader set of analytics, but its impact can also bring significant benefits to the workplace.

The US-based Alliant International University (no date) breaks diversity down further, into four types:

Internal diversity – including race, ethnicity, age, national origin, sexual orientation, cultural identity, assigned sex, gender identity, physical ability and mental ability.
External diversity – including personal interests, education, appearance, citizenship, religious beliefs, location, familial status, relationship status, socio-economic status, life experiences.
Organisational (or functional) diversity – including job function, place of work, management status, employment status, pay type, seniority, union affiliation.
Worldview diversity – including political beliefs, moral compass, outlook on life and epistemology (i.e. knowledge).

This breakdown is useful as it offers a broader awareness of the range of diversity characteristics you will need to keep in mind when progressing this agenda in your workplace.

Another relevant consideration when trying to better understand diversity, is intersectionality – an acknowledgement that a person’s identity is made up of the intersection of a number of characteristics, for example a Black, disabled woman. You’ll learn more about that in Week 3.

1.2 The importance of an inclusive workplace

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

It is important to note that to create a diverse and inclusive workplace, everyone must play their part. This is not something a single individual can take responsibility for on behalf of their organisation.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of multiple hands in the air.

Put simply, a diverse workplace is one that employs a diverse range of individuals. In the past, that alone might have been seen as sufficient to meet the diversity agenda, but our understanding of diversity issues has progressed to include the important theme of inclusion.

Atcheson (2021, p. 16) defines inclusion as ‘being included – being embedded in and actively involved in what is going on.’

To be truly inclusive, organisations must ensure that every diverse individual feels valued and able to participate equally in every aspect of the organisation’s life. They must feel that they have opportunities to fulfil their potential and that they can be their authentic selves rather than having to conform to the prevalent cultural norms – knowing their difference is appreciated and not just tolerated.

If that isn’t the case, your organisation may lose its diversity, through loss of talent, staff disengagement, reputational damage, etc. Without inclusion, diversity cannot thrive.

Diversity and inclusion are words that are often used together, but they describe two different concepts. A recent BetterTeam (2021) blog post, describes the differences as follows:

Table _unit2.2.1 Table 1
Diversity	Inclusion
Refers to the characteristics and elements that make an individual unique.	Refers to the behaviours and social norms that ensure an individual feels welcomed and safe.
A concept that brings different people together in the same place.	Methods and strategies implemented to make diversity work.
Achieved when hiring managers and recruiters strive for heterogeneity and combatting bias in the hiring process.	Achieved when team members feel psychologically safe and included in the workplace.
Relies on inclusion in order to work.	Is crucial for diversity in the workplace to be successful.

The value of respect

‘We should all consider each other as human beings, and we should respect each other.’

Malala Yousafzai

Respect plays an important role in inclusion, both receiving respect yourself and being respectful towards others. In a global study of nearly 20,000 employees, Porath (2015) found that being treated with respect is more important to individuals than recognition and appreciation or opportunities for development.

Activity _unit2.2.2 Activity 2 Exploring respect

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

For the first part of this activity, spend a few minutes thinking about a time when you were shown respect at work. Who showed it? How did they show it? How did that make you feel?

Make some notes in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Now spend the rest of your time reflecting on how you show respect to others in the workplace and make notes below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Perhaps you could think of lots of occasions when you’ve demonstrated your respect for others, but perhaps you’ve had to acknowledge that you aren’t always respectful enough. Part of the purpose of this course is to stimulate a personal journey, where you may feel uncomfortable at times. This is not a bad thing; this is a positive step towards developing your self-awareness, understanding how others feel and becoming more open to the concepts of diversity and inclusion.

In Week 5 of this course, you’ll look in more detail at the personal skills and behaviours that can support a more inclusive workplace.

Although there are many reasons why a diverse and inclusive workplace can be beneficial to all those involved, there is also a legal framework that all organisations are required to adhere to. You’ll learn more about that in the next section.

2 Diversity legislation

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

The key piece of legislation which defines an employer’s legal responsibilities in the UK is The Equality Act 2010 (legislation.gov.uk, 2022), which legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society, and sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat someone.

Watch this short video from Educare to hear a useful overview of the Act.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit2.3.1 Video 3: What is the Equality Act?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 3: What is the Equality Act?

EduCare Learning Ltd

The Equality Act consolidates and streamlines decades worth of legislation into a single act. It details nine protected characteristics against, which it is unlawful to discriminate. Age, marriage and civil partnership, sex, disability, race, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, or lack thereof, and pregnancy and maternity.

An employer cannot discriminate against anyone on the basis of any of these characteristics, and must make reasonable adjustments to ensure workplace practices do not disadvantage anyone because of these. So what exactly is discrimination? Well, it falls under four main categories. Direct discrimination is where someone is treated less favorably than someone else, because of a protected characteristic they or someone they are connected with possess, or are perceived to possess.

Indirect discrimination is when a policy or rule applies to everyone, but particularly disadvantages someone with a protected characteristic. Victimisation is where someone is maltreated because they are believed to have raised or supported a grievance under the Equality Act.

And finally, harassment is unwanted conduct related to a characteristic creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment for the individual concerned. And so, that’s the Equality Act. Make sure your organisation is putting it into practice.

End transcript: Video 3: What is the Equality Act?

Download

Video _unit2.3.1 Video 3: What is the Equality Act?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

As outlined in the video, the Act describes four main forms of discrimination:

direct discrimination – treating someone with a protected characteristic less favourably than others
indirect discrimination – putting rules or arrangements in place that apply to everyone, but that put someone with a protected characteristic at an unfair disadvantage
harassment – unwanted behaviour linked to a protected characteristic that violates someone’s dignity or creates an offensive environment for them
victimisation – treating someone unfairly because they’ve complained about discrimination or harassment, or supported a complaint or raised a grievance, related to a protected characteristic.

Other legally recognised forms of discrimination are:

discrimination by association, which occurs when a person is treated less favourably because of the protected characteristic of a person with whom they are associated, such as a friend, partner, parent or child; and
discrimination by perception, which involves an individual being treated less favourably because they are mistakenly perceived to have a protected characteristic.

Activity _unit2.3.1 Activity 3 Indirect discrimination

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Consider the following examples and, in the box below, explain why they demonstrate indirect discrimination.

There’s a clause in your contract which says you may have to travel around the UK at short notice. (Citizens Advice, no date)
A job advert for a salesperson says applicants must have spent 10 years working in retail. (ACAS, no date)

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Now spend a few minutes reflecting on whether examples like those could potentially happen in your workplace? What structures are in place to avoid them?

Comment

Example 1

If you’re a woman with young children, this could be more difficult. This clause therefore places you at a particular disadvantage. It also places women generally at a disadvantage, as they’re more likely to be the carers of children.

You could challenge the clause because it affects you personally, even if you’ve not been asked to travel at short notice yet.

Example 2

By doing this the business could be discriminating indirectly based on age. This is because the advert excludes young people who may still have the skills and qualifications needed. You’ll learn more about the importance of the wording you choose in a job advertisement in Week 6.

The advert should instead say that applicants need a specific type of experience and knowledge. It should also include the main tasks and skills involved in the job, to show applicants what they’ll need to be able to do.

The full Equality Act 2010 legislation can be accessed online. See the References section for the link.

If you are not based in the UK, use your preferred search engine to look for your own country’s government guidance on the topics of equality and discrimination or diversity and inclusion.

Next, you’ll move on to explore some of the wider benefits of diversity and inclusion to you and your organisation.

3 Benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

In preparation for this course, 350 employers, ranging from SMEs to large corporate organisations, were surveyed by Open University Careers and Employability Services, asking ‘what do you consider to be the benefits of having a diverse workforce?’ Answers were wide ranging, but included the following recurring themes:

bringing different perspectives into the workplace
widening the talent pool for future recruitment – diversity encourages further diversity
stimulating more innovative thinking and a more creative approach to problem solving
reflecting the diversity of customers and wider society.

This last point involves looking at the wider population and its composition. If an organisation is not reflecting the diversity of the wider population, it means there are barriers to access, and that actions must be put in place to mitigate them. You’ll explore some of those actions in more detail in Week 6.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of multiple hands coming together as one.

A representative from Koreo, a learning consultancy dedicated to social change, explained:

We tackle problems based on our perspectives and some experiences are unique to our socioeconomic, cultural, social exposure. Teams that are diverse not only have more social capital and broader perspectives to work towards complex challenges, they also challenge each other internally to think about fresh perspectives around key social issues and maintain a healthy disruption to our ways of working.

Watch this short video from training provider iHASCO, explaining the benefits in more detail.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit2.4.1 Video 4: Why is Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) important in the workplace?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4: Why is Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) important in the workplace?

iHASCO

Did you know that 78% of large UK businesses pay men more than women or that 2.6% of people on UK tech boards belong to ethnic minorities? What about the fact that only 16% of people with autism are in full time paid work? It’s clear that even now inequality and a lack of diversity is still a reality in UK workplaces. And this needs to change. First of all, there’s four important terms that need to be understood.

Equality. This means ensuring that all people are given the same access to the same opportunities and rights regardless of their differences and characteristics. Then there’s equity, which means taking account of people’s differences. So everyone is given fair access to these opportunities and rights. And diversity. This means embracing everyone’s differences and unique qualities.

And finally, inclusion, which means ensuring that everyone is involved and no one is left out. So why are these things important in your workplace? Well, everyone has a right to be treated with dignity and respect inside and outside of work. It’s a basic human right, and it also has huge benefits for your organisation.

People who are treated fairly whose opinions are taken on board and whose skills are embraced make a crucial contribution to the success of the team and the business. Embracing diversity is key. It means questioning any stereotypes or biases we may hold and allowing our opinions to change. It means seeing each person as an individual with a unique mixture of skills, talents, and ideas and understanding how valuable this is.

When we truly value variety in our workplace, we open up a world of possibilities. We start to notice the range of skills, talents, perspectives, and approaches that are offered by our diverse team. Each with their own background and set of experiences. And the business becomes more innovative, creative, and better at problem solving.

It also helps the organisation to gain a better understanding of the needs and desires of your customers, and it enables the team to tailor and market your products more effectively, especially when members of the team are in the same demographic as your target audience. It’s crucial for all organisations to respect and appreciate the people who work for them.

If you do, it increases staff commitment, improves staff retention, increases the return on training investment and it creates a supportive culture where everyone can thrive. This healthy environment leads to much more job satisfaction and much greater financial success.

End transcript: Video 4: Why is Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) important in the workplace?

Download

Video _unit2.4.1 Video 4: Why is Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) important in the workplace?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

The video suggests a range of benefits, from innovation to financial success, and you’ll explore some of those in the next sections.

3.1 Diversity and staff wellbeing

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Diversity and inclusion play an important part in staff wellbeing. Menzies (2018) suggests that they are linked in four ways:

Workplaces that are inclusive foster enhanced employee wellbeing
Employees with high levels of wellbeing are more inclusive
Effective wellbeing initiatives accommodate the unique needs of different employees
Best practice diversity and inclusion programmes recognise mental health and wellbeing as a diversity issue.

For a personal view of the benefits, listen to Sophie Washington, one of our employer interviewees, explaining how much she enjoys working in a diverse and inclusive environment.

Download this video clip.Video player: author="sm36828" timestamp="20220801T165628+0100"

Video _unit2.4.2 Video 5: Sophie on a diverse and inclusive workplace

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 5: Sophie on a diverse and inclusive workplace

Sophie Washington

Diversity and inclusion shouldn’t be a tick box exercise. I think coming into working with WizKids has been a really incredible thing for me because it is so diverse and inclusive. I think within my first day at WizKids, I felt like I truly belonged because everyone is so welcoming and made it sort of inclusive. There are people from all sorts of different backgrounds.

And it’s really just a great team to be a part of because it is so diverse and inclusive. I think to be able to work in a place where it is, that it offers so many benefits to an organisation to have that level of inclusivity and that level of diversity. Because you’ve got so many different people with different lived experiences. And it’s just a really great thing to be able to offer.

End transcript: Video 5: Sophie on a diverse and inclusive workplace

Download

Video _unit2.4.2 Video 5: Sophie on a diverse and inclusive workplace

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Menzies goes on to explain that self-concept and self-esteem play a significant role in our wellbeing and ‘when employers celebrate, encourage and value the expression of an individual’s unique identity in the workplace, the employee’s self-esteem and integrity are supported.’

In their Inclusion@Work study 2017-18, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 3000 workers, Diversity Council Australia (2018) found that:

those who felt they worked in inclusive teams experienced higher job satisfaction, greater success and security, and better team performance
in organisations taking action to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace, a similar proportion of female and male workers were very satisfied with their jobs (43% and 45% respectively), compared with those in organisations where no action was being taken (28% and 23%).

Their 2019-20 follow on study (Diversity Council Australia 2019, p. 11–13) revealed growth in strong support for workplace inclusion from 37% to 43%, but they describe one of the key challenges facing organisations as ‘addressing the assumption that diversity and inclusion efforts only benefit people from target or minority groups’.

Of course, the other side of the wellbeing story is that individuals who experience discrimination in the workplace often experience higher stress levels and health issues. In fact, in their study of nearly 30,000 employees from the Finnish public sector, Clark et al (2021), found a direct association between workplace discrimination and an elevated risk of long-term sickness absence due to mental disorders. You’ll explore personal fear as a result of discrimination in more detail in Week 4.

Activity _unit2.4.1 Activity 4 Diversity and inclusion benefits everyone

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Consider a time when you learned something from a colleague who was different to you. Identify what that difference was.

What did you learn from them? How did you benefit from that experience? How did your organisation benefit?

Comment

Perhaps you thought of a time when a colleague shared a personal experience with you that gave you greater insight and understanding, or maybe they had such a different perspective on a particular problem – it caused you to rethink your position.

It is important to realise that everyone can benefit from a more diverse and inclusive working environment. For example, in an inclusive workplace, personal interactions with colleagues can be enhanced, creating a more supportive environment where challenges are shared and different perspectives can lead to new and exciting solutions.

In the OU survey referred to earlier, several respondents also commented that diversity and inclusion was important because it was the ‘right thing to do’, aligning well with the concept of social responsibility, which you’ll explore in the next section.

3.2 Diversity and social responsibility

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

According to Ganti (2022) ‘social responsibility means that individuals and companies have a duty to act in the best interests of their environment and society as a whole.’ When applied in a business context, this is often known as corporate social responsibility, or CSR.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a birds eye view of trees, with an image of Earth on top, surrounded by logos representing different sustainability goals.

Across most of the world, this is a voluntary commitment for businesses, the exception being India, which is the first country to mandate CSR spending through its corporate law framework.

Big companies often have departments dedicated to CSR, but for organisations without those resources, what part should social responsibility play?

Watch this short video to hear what Fair Trade USA, a global leader in setting corporate social responsibility standards, recommends for small businesses.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit2.4.3 Video 6: 4 Social Responsibility Tips All Businesses Need To Know

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 6: 4 Social Responsibility Tips All Businesses Need To Know

BENNETT WETCH

I’m Bennett Wetch, and I am the vice president of technology innovation at Fair Trade USA here in Oakland, California. Fair Trade USA is a non-profit social enterprise that certifies farms, factories, and fisheries around the world. And we are a global leader in setting socioeconomic and environmental sustainability standards, which enable businesses of all sizes to easily incorporate social responsibility into their supply chains.

One of the suggestions I have for increasing social responsibility to your business is to clearly define a few things you want to measure well. It’s really easy to get caught up in the trap of let’s measure everything and then figure out what matters. But I strongly recommend identify two to three things that fall squarely within your business model that you actually have levers that you can control and focus on those and measure those well. Take that defined impact and work with every member of your organisation to define how that impacts their job.

How do the things they do every day drive towards that impact, whether they’re on the accounting team, the sales team, or anywhere else in your organisation. Recognise that small decisions add up. Every cup of coffee, every t-shirt, every purchase matters. So think about the things that your company buys on a day-to-day basis and choose the socially responsible option.

The final tip that I have for becoming a more social responsible business is to think beyond your four walls. Think about all the things that enable your business to run. If you’re a coffee company, it’s a little more obvious. You rely on coffee farmers.

But if you’re a marketing agency or another company, there’s still people you rely on. There’s vendors. There’s suppliers that you rely on. And so thinking of them as your employees and treating them fairly will ensure that your company can be more responsible and more successful.

In conclusion, it doesn’t matter what kind of business you have. Any business can be responsible. And that’s what we’re here to support at Fair Trade USA is the idea that no matter what industry you’re in, no matter what point in the supply chain you’re in, you can do good.

End transcript: Video 6: 4 Social Responsibility Tips All Businesses Need To Know

Download

Video _unit2.4.3 Video 6: 4 Social Responsibility Tips All Businesses Need To Know

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Even in this short video, you can see the links between social responsibility and diversity and inclusion. For example, when Bennett talks about identifying 2-3 themes and then making sure that all of your staff understand their part in the impact you want to have – this could certainly apply to inclusion.

Another useful way to think about social responsibility is to consider values. These might be organisational values, team values or personal values. If an organisation has defined values, they should be reflected in its priorities, style of working, approach to challenges, etc.

Activity _unit2.4.2 Activity 5 Organisational values

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Investigate the values of your organisation. You may be familiar with them already as they may be something your organisation promotes widely both internally and externally.

If they have been defined – take a few minutes to reflect on what you think about them. Do they accurately reflect the way your organisation operates? Can you see a commitment to diversity reflected in the chosen values? If you’ve done any thinking about your own personal values – how do they align?

If they haven’t yet been formally discussed – can you come up with some that could work for your organisation, or your team? How could diversity be clearly reflected?

Comment

Darmanin (2022) shares the following examples of common company values – loyalty, honesty, trust, ingenuity, accountability, simplicity, respect. Others that reflect a commitment to diversity might include – equality, empathy, solidarity, openness, etc.

In a recent blog article, Sodexo’s Global Chief Diversity Officer Rohini Anand (2019) explains that diversity and inclusion, and CSR have many shared goals – with both ‘reaching out to disenfranchised communities, bringing new insights to the table and driving collaborative solutions to business challenges.’ Many of the skills used also intersect, from change management and community relations to measurement and telling the story. She goes on to suggest that greater collaboration between those working on these two agendas can only be beneficial.

Another significant driver of social responsibility is its importance to young people in the workplace – individuals who will either be future employees or customers for your organisation. Each generation has its own characteristics and Generation Z is thought to be the most racially and ethnically diverse generation so far (Janzer 2021). Born between 1995 and 2010, and numbering approximately 66 million, members of Generation Z are known for their distrust of business and support for social responsibility.

Janzer (2021) outlines several aspects of social responsibility that this generation prioritises:

speaking out against injustice
seeing, hearing and recognising
providing fairness and equity,

all of which align closely with diversity and inclusion.

A diverse workforce can also enhance important business activities such as problem solving and innovation. You’ll find out more in the next section.

3.3 Diversity and innovation

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

There is a significant body of evidence to support the fact that diverse teams are more innovative. Watch this short video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which explains how their workforce has changed and the benefits that inclusion brings.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit2.4.4 Video 7: Inclusion Drives Innovation at JPL

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Inclusion Drives Innovation at JPL

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[TEXT ON SCREEN]: When I started my JPL career in 1980, I was the only female engineer in a section of about 150 engineers. Fortunately, the group supervisor who hired me was very attuned to diversity, and made a strong effort in his hiring practices to make his group more diverse and inclusive.

MOOGEGA COOPER

I’ve seen and continue to see historic photos of JPL and the people that worked here in the beginning. Having an imperfect past is fine. But really trying to build a better future is what warms my heart.

LINDA SPILKER

There’s been a tremendous change over the 45 years I’ve been at JPL. I first started at JPL in the late 1970s as part of the Voyager team. And there weren’t very many women. But over the years, I’ve seen that really change. And now there are many more women in roles across the project, including upper leadership roles.

ROSALY LOPES

Young women have really embraced the wonders of science, also in general, space exploration.

FARAH ALIBAY

I think one of the things that I really enjoy about JPL is that even as a young engineer, I was always given a seat at the table and listened to.

MOHAMED ABID

Any given mission, you find people that are from different countries. I’m originally from Tunisia, and I work here.

ROSALY LOPES

We find people from all over the world here. And that diversity has been great because I didn’t feel that as an immigrant, I was something different. There were lots of people like me.

MOOGEGA COOPER

Inclusion is so important to the success of JPL because we need to attract the right people to tackle the issues that we have at hand to be able to send all of these complex robotics to other planets and moons.

FARAH ALIBAY

We land rovers on Mars and fly helicopters. These are not easy things and not things that are written in textbooks. We have to keep pushing the envelope. And we are only going to be able to do that if we have teams that work well together, that feel accepted together, but that can also look at a problem and come at it a different way with a whole different set of experience and bring that to the table.

MOOGEGA COOPER

It takes small microaggressions, small gestures for someone to feel othered, for someone to feel not included or part of the culture and part of the group. And when you don’t feel part of the group, it’s hard to collaborate.

MOHAMED ABID

So it’s a team work. It’s a team effort. All of those led me to see this is where I want to be. I’ve been here about 17 years. I really cherished and enjoyed every moment of it.

LINDA SPILKER

It’s very refreshing and encouraging to see that change not only to have more women, but have greater diversity here at JPL.

MOOGEGA COOPER

JPL provides a supportive and nurturing environment all the way from the top. They have these two new classes, for example, were released on reducing bias and understanding gender differences at JPL. And by the end of 2020, 86% of managers took one of those two courses, which is amazing. Culture and changes start from the top, and that’s what JPL is committed to.

FARAH ALIBAY

I found that people have accepted me for who I am. I mean, I’m not exactly your typical engineer. And I felt comfortable dyeing my hair again once I started working here and being my loud self.

LINDA SPILKER

During that time, I had my daughters and other children were born to Voyager moms. And then working on Cassini, I can bring my grandchildren to see JPL. It’s really been a multigenerational journey of exploration.

ROSALY LOPES

I consider myself very lucky to have ended up at JPL and to have been here for so many years. It really nurtured me. It offered me tremendous opportunities that I don’t think I would have had anywhere else.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

End transcript: Video 7: Inclusion Drives Innovation at JPL

Download

Video _unit2.4.4 Video 7: Inclusion Drives Innovation at JPL

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

In a recent career column in the scientific journal Nature, social scientist Katrin Prager (2021) describes how working with a team of individuals from a variety of demographic and disciplinary backgrounds ‘prompted us to look for insights in places that a less-diverse team would not even have considered.’

The author also goes on to highlight an issue that can impair this diversity when we are choosing who to work with on particular problems, and that is homophily, or ‘love of the same’.

You might have heard the proverb ‘birds of a feather flock together’. It basically means ‘people of similar interests, background, ideas or characteristics will often congregate or hang out with each other, people who have similar ideas or values tend to stick together’ (Grammarist, no date).

This can impair innovation, as similar people will have overlapping experience and knowledge and won’t challenge each other in the same way.

Over time, even a diverse organisation can become increasingly homogenised and fall into something known as ‘groupthink’, which reduces our ability to explore different solutions and identify our blind spots, preventing organisations from leveraging the power of their diversity. You’ll explore ‘groupthink’ in more detail in Week 8.

The advantages of friction

Being inclusive has numerous benefits but it is not always the most comfortable journey. Differences in ideas and perceptions can cause conflicts that many of us would prefer to avoid. It is important though to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. You’ll explore conflict in more detail in Week 4.

Cross (2022) describes several reasons why we need friction in the workplace to build a culture of innovation:

Friction is where we have to unpack and explore our ideas more deeply, so we can better explain them to others.
Friction is where ideas, perspectives and assumptions are tested.
Friction is where we can create a culture in which everybody feels safe to constructively disagree.
Friction is where we grow through exposure to new ways of thinking.

In her article in Nature, Prager (2021) also goes on to describe the cognitive challenge involved in collaborating within diverse teams as members must often overcome differences in vocabulary, knowledge and understanding. She gives an example from her own experience of working with a researcher from Brazil and gradually realising they both had a very different understanding of the word ‘community’, but also describes the benefits of combining their understanding to bring greater insight.

For organisational leaders, another positive aspect of diversity is its potential impact on profitability.

3.4 Diversity and economic benefit

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Eswaran (2019), writing for the World Economic Forum, explains why the business case for diversity in the workplace is now overwhelming, siting substantial research that demonstrates the advantages, including:

A study from Boston Consulting Group that found companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenues due to increased innovation.
A Hays Asia Diversity and Inclusion report in which respondents identified improved company culture, leadership and greater innovation as the top three benefits of a diverse workforce.
The Deloitte Millennial Survey, which shows that 74% of respondents believe their organisation is more innovative when it has a culture of inclusion.

Asif Sadiq has this to say:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 8: The business case for DEI

Video _unit2.4.5 Video 8: The business case for DEI

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 8: The business case for DEI

Asif Sadiq

So we do diversity, equity, and inclusion for many reasons. There’s of course, the legal implications, numerous countries have various different laws that present why we should create equity and inclusion and so on. There’s the moral case, which I hope each and every one of us understands, gets the importance of truly creating a workplace that’s diverse, that’s inclusive, that’s representative of the society we live in. However, the business case is huge.

Businesses that get diversity and inclusion right generate more profitability, better output, more innovation, more creativity. Businesses who get it wrong risk financial losses, reputational risk, and so on. And the truth is, when you think about the future, your future consumers, your future customers, people you engage with, to them, diversity is not an option. They have choices and those choices are important to them. And one of the critical parts of that choice for them is an organisation that values what they believe in.

End transcript: Video 8: The business case for DEI

Download

Video _unit2.4.5 Video 8: The business case for DEI

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Another useful resource is the Diversity Wins report (Hunt et al, 2020), which also explores the business case for inclusion and diversity. This report is the third in a series by McKinsey & Company, and shows that the ‘relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance is now even stronger than before.’ For example, their analysis finds:

Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to experience above-average profitability than peer companies in the fourth quartile. This is up from 21% in 2017 and 15% in 2014.
Companies with a gender split of more than 30% women on their executive teams are significantly more likely to outperform those with between 10 and 30% women, and these companies in turn are more likely to outperform those with fewer or no women executives.
In the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, companies in the top quartile outperformed those in the fourth by 36% in terms of profitability in 2019, slightly up from 33% in 2017 and 35% in 2014.

The report goes on to suggest five areas of action for companies, based on best practices from the firms they surveyed:

Ensure representation of diverse talent. Companies should focus on advancing diverse talent into executive, management, technical and board roles, setting the right data-driven targets for representation.
Strengthen leadership accountability and capability. Companies should place their core business leaders and managers at the heart of the agenda and strengthen inclusive leadership capabilities, holding all leaders to account for progress.
Enable equality of opportunity through fairness and transparency. Companies should deploy analytics tools to build visibility into promotions and pay processes and criteria. They should de-bias these processes and work to meeting diversity targets across long-term workforce plans.
Promote openness and tackle microaggressions. Companies should uphold a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory behaviour and actively build the ability of managers and staff to identify and address microaggressions, establishing norms for what constitutes open, welcoming behaviour, and assessing each other on how they are living up to them.
Foster belonging through unequivocal support for multivariate diversity. Companies should build a culture in which all employees feel they can bring their whole selves to work. Managers should communicate and visibly embrace their commitment to diversity, building connection with diverse individuals and supporting employee resource groups to foster a sense of community and belonging.

Activity _unit2.4.3 Activity 6 Researching the benefits

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Using your preferred search engine, spend some time investigating the different ways in which a diverse workforce and leadership team can lead to increased company profits. Note your findings in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Profits might be increased through:

access to new markets,
improved interaction with customers,
increased job satisfaction and motivation,
better staff retention,
role models attracting new talent,
greater innovation, etc.

There are many ways in which a diverse workplace can impact on the financial bottom line and more and more business leaders are becoming aware of that fact.

With this range of potential benefits in mind, and a growing body of evidence to support them, it is clear that for any organisation, diversity and inclusion will play a vital role in future success.

4 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now that you’ve completed Week 1, you can take a short quiz to help you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Open the quiz in a new window or tab, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 1 practice quiz

5 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week you have looked at definitions of diversity and inclusion, exploring different diversity characteristics and considering why diversity is important in the workplace. You’ve reflected on an organisation’s social and legal responsibilities and looked at some of the ways embracing diversity can support both individual and business success.

You have also started to understand that everyone has a part to play in diversity and inclusion in your workplace, and over the coming weeks you’ll become increasingly aware of the different ways in which our bias and our privilege can cause us to discriminate, sometimes without us even realising it.

You should now be able to:

define diversity and recognise its variety
understand the importance of inclusion in creating a diverse workplace
explain some of the wider benefits diversity can bring to an organisation.

Next week, you’ll look more closely at some of the protected characteristics mentioned here in section 2.1, exploring what discrimination means in each of those contexts, and enhancing your awareness of current issues.

You can now go to Week 2.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Last week you explored some diversity definitions, enhancing your understanding of diversity and inclusion. You considered some of the associated social and legal responsibilities, and learned about the benefits a diverse workforce can bring.

As you discovered in Week 1, the Equality Act 2010 outlines a range of legally protected diversity characteristics. The aim of this week is to provide an overview of some of these characteristics, addressing the basics while also introducing some of the more recent thinking.

In order to cover a wide range of useful topics throughout this 8 week course, it is not possible to cover every protected characteristic in detail. However, you will focus on many of the most relevant in terms of discrimination experienced in the workplace. If you wish to know more about those that are not covered in detail during the course, see Further reading for a variety of useful links.

Now watch this short introductory video, where our employers share some of the ways they support colleagues with the diversity characteristics you’ll be exploring this week.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 2

Video _unit3.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 2

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 2

Sophie Washington

A lot of people underestimate the value of disabled people in the workplace, which is something that is really important to change. And we work really hard to actually reduce those misconceptions.

Craig Pemblington

People with disabilities are supported from day one of considering an application to all the way through their journey of working with us. And that involves things like creating often quite simple and inexpensive reasonable adjustments to give people the ability to contribute in a way and on a level playing field.

Sophie Washington

It’s working with the individual to see what they need, but also being aware of what’s out there because a lot of the time the people that need the adjustments may not have heard about the latest things. So as an employer or a volunteer support officer or someone that is maybe responsible for making those or offering those reasonable adjustments is making sure you know what’s out there and keeping aware of new developments.

Mark Ealing

We tend to attract people who are neurodiverse because they’re really, really good at the work that we do. And we know that the percentage of neurodiverse that are unemployed is very high. So it’s a talent pool that’s untapped. And I can honestly say some of the most impactful people that I’ve ever worked with and it’s a bit anecdotally, have been neurodiverse.

Yusuf Nagdi

Yes. So we have got our faith and they are slash reflection rooms as well. And it’s just a safe space where somebody can go in and just have a little bit of time to themselves.

Mark Ealing

And we’ve trained every one of our 700 and something line managers on the benefits of neurodiversity and how we might adapt our line management style, our people management style to help support people who are neurodiverse. We also have been looking at the design of our buildings to make sure that the environment, again, allows neurodiverse people to thrive.

Craig Pemblington

Racial diversity in our organisation has been an incredible boost to the way that we work. And I think because around about half of our team are from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds, the support has been about enabling people that are coming to us that are BAME or persons of colour to have an environment by which they can generate the opportunity to create change from their lived experience. And that’s very much about inclusion. That’s very much about valuing perspectives from a much wider range of backgrounds within the organisation itself.

Yusuf Nagdi

So within Leicestershire Police, we have a number of support networks within the organisation. And that includes a Black Police Association, it also includes several of the religious networks as well, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Christian associations.

Craig Pemblington

We are a organisation led by a female chief executive. We have quite a mix of genders within the company in which we’re working within our team. And we have a whole range of approaches that are aimed at ensuring a level playing field.

Mark Ealing

Gender equities is improving. We’re seeing it improve in terms of the representation.

Craig Pemblington

So a couple of things on gender inequality. So one is the way in which we deliver flexible working and remote working, in particular. So enabling people that have caring and parental responsibilities and also our approach I think to things like shared parental leave because it’s recognising that in a modern world and modern workforce men as well as women will want to contribute to their childcare responsibilities and for looking after their children, and actually that will mean different things for different people. So it’s enabling everyone the fairest opportunity that they can to get access to that.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 2

Download

Video _unit3.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 2

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

describe key aspects of discrimination due to disability, race or sex in the workplace
reflect on a range of issues related to disability, race or sex in the workplace
identify actions that you could take personally and organisationally to address these issues.

You’ll start the week by looking at disability and neurodiversity in the workplace.

1 Disability

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

ACAS (no date) explains:

Unless their condition or impairment is automatically classed as a disability or they have a progressive condition, the Equality Act 2010 says someone is considered to have a disability if both of these apply:

they have a ‘physical or mental impairment’
the impairment ‘has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a person sat at a table reading a book using braille.

A significant number of people with disabilities are keen to work but remain unemployed. The UN’s Disability and Development report (UN, 2018) notes that ‘lower rates of employment have been persistently observed for persons with disabilities.’ Across eight global regions, the employment to population ratio for people with disabilities averages 36%, compared with 60% for people without disabilities.

Aichner (2021) explains that the problem is often the negative view of employers who assume that people with disabilities are not able to perform as efficiently, or are a burden rather than a source of added value. On the contrary, Aichner’s research summarises the characteristics and associated benefits as follows:

Table _unit3.2.1 Table 1
Characteristics of people with disabilities	Advantages of hiring people with disabilities
Higher motivation to work	Lower absenteeism rates
Very loyal towards their employer	Lower employee turnover
Friendlier dealings with customers	Higher ROI in training and development
Score higher in job satisfaction	Overall more positive work environment
Perform more consistently	Increased productivity
Better able to identify creative solutions	Higher levels of innovation
Higher willingness to experiment	Increased business performance, market share and shareholder value
Superior problem-solving skills

As you learn about each diversity characteristic in more detail – you’ll see two main sections – ‘exploring discrimination’ is intended to introduce some of the common issues and ‘enhancing your awareness’ aims to introduce ideas that you may be less familiar with.

1.1 Exploring discrimination

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

As well as the types of discrimination outlined in Week 1, there are two additional types of disability discrimination:

failure to make reasonable adjustments
discrimination arising from disability, i.e. when you’re treated unfairly because of something connected to your disability rather than the disability itself.

What are reasonable adjustments?

Watch this short video from BeyondHR for a detailed explanation.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 2: Disability and reasonable adjustment at work

Video _unit3.2.1 Video 2: Disability and reasonable adjustment at work

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 2: Disability and reasonable adjustment at work

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DEIRDRE MCDERMOTT

A disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out their normal day to day activities. Whilst physical impairments affect the senses, such as sight and hearing, heart disease, diabetes, and epilepsy, mental impairments include learning disabilities and mental ill health. Long term are effects that last or are likely to last at least 12 months. And day to day activities are normal activities carried out by most people on a regular basis. Some examples of which are mobility, manual dexterity, physical coordination, and memory or ability to concentrate. If as a result of their disability an individual is treated worse than another person in a similar situation or as an employer you fail to make reasonable changes to allow this person to work or be interviewed, etc, the individual can challenge this treatment under disability discrimination legislation.

So what is a reasonable adjustment? A reasonable adjustment is a change to remove or adjust the effect of an employee’s disability so as they can do their job or a job applicant’s disability when applying for a job. The reasonable adjustment could be to the workplace, to the way things are done-- providing equipment to assist the individual to carry out their job, for example-- or to get someone to help the employee or job applicant. It is important when employers are considering reasonable adjustments that you consult with both the employee and the medical professionals to determine the best approach.

End transcript: Video 2: Disability and reasonable adjustment at work

Download

Video _unit3.2.1 Video 2: Disability and reasonable adjustment at work

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Making reasonable adjustments for one individual can potentially lead to an increasingly diverse workforce, as other disabled applicants might benefit from the increased accessibility of the working environment you are creating.

If you represent a small organisation with concerns about the costs associated with these adjustments, your employee may be able to apply to the Access to Work scheme for support. See Further reading for the link.

Disability Rights UK (2021) provides a factsheet detailing a wide range of potential adjustments for students. Although this advice is given primarily for an educational context, it is very detailed and divided into ‘impairment specific’ sections, so should provide useful insight for any employer.

Examples include:

provision of a quiet room for individuals with sensory issues
use of digital recorders in meetings
alternative arrangements for work and deadlines
provision of paperwork in advance to give extra time for planning.

Activity _unit3.2.1 Activity 1 Which type of discrimination?

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Can you decide which type of discrimination each of the following examples (adapted from ACAS, no date) represents?

Jo has a disabled child and has needed to take several days off at short notice to take their child to medical appointments related to their disability. Jo overhears their manager say, ‘the amount of time off that child causes is not acceptable’. The next day, Jo is dismissed.

Discrimination arising from disability

Indirect discrimination

Direct discrimination by association

Harassment

The correct answer is c.

Jay has type 1 diabetes and works in a factory. The rest break policy says everyone has a lunch break at the same time, with no other breaks during the shift. Jay sometimes needs snacks between meals to help manage their diabetes. Jay’s employer will not allow Jay to more evenly distribute their break times across the day as it may upset other staff.

Discrimination arising from disability

Direct discrimination by association

Harassment

Indirect discrimination

The correct answer is d.

Mae has cancer and is having chemotherapy. The time off Mae takes for the chemotherapy appointments and recovery leads to their manager following the company’s procedure for too much absence and Mae gets a warning. Because of the warning, Mae is not able to apply for promotion.

Direct discrimination by association

Discrimination arising from disability

Indirect discrimination

Harassment

The correct answer is b.

Shar sometimes loses their balance and falls over because they have multiple sclerosis (MS). People at work regularly make comments and jokes about it, which makes Shar feel humiliated and uncomfortable.

Discrimination arising from disability

Direct discrimination by association

Indirect discrimination

Harassment

The correct answer is d.

Brett (2021) suggests five ways to work towards a more inclusive business for employees with disabilities:

Inclusion starts with changes in attitudes and behaviour – changing the workplace culture and stopping the negative assumptions that are often made about a person’s capabilities.
‘Disability’ is a word that many don’t actually identify with – asking people about the adjustments and accessibility measures they need to perform their work will help you to collect more meaningful and actionable data.
Your people are experts on their own accessibility requirements – ask them what will help them to thrive.
The greatest impairment is often our social environments – talk to those who are potentially affected and make an effort to remove barriers.
Input will make your business more accessible – access the internal experience and knowledge, listen and act on the feedback you receive.

1.2 Enhancing your awareness

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

A useful insight can be gained from understanding different models of disability. Disability Nottinghamshire (no date) explains the medical and social models as follows:

The medical model of disability says people are disabled by their impairments or differences, which should be ‘fixed’ or changed by medical and other treatments, even when the impairment or difference does not cause pain or illness.
The social model of disability says that disability is caused by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for disabled people.

Societal norms, and the medical model of disability can lead to ableism, defined by UCU (no date) as:

discrimination in favour of non-disabled people […] based on an assumption that the physical, cognitive and sensory differences with which disabled people live with are deficits, and […] that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’. It is manifest in physical, environmental and attitudinal barriers that exclude and stigmatise an entire group of people as ‘less than’.

A key aspect of ableism is the used of inappropriate, or ableist language.

Language and terminology

An area of uncertainty for many employers is language and terminology. If we don’t know how to say something correctly, we might choose not to say it at all.

Ableist language involves the use of negative stereotypes, phrases and assumptions that can impact negatively on disabled people. Many of them are common phrases and their impact is often unintentional. Examples include:

Box _unit3.2.1

‘That’s so lame’ ‘ You’re a bit bi-polar today’ ‘She is crazy’ ‘He’s such a psycho’

‘He must be off his meds’ ‘I don’t think of you as disabled’ ‘She is so OCD’

(UCU, no date)

These types of comments are also microaggressions, which you’ll learn more about in Week 4.

Key advice is to avoid passive, victim words and to use language that respects disabled people as active individuals with control over their own lives.

GOV.UK (2021) provides useful guidance on inclusive language relating to disability, including the following table of words to use and avoid:

Table _unit3.2.2 Table 2
Avoid	Use
(the) handicapped, (the) disabled	disabled (people)
afflicted by, suffers from, victim of	has [name of condition or impairment]
confined to a wheelchair, wheelchair-bound	wheelchair user
mentally handicapped, mentally defective, retarded, subnormal	with a learning disability (singular) with learning disabilities (plural)
cripple, invalid	disabled person
spastic	person with cerebral palsy
able-bodied	non-disabled
mental patient, insane, mad	person with a mental health condition
deaf and dumb; deaf mute	deaf, user of British Sign Language (BSL), person with a hearing impairment
the blind	people with visual impairments; blind people; blind and partially sighted people
an epileptic, diabetic, depressive, and so on	person with epilepsy, diabetes, depression or someone who has epilepsy, diabetes, depression
dwarf; midget	someone with restricted growth or short stature
fits, spells, attacks	seizures

1.3 Hidden disabilities

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

DiversityQ (2021) explains that 80% of people with disabilities in the UK have a hidden disability. These include: Autism, brain injuries, chronic pain, Cystic Fibrosis, Diabetes, Epilepsy, depression and other mental health conditions, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis.

Because such conditions are not always easily noticeable, support can be limited and inclusion can become an issue in the workplace. Some individuals with these types of conditions may not perceive themselves as having a disability and so may not ask for help.

DiversityQ recommends that having a culture of ‘psychological safety and transparent communications is essential’ and it is worth ‘making an internal statement that your firm is willing to make adjustments and relevant provisions to support workers with a variety of conditions that impact on their daily activities.’

You’ll learn more about psychological safety in Week 8.

2 Neurodiversity

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Box _unit3.3.1

Spotlight on…

Spring (no date) estimates that in the UK, around 15% of the population (nearly 1 in 7 of us) is neurodivergent. This is often a hidden disability. Watch this short video by AmpliFly to hear a useful explanation of what neurodiversity is:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 3: What is neurodiversity?

Video _unit3.3.1 Video 3: What is neurodiversity?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 3: What is neurodiversity?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR

Just like our fingerprints, all our brains are unique. But for the majority of people, their brains are similar enough that there are largely no obvious differences in how they function. They have differences in things like skills, preferences, and styles. But mostly their brains mean they perceive the world in the same way.

But for others, their brains are more fundamentally different. They have differences in things like social understanding, sensory processing, communication, and information processing. These differences are a result of neurological differences, such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more.

This natural variation in our brains is called neurodiversity. Those of us with no neurological conditions are neurotypical. And those of us with neurological conditions are neurodivergent.

Neurodivergent people think differently. Their unique perspectives and experiences mean they can often excel at creativity and innovation, have highly specialised skill sets, and an ability to hyperfocus. If embraced, this can be a huge advantage to organisations and society.

However, the differences neurodivergent people experience can make life challenging. In order to thrive at work, they often need some simple accommodations-- for example, a sensory calm environment to recharge in or a routine with the same start and end times. Approximately one in seven people are neurodivergent. So not only is embracing neurodiversity critical for a truly inclusive organisation, but it also presents organisations with a huge opportunity.

End transcript: Video 3: What is neurodiversity?

Download

Video _unit3.3.1 Video 3: What is neurodiversity?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Neurodiversity celebrates the fact that the differences in our brains are normal genetic variations, leading to different ways of thinking and specific abilities. Despite the fact that many individuals regard their neurodiversity as an ability or special power, it can be seen by employers as a limitation, rather than an opportunity in the workplace.

However, employers are starting to realise the benefits.

Listen to James Mahoney from JP Morgan Chase, talking about changing the recruitment practices that impact negatively on neurodiverse candidates and successfully hiring software testers on the autism spectrum:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 4: J.P. Morgan’s Autism at work journey

Video _unit3.3.2 Video 4: J.P. Morgan’s Autism at work journey

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4: J.P. Morgan’s Autism at work journey

NARRATOR

I’ll tell you the story of autism at work. And by the way, I’m standing here because I have notes, and I don’t have the story memorised all the time, and I like to keep it fairly consistent.

But five years ago, a nonprofit came to us-- came to our HR partner, our CIO, who is my boss. And came to us with the concept of autistic people have great talent, give us lots of stats, but they are highly unemployed. And they’re unemployed because traditional interviewing techniques will not amplify what they’re good at.

We look for the strong handshake, the great eye contact, just the right length of answer, and we walk away from talent every day because of it. And we got it. Right away we connected with the concept, but we said we have-- we’re a quarter of a million people, how the heck are we going to change tens of thousands of recruiters to interview differently. How am I going to get managers to be at the same degree of acceptance and understanding of autism because we knew we have to educate the nonautism individuals.

Anyway, we liked it more than we were scared about the what ifs. That’s the punch line there, right? And so it took us about a year, we wanted to find a partner who A, knew technology and B, was working in this space. And luckily there was one down the road from us in Delaware. And they came in. They helped evaluate the jobs, evaluate the site, find people, train people, and train us to be better managers of people on the spectrum and to engage and, importantly, include people on the spectrum. So that took a year to get all that in place and sign a contract.

4 and 1/2 years ago, we started our first pilot. And this is where the journey begins. Four individuals in one type of role, in one location in Delaware. And they were doing software testing. Everyone know what software testing is?

How many were in the last session about neurodiversity? Anybody? Yeah. So they talked about often with autism, good jobs are A plus B equals C. Another way I describe it is if you have clear rules and clear outcomes that are expected, expected results, it may be a good candidate for somebody on the autism spectrum. And software testing certainly is that it says, enter this, enter that, you should see this, if you don’t it’s a fail, if you do it’s a pass. More complicated, but that’s the gist of it.

So we put these four people in and we got an inkling of something great was about to happen. When we gave them their first week’s worth of training, the corporate required training that you do online. And we budgeted three weeks. And it was done in 2 and 1/2 days by every one of them. So we knew they were really quick and they could recite parts of the rules back to you. So those were good indicators.

But then they started doing the work. And what we found after six months was these four people doing software testing in a group of 30 people, so the other 26 were not neurodiverse. The people on the spectrum ranked out of the 30, first, second, and either third, fourth, or fifth every single month. And their productivity and quality was, I always forget this number, 48% higher than the rest of the group on average.

End transcript: Video 4: J.P. Morgan’s Autism at work journey

Download

Video _unit3.3.2 Video 4: J.P. Morgan’s Autism at work journey

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

As recently as 2020, Spring (no date) conducted a survey of over 1000 UK workers across a range of industries and found that 54% had never heard the term ‘neurodiversity’, with the younger generations more likely to be familiar than the older ones.

Their research also showed that the IT & tech industry is leading the way in their understanding of neurodiversity, perhaps because neurodivergent individuals often have specialist skills that are highly valued by those sectors.

Activity _unit3.3.1 Activity 2 Exploring neurodiversity

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Choose two of the following terms and use your preferred search engine to find out more about them.

Autism Spectrum Disorder
Asperger’s Syndrome
ADHD
Dyslexia
Dyspraxia
Dyscalculia
Tourette’s syndrome

Comment

Although we are often familiar with the words, we might be confused by exactly what they mean. Hopefully, this activity has helped to clarify your understanding.

BECTU, the trade union for creatives, provides a useful glossary of neurodiversity terms here.

If you haven’t already found them, YouTube also has many useful videos that can help you to understand the life experience of a neurodivergent person. For example, on autism:

A key learning point is that neurodivergence isn’t an illness, it just means an individual has a different way of learning and processing information.

It is also important to be aware that every person’s experience of neurodivergence is different, so that can make it difficult to put generic support in place.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 5: Diverted

Video _unit3.3.3 Video 5: Diverted

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 5: Diverted

SPEAKER 1:

[GASPS]

SPEAKER 2:

We’re sorry to announce this train has been delayed. Please listen for other announcements.

SPEAKER 3:

Ugh.

[LAUGHING]

SPEAKER 2:

This train is diverted.

SPEAKER 4:

Sorry.

[BABY CRYING]

[MUFFLED NOISES]

SPEAKER 1:

I’m autistic, and the fear of unexpected changes can make leaving the house impossible.

End transcript: Video 5: Diverted

Download

Video _unit3.3.3 Video 5: Diverted

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

And another example, on ADHD:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 6: This is What It’s Really Like to Have ADHD

Video _unit3.3.4 Video 6: This is What It’s Really Like to Have ADHD

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 6: This is What It’s Really Like to Have ADHD

Narrator:

I asked people with ADHD one question. What do you want the world to know about your ADHD?

NATALIE:

This is what I want you to know about my ADHD. It takes me a lot of hard work to get my work turned in on time. I’m very smart but my grades drop sometimes.

KATE:

If I could actually sit down and start my homework, I would, but many days I just can’t and struggling with something so seemingly simple tends to make me feel very frustrated or even stupid.

KATIE:

I’d like the world to know that there are people like me out there who get good grades, rarely get in trouble, and yet can and do have ADHD and struggle with the symptoms that come along with it.

DAVE:

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

JOSH:

My ADHD affects every aspect of my life, from sleep to school to work, all of my relationships. And I have to tailor my entire life around having it.

CATH:

It doesn’t always look the same. I was only diagnosed at 25 because I have the inattentive type.

TONY:

I’m basically hyperactive. I was diagnosed at the age of seven.

PAIVI:

I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 38. Always thought you need to be hyperactive to have it.

MICHELLE:

I filmed this video too many times now and I can’t get it right, and it’s really stressing me out now.

MORGAN:

I try really hard and it hurts when people act like I’m not trying as hard as I am.

JOSH:

But the worst part is when my symptoms aren’t taken as symptoms. They’re taken as behaviors, done unintentionally to upset someone or consider that I don’t care. And that’s never been the case.

JORAM:

Whenever you think that I intentionally tried to hurt you, I didn’t. I probably just screwed up.

DANIEL:

I’m at least as frustrated as you and probably even more.

KAITLYN

When I say I forgot, I’m not lazy. I’m not just trying to make an excuse. It’s a real struggle. And I’m probably even more pissed off at myself than you are at me.

MARK:

There is a giant flipping war going on inside this head. I really am trying.

HANNAH:

When I use my accommodations, it’s not me trying to take the easy way out. All I’m trying to do is level the playing field so that you and I have a lot more even chance of success.

YESSICA:

When you see me arranging my pens and pencils according to color, it’s because my brain is trying to compensate for the chaos within.

ADRIAN:

I squeeze some play-doh in my hand, and it helps me concentrate on what I’m doing.

BAILEY:

I move to a special spot in the classroom for tests because I can’t block out noises and distractions like you can.

JACOB:

While I’m staring off into space, it doesn’t mean I’m stupid.

HEATHER:

It doesn’t mean that I’m not listening to you.

AL:

Normally, it means that you’ve triggered a really interesting thought which my impulsive brain can’t help but chase.

JUDEE:

Having ADHD is like having a billion trampolines in your head, each representing a thought and your brain just jumping off each and every one every second.

MAREK:

I don’t think about ADHD as a ‘disorder’. I take it as more of a different way of thinking.

RACHELLE:

I know my brain works differently, but ADHD can give me an advantage with what I’m doing.

BECCA:

It may take me a while to come to a solution, tends to be really different than everybody else’s, and a lot of people appreciate that.

SARAH:

I’ve been told my whole life I need to be fighting my brain. I’m learning now that I need to love and work with my brain.

SCOT:

It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. And it’s something that I’m going to continue working on for the rest of my life. And that’s OK.

INIGO

I’m smart, but ADHD makes focusing hard and hides my abilities. If I’m given the chance, I can achieve more.

SPEAKER:

To meet this amazing community and learn more about how to support them, please visit howtoadhd.com/howtohelp. Please share.

ARTY:

Also sticky notes, yay.

End transcript: Video 6: This is What It’s Really Like to Have ADHD

Download

Video _unit3.3.4 Video 6: This is What It’s Really Like to Have ADHD

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

2.1 Exploring discrimination

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Neurodivergent individuals are protected against discrimination under the characteristic of disability. But there are still many employers who have a limited understanding of what neurodivergence means.

Owen (2020) describes the findings from a recent report by the Institute of Leadership and Management, which polled 1156 managers.

‘[The report] revealed the highest level of bias was against employees with Tourette’s syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) – with one in three businesses (32 per cent) saying they would be uncomfortable employing or managing someone with either of those conditions.

One in four respondents (26 per cent) said they would be uncomfortable taking on someone with dyscalculia, with the same number saying this about autism. One in five (19 per cent) said the same for dyspraxia, and one in 10 (10 per cent) cited dyslexia.’

He goes on to explain that ‘It is a common misconception that people having one of these conditions, such as dyslexia or autism, are less intelligent and less able, whereas in fact there is no association between intelligence and neurodiversity.’

Box _unit3.3.2 Examples of discrimination (Turner & Andrew, no date)

An employer required all applicants for a particular post to pass a psychometric test. An autistic applicant said that the test discriminated against people with autistic spectrum conditions. The employer’s own equality and diversity monitoring data showed that only one self-declared autistic applicant had previously passed the test. The claim of discrimination succeeded at Tribunal.
A manager incorrectly assumes, based on flawed stereotypes, that a neurodivergent worker is unable to complete certain tasks. They repeat this view to other workers and make patronising comments regarding the neurodivergent worker’s capabilities. This behaviour is likely to constitute harassment.
An employer uses a person specification for an accountant’s post that states ‘employees must be confident in dealing with external clients’ when in fact the job in question does not involve liaising directly with external clients. This requirement is unnecessary and could lead to discrimination against disabled people who have difficulty interacting with others, such as some people with autism.

There is clearly a need to enhance awareness of these conditions, along with the needs of neurodivergent individuals within the workplace and the adjustments that might be required to support them.

2.2 Enhancing your awareness

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

In Week 1, you learned about the link between diversity and innovation, and how a range of perspectives within a diverse team can lead to different ways of thinking. A neurodivergent individual can bring precisely that advantage – a different way of looking at problems and challenges that your organisation can benefit from.

Due to the wide range of individual variation within the spectrum of neurodivergence, it is difficult to summarise a generic list of skills and strengths. However, Genius Within have created this useful infographic:

View larger image

Show description|Hide description

A graphic from Genius Within representing the spectrum of neurodivergence.

In the centre is the side profile of a face, with the label Neurominorities. Surrounding this, there are different labelled circles going all the way around. From the top, going clockwise:

Dyscalulia. Innovative thinking. Verbal skills. This circle overlaps with Dyslexia and the overlap is labelled creativity.

For Dyslexia: visual thinking, creativity and 3D mechanical skills. Dyslexia then overlaps with ADHD, and the overlap is labelled authenticity.

For ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder): creativity, hyper-focus, and energy and passion. ADHD overlaps with Tourette Syndrome and this overlap is labelled Hyper-focus.

For Tourette Syndrome: observational skills, cognitive control and creativity. Tourette Syndrome overlaps with Acquired Neurodiversity and the overlap is labelled innovative thinking.

For Acquired Neurodiversity: adaptability and empathy. Acquired Neurodiversity overlaps with Mental Health and this overlap is labelled resilience.

For Mental Health: depth of thinking and expression. Mental Health overlaps with Autism and the overlap is labelled sensory awareness.

For Autism: concentration, fine detail processing and memory. Autism overlaps with DCD/Dyspraxia and this overlap is labelled honesty.

For DCD/Dyspraxia: verbal skills, empathy, intuition. This then overlaps with the first circle, Dyscalulia, and the overlap is labelled verbal skills.

Turner and Andrew (no date) provide some examples of potential reasonable adjustments for neurodivergent workers, including:

Considering the sensory environment in which any interviews or assessment days take place (this could mean avoiding interviews in rooms with harsh artificial lighting or noisy air-conditioning units)
Structuring breaks into long meetings for a worker with ADHD
Providing a second computer screen for a dyslexic worker
Agreeing a later start and finish time for an autistic worker to avoid the rush hour
Varying a dress code for a dyspraxic worker
Providing coaching or a mentor system.

In the next section, you’ll explore racial diversity in the workplace.

3 Racial diversity

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Box _unit3.4.1

Spotlight on…

You’ll start this section by watching some videos to introduce you to key concepts and issues. There are three to watch, but they each cover a slightly different aspect of racial diversity and discrimination.

First, watch this short video explaining the difference between three commonly used terms in this context; race, ethnicity and nationality.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality and Jellybeans

Video _unit3.4.1 Video 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality and Jellybeans

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality and Jellybeans

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR

Race, ethnicity, and nationality are three terms that get thrown around a lot. And all too often, they’re used interchangeably, ignored, or just used incorrectly. But each of these words actually has a very distinct meaning. And I’m going to talk about them today using my favourite candy-- jelly beans.

Let’s start with race. Now you may have heard someone say race is a human construct, and that’s true. Race is a mode of categorisation that’s based on physical appearance. So in the case of jelly beans, race is colour.

Because race is based on appearance, to some degree, it’s ascribed, meaning that people are assigned into racial categories based on what other people see. Even if somebody could be mistaken for a certain racial category, it can still apply to them. These categories are fluid. And our ideas of racial groupings change all the time.

It’s also important to remember that a person can have parents with two different racial backgrounds. The population of the world is becoming increasingly mixed. But even a person with multiple races will still ultimately belong to a racial category themselves, whether or not it’s the same as their parents.

Race is a huge factor in daily life. But it isn’t the whole picture. The term race does not capture the complexities of ethnicity. Ethnicity refers to the ethnic group or groups that a person belongs to. It’s a part of a person’s heritage and ancestry. In the case of jelly beans, ethnicity is like the flavour.

Two people who are in the same racial group can still have very different ethnicities. For example, all of these are red. But this one is cinnamon, and this one is cherry. Two people in the same racial group can and often do have very different backgrounds. It’s important to note that there are some groups who are unable to trace their specific ethnic heritage because of things like slavery, assimilation, and genocide. Ethnicity is a huge part of identity formation and development.

But it’s still not the same as nationality. The word nationality refers to someone’s national origin, the country where they hold citizenship. For jelly beans, it’s like the bag that a bean comes from. People of the same race or ethnicity can come from all different nations, like the watermelon bean that’s in camo mix and kids mix or the lemon lime bean that’s in all three. And nationality is flexible. If a person immigrates, their nationality can change. People can have dual citizenship or sometimes no citizenship at all.

So now you know. As a quick recap, race is a mode of categorisation based on physical appearance like the colour of a jelly bean. Ethnicity is a person’s actual ethnic background based on their ancestry like the flavour of a jelly bean. And nationality is the place where a person holds citizenship, which is like the jelly bean’s bag.

Now that you know the difference, you can have a much more comprehensive conversation about identity issues. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video because I totally enjoyed eating these jelly beans afterwards.

End transcript: Video 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality and Jellybeans

Download

Video _unit3.4.1 Video 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality and Jellybeans

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

The second video from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, explains race discrimination and equality law.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 8: What is race discrimination?

Video _unit3.4.2 Video 8: What is race discrimination?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 8: What is race discrimination?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ROSS

Hi, I’m Ross. And in this video, I’ll be looking at race discrimination. The Equality Act 2010 protects you from being discriminated against, harassed, or victimised on the basis of a protected characteristic. There are nine protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act. Race is one of these.

Videos covering each of the other protected characteristics can be found elsewhere in this series. Race is defined very widely in the act and includes colour, nationality, ethnic origins, or national origins. Based on this definition, race can mean anything from the colour of your skin to the passport you hold.

For example, you may have Indian national origins and be living in Britain with a British passport. In this case, the Equality Act would protect you from discrimination based on your national origins, Indian, and also from discrimination based on your nationality, British. You might also be discriminated against because of more than one aspect of your race at the same time-- in this case, being Indian and British. Racial groups themselves can also be made up of two or more distinct racial groups. For example, Scottish Pakistanis, Black Britons, and Romani gypsies.

It’s also possible to be part of a racial and religious group at the same time. For example, if you’re Jewish, you’re protected from discrimination based on race and religion. Racial groups can also be defined by exclusion. This means that anyone that is not a certain colour, nationality, or with certain ethnic or national origins can be considered a racial group. For example, anyone with non-British nationality could form a single racial group and could be protected from discrimination under the Act.

So racial discrimination happens when someone is treated badly because of their colour, nationality, ethnic, or national origins. Racial discrimination can include direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation. These different types of discrimination are explored in more detail elsewhere in this video series. Thank you for watching.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

End transcript: Video 8: What is race discrimination?

Download

Video _unit3.4.2 Video 8: What is race discrimination?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

The third shares the personal experiences of individuals who have experienced racial discrimination in the workplace.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 9: Centre On Dynamics of Ethnicity: The effects of racism at work

Video _unit3.4.3 Video 9: Centre On Dynamics of Ethnicity: The effects of racism at work

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 9: Centre On Dynamics of Ethnicity: The effects of racism at work

SPEAKER 1:

The effects of racism in the workplace can make you feel very uncomfortable, very stressed. It can lead to mental health problems. And it shouldn’t be something that any member of staff has to tolerate.

SPEAKER 2:

It’s dehumanising. It makes you feel lesser.

SPEAKER 3:

Paranoid. I felt a bit targeted. I didn’t feel comfortable doing my job anymore.

SPEAKER 4:

So I was called names and told to go back to where I came from, even though I’ve been here since I was three months old. So hearing as an adult or as a young adult or in the workplace anything that would kind of bring up those feelings again is it’s really difficult. It makes me feel quite vulnerable again. And I think there’s clearly shows it’s still it’s a very open wound that I don’t know if it will ever close.

SPEAKER 5:

It makes me question my own identity. And a lot of times I ask why do I have this body. It made me alienated from my own body. And I wish that I look differently.

SPEAKER 6:

You do feel left out, and you feel as if you’re not wanted or you’re not valued in the team.

SPEAKER 7:

It definitely shakes you to the core it makes you question who you are. It makes you question your abilities. And it can be hard to cope with. The good thing is if you have people to speak to, people who have possibly experienced the same thing who can relate to what you’re going through and know that it’s not just something that’s in your mind.

End transcript: Video 9: Centre On Dynamics of Ethnicity: The effects of racism at work

Download

Video _unit3.4.3 Video 9: Centre On Dynamics of Ethnicity: The effects of racism at work

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

You’ll explore some of the issues raised in the next section. Before you move on, take a look at the OpenLearn film interactive, Good hair: perceptions of racism. Open the link in a new tab or window and then return to this page when you are ready.

3.1 Exploring discrimination

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

The impact of racism in the workplace is significant. The people participating in the video you’ve just watched used words such as uncomfortable, vulnerable, paranoid, left out and targeted.

But what does racial discrimination look like?

Bright HR (no date) provides several examples of race discrimination:

Table _unit3.4.1 Table 3
Direct discrimination	Saira, a person of Asian ethnicity, applies to work as a receptionist in a predominantly white area. She meets all of the job requirements, but following an interview the employer tells Saira ‘you wouldn’t fit in here’. A white person with similar skills and experience is hired instead.
Indirect discrimination	Enrique, a Spanish national living in the UK, applies for a position at a marketing agency. The job advert gives ‘native English speaker’ as a requirement, but Enrique is bilingual and meets all the other requirements. After interview, he is rejected as a non-native English speaker.
Racial harassment	Shafiq is a Muslim working as an administrator. His line manager continually comments on his appearance and questions him about Islamic customs. Shafiq begins to find his workplace hostile and intimidating.
Victimisation	Jane, a British woman of Māori ethnicity, is taking her case to employment tribunal after being racially abused by two colleagues. In the run up to the hearing, many more of her colleagues stop talking to Jane and her manager puts her on probation.
Racial discrimination by association	Michael, a white British man, performs well at interview for a sales rep position. The next day he runs into the interviewer while out with his wife, who is of African descent. The interviewer makes it clear Michael will not be hired because of his wife’s colour.

3.2 Being ‘not racist’ is not enough

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Watch this short video from BBC Bitesize, in which psychologist and athlete John Amaechi explains the difference between being not racist and anti-racist. While it is primarily aimed at children and young people, it provides a very clear explanation of the requirement for action. Remember to open this link in a new tab or window, so you can return to the course when you are ready.

Not-racist v anti-racist: what’s the difference?

There is much that can be done in the workplace to create an anti-racist environment, and MHFA England (2020) suggests the following:

A review of policies and protocols through an anti-racist lens.
Understanding the diversity of your workforce at all levels and taking action to address lack of representation where necessary.
Making sure project teams and decision tables include people from diverse backgrounds, and that credit is given to the people who have been involved in the work.
Providing high quality learning and development opportunities on race, racism, being anti-racist and an ally, white privilege, language, microaggressions, and racial gaslighting.

Next, you’ll look in more detail at two of the terms used in the last of MHFA England’s (2020) bullet points – white privilege and racial gaslighting. These terms are more focused on your personal perspective on racism, as this is an important aspect of your diversity journey.

3.3 Enhancing your awareness

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

A photograph mosaic of different faces.

White privilege

Privilege can be experienced in numerous ways, and you’ll explore the overall concept in more detail in Week 4, but here you’ll concentrate on white privilege.

The term was probably first used in the 1930s, to try and explain how white workers in America benefitted from the colour of their skin and racial segregation. It then gained more prominence in the 1980s through the work of Peggy McIntosh (1989). It is an important concept to understand, particularly in the context of your own self-awareness. Watch this short BBC Bitesize video, again from psychologist and athlete John Amaechi:

What is white privilege?

As John explains, it is important not to interpret the word privilege wrongly – a white person can live a very challenging life, full of hardship, but the difference is that their skin colour is unlikely to have been a contributing factor. A key feature is that most people who have white privilege don’t recognise that they have it, so it is hard to understand the impact it has on people who don’t have it.

Once you have acknowledged your own privilege and educated yourself about the lived experiences of people facing racism, you will be in a better position to take action.

You’ll explore privilege in more detail in Week 4.

Racial gaslighting

Williams (2020) defines racial gaslighting as ‘taking someone’s lived experience and telling them they’ve imagined it, or that they’re overemphasising something that, really, isn’t such a big deal.’ She explains that ‘In doing this, we belittle their experiences, and re-cast them as unreliable narrators of their own lives.’

Morris (2020) provides some classic examples:

a.where a person of colour describes a racist interaction, only to have it immediately questioned. ‘Are you sure that’s what it was about?’, ‘Was it definitely about skin colour though?’, ‘But I don’t think that was about racism.’
b.denying the existence of systemic racism when a person of colour is telling you that it exists. For example – saying, ‘oh, it’s only a few bad apples’, tells them that their experiences of systemic discrimination didn’t happen, that instead they were individual, unconnected events.

Many of us will have witnessed or even participated in conversations like this, perhaps because we don’t want to believe that the other person or people involved are racist, or perhaps because we want to somehow reassure the individual who has raised the issue. What we’re actually doing is undermining the experience that this person has just described and disempowering them.

Nazeer (2020) describes five ways to stop racial gaslighting:

If someone shares their experience of racism with you, learn to listen carefully to what they have to say and acknowledge their feelings.
Educate yourself on racism and understand the issues related to white privilege.
Ensure that you offer support and empathy and don’t question a person’s lived experiences of racism.
Recognise if you have internal defensive responses to racism.
Call it out and be an ally to those who have suffered from racism and the forms that it manifests in.

You’ll notice the use of the word ally in point 5 – this is a topic you’ll come back to in Week 8.

Activity _unit3.4.1 Activity 3 Black Lives Matter

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Take a few minutes to reflect on your own awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement. What impact did it have on you? What impact did it have on your workplace?

If you wish to make notes, use the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Black Lives Matter is not a new movement. It was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer in the US. However, the death of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter demonstrations have led to increased momentum in addressing racial inequalities in many organisations. For example, some companies have increased the resources available for training and change management, others have set up better monitoring and reporting, or updated their policies.

Everton (no date) suggests these and a range of other practical steps, including:

Offering reverse mentoring for senior staff to help them understand the challenges faced by junior employees – in this context, that could be between senior white leaders and other diverse colleagues.
Establishing or participating in an inclusivity network and ensuring that feedback from the network is listened to and acted on by senior management.
Opening up opportunities for work placements to a more diverse demographic by stopping unpaid internships and approaching different schools, colleges, and universities.
Avoiding interview panels of just one manager to reduce the risk of bias.

In the next section, you’ll look at another regularly discussed protected characteristic – sex.

4 Sex

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of three dice on a table. The first dice has the female sex symbol, the middle dice is being held by a hand and there is the = symbol on one side and the = with a cross through on the other side. The third dice has the male sex symbol.

Although gender inequality, or gender bias, has been widely considered for many years, there are still a number of ways in which employers can continue to tackle it. Fuhl (2020) suggests several actions, including the following:

Be transparent – Report on your gender statistics and accompany this with a clear action plan on the steps you are taking as an employer to close the gender pay gap.
Support women into more senior roles – set targets, with interim milestones and deadlines and hold managers and decision makers accountable.
Implement gender neutral recruitment processes – for example, research shows that adjectives such as ‘competitive’ and ‘determined’ put women off. On the other hand, words such as ‘collaborative’ and ‘cooperative’ tend to attract more women than men.
Have a clear policy on discrimination – ensure that employees have a proper way to raise or report on issues of inappropriate treatment in the workplace.
Provide flexible working and de-stigmatise shared parental leave – shift your company mindset to assessing workers’ performance on their delivery and achievements rather than time spent in the office.

4.1 Exploring discrimination

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

While it isn’t specifically related to the world of work, Activity 4 provides an interesting insight into gender stereotypes across society.

Activity _unit3.5.1 Activity 4 The Bechdel Test

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes for this activity.

Watch this short film about the Bechdel test:

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 10: The Bechdel Test, Explained

Narrator:

Women make up half of the population and an even higher percentage of moviegoers. So why can’t we catch a break on screen?

The truth is in the screenplay. In movies, the way in which screen time and dialogue are allocated matters. It indicates who has power and who doesn’t.

The Bechdel test is one way to evaluate the underlying power disparities between men and women in some of our favorite movies. Spoiler alert-- the women tend not to fare so well.

CHER HOROWITZ:

Ugh, as if!

REGINA GEORGE:

Now I guess she’s on crack.

Narrator:

Simple enough, right? Wrong. You’d be surprised how few films pass. In fact, some of the most influential movies of all time don’t. Some famous fails include The Godfather, the original Star Wars trilogy, The Shining, Toy Story 1 and 2, the entire Lord of the Rings series, Avatar, and The Avengers.

OPRAH WINFREY:

A new day is on the horizon!

Narrator:

Movies continue to slip through the cracks, even in the era of MeToo and Time’s Up. Moonlight, The Grand Budapest Hotel, La La Land, and Thor Ragnarok also failed the test, and their female characters in the process. In 2018, four of the 10 highest grossing movies of the year failed the test-- Solo, Deadpool 2, Venom, and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Green Book, another fail, even won the Oscar for Best Picture. The Oscars have set a precedent out of honoring Bechdel fails, though. According to an analysis of Best Picture winners throughout history by bechdeltest.com and the BBC, more films passed in the 1930s than in the 2010s. Yikes.

The Bechdel test was inspired by the work of a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel. In 1985, a comic strip simply called "The Rule" was published in Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For series. The comic sees two women taking a trip to the movies. One of them explains a rule she uses to determine what movies she sees, outlining the same criteria that would later comprise the test. Unable to find a movie that fits the bill, the women go home.

It wasn’t until the early 2010s that the Bechdel test was adopted by mainstream critics. Since then, it’s heavily impacted modern cultural discourse around representation and film. In June 2018, the term was added to the Oxford Dictionary.

It’s even being utilised in emerging software programs to detect representation in media. It’s also a proven indicator of box office success. According to the Creative Artists Agency and the tech company shift7, all of the films that have passed the $1 billion mark since 2012 pass the Bechdel test.

The Bechdel test is not a definitive test of representation or even a definitive test of a good movie. What it is a speedometer for the rate of change, or lack thereof. The Bechdel test helps to hold screenwriters accountable so that someday female characters are written less like props and more like people.

End transcript: Video 10: The Bechdel Test, Explained

Video 10: The Bechdel Test, Explained

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Remember the three criteria required. To pass the Bechdel test, a movie must have:

2 named female characters…
…who have a conversation…
…about something other than a man.

Next time you watch a film – have a go at applying the rule and see if it passes.

Comment

Film and theatre are two places where gender stereotypes are often seen, so this can be a useful tool for raising awareness. However, it doesn’t always work, for example with films that have a central, female character who spends a lot of time alone, such as Gravity (Sandra Bullock).

As well as this test for films, a test for plays has been devised by the Sphynx Theatre. It asks questions such as ‘Is there a woman centre stage? Is she active rather than reactive? Is the character compelling and complex?’ If you are interested in exploring this test further, you can find out more here: Sphinx theatre resources

Now watch this short video in which a variety of women share their experiences of sexism in the workplace.

Video 11: Sexism In The Workplace Isn’t Dead—We Checked

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Harrassment

The CIPD (2021) explains that there are two types of harassment related to sex, and both involve ‘unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual’:

Sexual harassment involves unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. This must have an actual sexual content or connotation, for example making sexual remarks or jokes or making promotion decisions on the basis of sexual advances being accepted or rejected.
Sex-based harassment is a separate form of harassment involving unwanted conduct that is related to an individual’s sex or the sex of another person. This is not sexual in nature but is behaviour which is linked to sex; for example, in a female-dominated workplace, constantly telling derogatory jokes about male stupidity which a particular male employee finds offensive.

4.2 Enhancing your awareness

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Recent research

Although sex discrimination is a familiar topic, it is still something that many people experience in the workplace today. SME Loans (2021) surveyed 2000 employees in the UK on the topic of gender based discrimination, and unexpectedly found that more men (28%) than women (23%) felt they had experienced sex discrimination in the workplace, with women more likely to feel they were not taken seriously because of their gender, and men more likely to feel that women ‘get away with more at work’.

The survey also found differences between age groups:

Table _unit3.5.1 Table 4
Age group	% experiencing gender discrimination at work
18–24	28.2
25–34	38.4
35–44	30.4
45–54	17
>55	7.5

They also found regional variations, with over 34% of the workforce in Yorkshire reporting that they had experienced workplace gender discrimination, compared with 15.6% in Northern Ireland.

Gender pay gap

Since 2006, the Global Gender Gap index has been measuring the extent of gender based gaps among four key dimensions:

Economic Participation and Opportunity
Educational Attainment
Health and Survival
Political empowerment

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2020) projects that the overall global gender gap will close in 100 years across the 107 countries covered continuously since the first edition of the report. Even more disappointingly, lack of progress in closing the Economic Participation and Opportunity gap (the most directly relevant to the workplace), means that it will now take 257 years to close this gap.

If you wish to look at the data for a specific country, profiles are provided for each of the 153 participating countries. See References for the link.

UK data

In the latest statistical release from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (White, 2021), the gender pay gap among full time employees was 7.9%. (7% in 2020 and 9% in 2019). It is important to note that these data were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of wages and hours worked and disruption to data collection. A larger difference was measured in employees aged 40 or over and for higher earners.

5 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now that you’ve completed Week 2, you can take a short quiz to help you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 2 practice quiz

6 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week you have looked at three protected characteristics – disability, race and sex – in more detail, exploring key issues and improving your understanding of what discrimination means for individuals with those characteristics.

You should now be able to:

describe key aspects of discrimination due to disability, race or sex in the workplace
reflect on a range of issues related to disability, race or sex in the workplace
identify actions that you could take personally and organisationally to address these issues.

Next week, you’ll continue this exploration of protected characteristics, and consider the contribution that social capital makes to discrimination and lack of inclusion.

You can now go to Week 3.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Last week you explored three of the key protected characteristics, disability, race and sex. This week, you’ll continue that process, looking at issues surrounding age, religion or belief, gender reassignment and sexual orientation in the workplace.

Although it isn’t a protected characteristic, you’ll also look at the contribution that social capital makes to discrimination, and how enhancing social capital can make a difference.

Watch this short video, in which employers discuss their support for colleagues with some of the diversity characteristics you’ll be learning about this week.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 3

Video _unit4.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 3

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 3

Sophie Washington

I think social capital is hugely important. We, obviously at WizKids, have a really fantastic team of volunteers across the UK, with a huge variety of experience in different personal work experience, all sorts of different backgrounds where we are so diverse. So I think it’s really incredible to actually learn from that experience and those networks, as well. And it’s just a really collaborative and young-people-focused place to be. So it’s hugely important to us.

Craig Pemblington

We have quite a young team, but still a diverse range of ages. And again, some of the practical measures around that include things like flexible working.

Yusuf Nagdi

We are a menopause-friendly employer, and we make that really clear. We’ve got lots of wellbeing support. We put lots of fitness support in place. So I’d say a lot of those incidents or any concerns would primarily be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Craig Pemblington

Many of the ways in which we’re working with colleagues that are older means that they are often less inclined to be more mobile to travel within the environment, not always. But sometimes that is the case, where some of our younger colleagues can feel like they can up sticks and run off to an event if we need them to run an event and others can’t. So I think it’s about the way in which we enable flexible working practices, enable the same kind of portfolio and level of support.

Yusuf Nagdi

We always work cooperatively or collaboratively with our LGBT network. We have had individuals within our organisation who are transitioning, and what we’ve done is we have supported those individuals. We speak to them to understand exactly what their needs are. If they need to be taken off frontline policing for a short time to see what additional support is in place, then we will always do that. We are also in Stonewall’s Top 100 employers, and we are the highest ranking police service in the country.

Craig Pemblington

Around about a third of our staff team are LGBT+. And as a result, I think the support that is generated for that has come from internal spaces, so in the same way we run a BAME community, or they self-facilitate around BAME community and they self-facilitate around LGBT spaces. And we draw on that a lot, because that influences a lot of the work, a lot of the way we talk about the work, thinking about LGBT communities.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 3

Download

Video _unit4.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 3

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week, you will be able to:

describe key aspects of several protected characteristics, and reflect on related issues in the workplace
reflect on the impact social capital can have on diversity and discrimination
understand the concept and impact of intersectionality.

You’ll start the week by looking at age in the workplace.

1 Age

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of different people working together on a laptop.

A recent Vantage Ageing blog post (2020) shares six reasons why an age diverse workplace is important:

studies show that age diversity improves performance
it can reduce employee turnover
it drives innovation
it offers a variety of skillsets
it provides a range of business approaches that can help you reach different customer types more effectively
it offers a mentorship platform which can work both ways.

Exploring discrimination

Even though there are clear benefits to age diversity within the workforce, there are also many examples of age-related discrimination, of both older and younger workers. Consider these examples (adapted from ACAS 2019):

Table _unit4.2.1 Table 1: Age-related discrimination examples
Direct discrimination	Louise is recruiting, and the successful applicant must complete difficult training. She discounts her team’s younger members, presuming they will not want the hard work, and older members, thinking they will not adapt to the change, choosing instead to shortlist staff in their mid-thirties who she believes are more likely to have the necessary blend of ambition and sense of responsibility.
Indirect discrimination	Gym manager Esme tells employees she needs two staff to work on reception. She adds that anyone interested needs to look ‘fit and enthusiastic’ as the gym is trying to encourage more young people to join. Her requirement may indirectly discriminate against older staff unless it can be objectively justified.
Harassment	Sixty-year-old Margaret feels humiliated and undermined at the store where she works. Despite her extensive retail experience and recent visual merchandiser qualification, her manager regularly tells her in front of other staff that she is ‘out of touch’ and that the store needs ‘fresh blood’.
Victimisation	Apprentice Reyansh tells his manager Alan that some of the older employees make fun of him because of his age and play pranks such as leaving toys where he’s working. Alan tells Reyansh to toughen up as the firm has no time for complainers. Some weeks later Alan punishes Reyansh for complaining by cancelling his training course.

Simpson (2021) recommends four actions to tackle ageism in your organisation:

Be bias-active – take steps to understand the level of age bias that already exists within your organisation and offer relevant training.
Flex appeal – create flexible roles aimed at older workers, such as rehiring retired professionals for key periods of the year on flexible contracts.
Change tack – be prepared to hire and re-skill older candidates. Look beyond experience and technical fit to soft skills, behaviour, and motivation.
Engage the age – ask your existing older workforce what they want and how you can best support them to remain engaged in work for longer.

Enhancing your awareness

A useful way to explore the workstyles and needs of different age groups in the workplace is to consider the characteristics of the different generations, from traditionalists to Gen Z. For the first time in history, it is possible to find individuals from five generations working alongside each other.

Greater awareness of each generation’s preferences can be helpful when you’re working with colleagues from different age groups. A commonly sited example of difference in this context is preferred methods of communication. However, it is important to acknowledge that this is a generalisation and won’t apply to everyone in a given age group. Taking time to understand the preferences of an individual is always the best approach.

Activity _unit4.2.1 Activity 1 Which generation are you?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Although each generation is sometimes defined slightly differently and the specific dates can be disputed, the categories are commonly outlined as follows:

Traditionalists, also known as the silent generation: born between 1925–1945
Baby boomers: born between 1946–1964
Generation X: born between 1965–1979
Millennials (or Generation Y): born between 1980–1994
Generation Z: born between 1995–2012
Generation Alpha: born since 2013

Use your preferred search engine to explore your generation’s key characteristics in more detail. Do they ring true for you? Think about people you work with who are much older or younger than you – do the characteristics for their generations match their preferences?

Comment

The aim of this activity is to get you thinking about potential differences in work style that can lead to misunderstanding in the workplace. For example, if you are more aware of how an older or younger colleague prefers to communicate, you could adapt your approach or talk to them about the issue rather than feeling frustrated that their preferences are different from your own.

In the next section, you’ll consider the impact of religion or belief on the workplace, which is a much wider issue than you may have thought.

2 Religion or belief

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a person with both their hands to their chest.

Landau Law (no date) explains that a religious or philosophical belief must be all of the following:

genuinely held
more than an opinion or viewpoint based on current information
about a “weighty and substantial” aspect of human life and behaviour
have a certain level of clarity, seriousness and importance
worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

Exploring discrimination

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2020) explains that although the Equality Act doesn’t provide a list of beliefs, case law has confirmed the following religions or beliefs are covered under its discrimination provisions:

Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Pagan, Humanist and Atheist beliefs.
Environmental or ‘green’ beliefs in the importance of climate change, animal welfare, anti-hunting, spiritualism, and beliefs in the psychic field.
Some political beliefs and affiliations if they significantly affect how a person lives their life.

Solicitors at Landau Law (no date) also provide a useful overview, including some interesting examples of successful and unsuccessful cases:

Cases where the court has found that there is a protected philosophical belief:

A belief in Darwinism
A climate change activist’s belief that humanity is heading towards catastrophic climate change and has a duty to avoid it.
An opponent of fox-hunting’s belief in the sanctity of life.
Ethical veganism (an ethical vegan is someone who goes further than following a vegan diet, by avoiding all forms of animal harm and exploitation, such as products tested on animals and woollen or leather clothing).
Belief in life after death and the ability of mediums to contact the dead.

Cases where the court has found that the test for a philosophical belief is not satisfied:

Vegetarianism.
A belief that individuals are entitled to own the copyright over their own creative works.
A belief that transgenderism does not exist.
A belief that a poppy should be worn early in November.

Enhancing your awareness

Belief

You may be aware of recent high profile cases highlighting the conflict between the rights of trans people and of those who hold gender-critical beliefs.

Gender critical beliefs can be defined as ‘the view that someone’s sex - whether they are male or female - is biological and immutable’ and ‘cannot be conflated’ with their gender identity (whether they identify as a man or a woman). (Samuelson, 2021).

As Holmes (2021) explains, these cases emphasize ‘the challenges for employers where staff have conflicting beliefs which impinge on the rights of others’.

In the case of Forstater v CGD Europe, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that gender-critical beliefs should be added to the category of philosophical belief under the discrimination laws. However, they were also ‘keen to ensure that the decision was not misinterpreted as diminishing the rights of, and protections for, transgender employees.’

Activity _unit4.3.1 Activity 2 A high profile case

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

For a detailed overview of the Forstater v CGD Europe case, read this article by Kurnatowska & Farr (2021), which was published in the Employment Law Journal. Click here for a link to the article.

Make a note of anything you find useful in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

This has been a very high profile case, continuing beyond the initial ruling, and much of the commentary in the press and on social media has been highly emotive. This article is written by legal professionals and provides a useful perspective for employers.

The case you have just reviewed highlights the very real possibility of employees with genuinely held beliefs coming into conflict with colleagues holding opposing views, and the potential consequences in the workplace. Holmes (2021) suggests that ‘the risks can be reduced by educating the workforce in this space’ and that a Dignity at Work policy could be a useful step.

A Dignity at Work policy aims to support a culture in which colleagues respect each other and value individual differences.

When creating a Dignity at Work policy, Rogers (2019) recommends taking the following steps:

think about the type of work environment you want to create and set out clear objectives for how you expect your staff to get there
cover all bases in terms of who is involved, whose responsibility it is to enforce and why it’s important
set it out clearly, explaining each point and defining what is meant by each term
look at governing bodies surrounding dignity at work, including Acts and reports, and incorporate their principles according to your ethos.

The article goes on to include a template to help you create your own policy. Find the link in References.

In the next section you’ll find out more about some of the issues for transgender employees and their employers.

3 Gender reassignment

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Juster (2021) points out that gender reassignment terminology is ‘rapidly changing, and although general definitions exist, some people may object to using those terms to describe themselves.’

Show description|Hide description

A graphic of two halves: left-hand side has a sign going left, labelled past. The right-hand side has a sign pointing right, labelled future.

For example, the discrimination legislation refers to individuals as being ‘transsexual’ which, for many, is now an outdated term. A more commonly used word today is ‘transgender’, but that is not without its objectors either. Others prefer to use the word ‘trans’.

Juster also refers to the judicial Equal Treatment Bench Book (2021), which aims to increase awareness and understanding of the different circumstances of people appearing in court. In Chapter 12 (p329), it explains:

Sometimes people who identify with a gender which is different from that which they were assigned at birth refer to themselves, (in addition to being, say, ‘a man’ or ‘a woman’), as also being a ‘trans’, ‘transgender’ or ‘transgendered’ person. Some people object to some or all of those terms. When these terms are used, it is as a broad umbrella to describe a wide variety of people who cross the conventional boundaries of gender. It may be terminology that people will use only in certain circumstances or in certain company.

Exploring discrimination

Consider these examples of discrimination (adapted from ACAS, 2019):

Table _unit4.4.1 Table 2: Examples of discrimination (adapted from ACAS, 2019)
Direct discrimination	Rianne, transitioning from man to woman, wants to continue in her job. However, her boss says that until Rianne’s transition is complete, she needs to temporarily move to a role that has less contact with clients.
Indirect discrimination	Francine is arranging a business trip abroad. Her manager requires all employees travelling abroad to take their birth certificate as additional proof of identity. They must also leave copies with the manager. Francine has not told her employer she transitioned. She didn’t want to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate, so does not have a new birth certificate as Francine. To show her original birth certificate would ‘out’ her.
Harrassment	Sarah has transitioned to live permanently as a woman. All colleagues are supportive apart from two, who don’t agree with gender reassignment. When they think no-one else can hear, they refer to Sarah using ‘he’, ‘him’, or ‘his’ to upset her. This is despite, with Sarah’s approval, colleagues being told what language is acceptable/ unacceptable.
Victimisation	Fourteen months ago Greg gave evidence against a manager disciplined for speaking abusively to an employee about their gender reassignment. Now, Greg is applying for an internal promotion. His application is turned down by the manager who was disciplined, saying that Greg’s performance in his current role needs to improve before he can be considered again. Greg has had no previous complaints about his work.

Enhancing your awareness

Research conducted by Totaljobs (2021) surveyed over 400 trans (their chosen terminology) employees on their experiences in the workplace, covering a range of topics from discrimination to HR support. Some of the key findings include:

In 2016, 52% of trans people reported that they didn’t reveal their gender identity at work, in 2021 the number has risen to 65%.
56% of trans people believe it’s harder for them to find a job.
53% think they experience more barriers to progress to senior positions than non-trans people.
33% have experienced discrimination in job interviews and applications.
When asked what they look for when considering a new role, 33% want to know if a company has trans-specific policies in place.
In 2016, 38% of trans workers said they’d experienced discrimination from their colleagues, in 2021 that’s down to 25%.
In 2021, 43% of trans employees specifically said they’ve left a job because the environment was unwelcoming, up from 36% in 2016.

The report goes on to highlight two actions that should be avoided:

Deadnaming – calling someone by their birth name after they have changed their name, usually as a part of gender transition.

Misgendering – misuse of pronouns, i.e. using a form of address which does not reflect their gender identity.

Some of the key findings noted here indicate a worsening rather than improving picture. Throughout the report, partners and national transgender charity Sparkle offer advice to employers, including the following:

Don’t assume – no two trans people will have an identical journey so treat everyone uniquely and without bias.
Communicate your values – publish a positive statement on equality, diversity and inclusion on your website.
De-gender the language – in the recruitment process and internal documents. For example, swap ‘he’ and ‘she’ for neutral pronouns.
Train your staff – run courses and training on gender diversity and inclusion, use a top-down, bottom-up approach to ensure everyone is involved.
Start a conversation – invite a trans organisation to deliver a talk.

In the next section, you’ll briefly consider sexual orientation in the workplace.

4 Sexual orientation

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

An image of a hand holding the pride flag in the air in a crowd.

Psychology Today (no date) explains that ‘sexual orientation describes patterns of sexual, romantic, and emotional attraction, and one’s sense of identity based on those attractions. Sexual orientation is distinct from gender identity, the internal sense of being male, female, or non-binary.’

Exploring discrimination

A report from Stonewall and YouGov (Bachmann & Gooch, 2018), surveying over 5000 people across England, Scotland and Wales,reported the following key findings:

Almost one in five LGBT staff (18%) have been the target of negative comments or conduct from work colleagues in the last year because they are LGBT.
More than a third of LGBT staff (35%) have hidden or disguised that they are LGBT at work in the last year because they were afraid of discrimination.
One in eight lesbian, gay and bi people (12%), and one in five trans people (21%) wouldn’t feel confident reporting homophobic, biphobic or transphobic workplace bullying to their employer.

While the authors acknowledge that some employers are making progress towards inclusion, it is clear that many LGBT people still face discrimination, exclusion and barriers at work.

The report contains illustrative quotes from individuals and many other useful statistics to illustrate the issues raised. Find the link in References.

Enhancing your awareness

The CIPD’s Inclusion at Work report (2021), provides perspectives on LGBT+ working lives drawing on data from several surveys and ‘insights from senior people professional roundtables on LGBT+ and inclusion.’

Key findings are that LGBT+ employees:

experience heightened workplace conflict
experience job dissatisfaction and less psychological safety
are more likely to report that work has a negative impact on their health.

The report highlights three areas where organisations need to act:

workplace conflict
psychological safety and wellbeing
LGBT+ inclusive policies and practices.

You’ll learn more about psychological safety in Week 8.

The report goes on to make a wide range of recommendations to help employers to address these areas, focusing on creating clear policies and reviewing existing ones, building support mechanisms and allyship, encouraging conversations about inclusion, gaining buy-in and support from senior managers, and providing relevant training. You’ll find the link in References.

Activity _unit4.5.1 Activity 3 Reflecting on assumptions

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on your own views and assumptions relating to sexuality and relationships. Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you’ve assumed that their partner would be a particular gender? Has anyone made incorrect assumptions about your own relationships?

If you have had that conversation – how did it make you feel? How did it end? In future, is there anything you would do differently now you’ve worked through the learning from this week?

Comment

We all make assumptions and have biases based on our own experiences of life. One of the key messages to take away from this course is to be aware of this tendency and try to keep an open mind about the individuals we encounter. Actively listening to what they have to say will give us a much better understanding of their perspective.

Throughout all the diversity issues you’ve explored so far, there is another element than can further enhance an individual’s experience of discrimination, and that is social capital. You’ll explore that in more detail in the next section.

5 Social capital and diversity

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Box _unit4.6.1

Spotlight on…

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a hand writing on the chalkboard. They are drawing a network of people.

Social capital is not covered under the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, but it does have an underlying influence on the discrimination experienced by many. If an individual has low social capital, that compounds the impact of discrimination by reducing their power and opportunity to combat or overcome it.

If you are interested in exploring the links between social capital and protected characteristics further, there are many research papers linking social capital with discrimination and you’ll find some of them in Further Reading.

There are many different definitions of social capital, which vary depending on the context and expertise of the author. For the purposes of this course, some of the more relevant definitions include:

The ability of actors to secure benefits by virtue of membership in social networks or other social structures.

(Portes, 1998, p. 6)

The processes by which social actors create and mobilize their network connections within and between organisations to gain access to other social actors’ resources.

(Knoke, 1999, p. 18)

Features of social organisation such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.

(Putnam 1995, p. 67)

Social capital relates to the way in which your colleagues see you. Do they hold you in high regard? Are you well known for the right things?

(Kopp, 2019)

You’ll see that several of these definitions refer to networks, and the availability of these networks to an individual can depend on a wide range of factors.

Career advancement

Put simply, the higher your social capital, the better connected you are to people with access to valuable resources. In the world of work, those could include opportunities for employment, personal skill development or career progression.

IResearchNet (no date) explains that building social capital in the workplace can give an individual access to ‘timely information from others, such as a company’s difficulties while job seeking or a new boss’s personal format preferences for compiling a report’ which can help them avoid career setbacks.

The author also suggests that mentoring is a good workplace example for the building of social capital. For example, the mentor builds social capital within the organisation, which might be exchanged for leadership opportunities, and the mentee can receive ‘constructive feedback for personal development, sponsorship for advancement opportunities, and moral support in times of difficulty’.

You’ll find out more about mentoring and sponsorship in Week 6.

Activity _unit4.6.1 Activity 4 Enhancing your own social capital

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on your own social capital. It is a difficult concept to measure, but can you broadly assess whether yours is low or high? How well developed are your social networks? How have they helped your career?

Focusing on the workplace, think about how you could enhance your social capital and make notes in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Enhancing your social capital is essentially about building your networks, so you might choose to find a mentor, join a new workplace working group or volunteer to sit on a committee. Looking for opportunities to meet more people from across your organisation, sector or community, will increase your social capital.

Building social capital

Claridge (2017) offers the following advice for building social capital:

Talk – give priority to the social interactions that we may not perceive as having as much value as getting a report finished. Spend time talking to people and getting to know their background, interests, beliefs and values.
Connect – build and reinforce social relationships with repeat interactions over time.
Give – sharing information, giving or loaning equipment, doing something for someone, giving your time to listen, etc. This builds trust and respect, and a willingness to give to you in future.
Value – value the knowledge and expertise of other people around you, including the person who delivers the milk or the post. That person may have valuable knowledge and skills that you don’t have.

Although the advice is aimed at the individual, a more communicative, open and friendly environment could easily be encouraged in the workplace.

Social capital, COVID and new ways of working

If social capital is essentially about ‘the benefits derived from being social’ (Claridge, 2014), it is easy to see how the COVID-19 pandemic could have had a significant impact on the social capital of many individuals.

Social distancing, furlough and working from home have inevitably decreased our range of social interactions.

Sato (2020) describes the findings of a recent survey of 2,400 UK and US workers:

Of those who claim to have become more productive since the switch to remote working, three quarters already know at least half of their company. This suggests that many of us were trading on existing relationships during lockdown to survive what has been described as the world’s largest remote working experiment.

Sato (2020)

Basically, those individuals already had high social capital and were able to use that during the pandemic.

Sato goes on to discuss the benefits of an office environment in allowing people to build social capital through everyday interactions, and the risk that over a prolonged period of remote working, social capital can decline. This is also an issue for new staff, particularly those at the beginning of their career, and the difficulty for them in building those vital social networks.

While reduced social interaction has been negative for some in this context, remote working has had a positive impact on the working lives of others. Asif Sadiq explains.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit4.6.1 Video 2: How the pandemic changed DEI

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 2: How the pandemic changed DEI

Asif Sadiq

The last couple of years have taught us a few big lessons. One is that we can’t be reactive to diversity and inclusion. As a result of the pandemic, many people had to work remotely. Many organisations had to go into remote working, flexible working. They had to manage all these new concepts.

Now, the truth is, we’ve been talking about flexible working, remote working for a very long time. And not many organisations had embraced it. But those that had were in a better position to continue their business when we went into the pandemic. Those that hadn’t were struggling, struggling to ensure that the businesses can still run.

And the reason I mentioned that is it showcases the importance of being proactive when it comes to diversity and inclusion, not reactive. With some of the changes over the last couple of years, one of the key things that we’ve learnt is that we can always reimagine our world of work. We can introduce different perspectives and still succeed.

Working from home has created all sorts of elements of inclusion. We’ve learned more about each other than we ever have. And that’s done great for people’s job satisfaction. It’s supported people with different needs from disabilities, caring responsibilities, and so on. But what it’s done for organisations, it’s got the best out of their people and opened up their organisations to a larger group of potential candidates. And that’s huge.

It’s also really supported when it comes to retention and progression. People now can adapt their working world or working environment to suit their personal circumstances and needs. And that’s huge because it means we recruit the best people, we retain the best people, and we can progress the best people without having limitations.

End transcript: Video 2: How the pandemic changed DEI

Download

Video _unit4.6.1 Video 2: How the pandemic changed DEI

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

From an employer’s perspective, there is evidence of strong links between social capital and job satisfaction and productivity. Looking at trust, social interaction, norms and sanctions as dimensions of social capital in the workplace, Lange (2015) found they had a strong influence on worker’s job satisfaction and well-being. Similarly, Clausen et al (2019) found an association between social capital in the workplace and self-reported job performance, work engagement, and psychological well-being.

So it is in the employer’s interest to enhance social capital internally for all employees, not just those in diverse groups and special thought should be given to how social interaction can be encouraged when remote working.

Enhancing social capital in the workplace

In Activity 4, you considered your own social capital and how you might improve it. In the next activity, you’ll think about how you can support the social capital of others.

Activity _unit4.6.2 Activity 5 Enhancing the social capital of others

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Choose a diversity group that you have a strong interest in supporting, either internally or externally. This could be for personal, team or organisational reasons.

Spend a few minutes listing ideas for how you, your team, or your organisation might enhance the social capital of individuals in that group. Think about Claridge’s advice to talk, connect, give and value. How can you offer them those opportunities?

Comment

In Week 6 you will look at raising awareness of your brand among target groups within the community. Offering them opportunities to talk and connect would be a valuable starting point, for example through taster days or open events or offering a mentoring programme to young people.

Internally, there will be many ways in which you can bring current employees together to discuss and collaborate with colleagues from different departments across the organisation. Perhaps some training on how to network effectively would also be valuable.

6 Intersectionality

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Finally this week, you’ll consider the concept of intersectionality. Although you’ve explored each diversity characteristic as a separate issue so far in this course, there are of course many individuals who have a number of these characteristics, and that can make their experiences more complex.

Watch this short video to learn more:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 3: What is intersectionality?

Video _unit4.7.1 Video 3: What is intersectionality?

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 3: What is intersectionality?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Speaker:

What is intersectionality? Intersectionality is a way of understanding social relations by examining intersecting forms of discrimination. This means acknowledging that social systems are complicated and that many forms of oppression like racism, sexism, and ageism might be present and active at the same time in a person’s life.

Everyday approaches to building equality tend to focus on one type of discrimination, for instance, sexism, and then work to address only that specific concern. But while the career of a young, white, and able-bodied woman might improve with gender equality protections, an older black disabled lesbian may continue to be hampered by racism, ageism, ableism, and homophobia in the workplace. Intersectionality is about understanding and addressing all potential roadblocks to an individual or group’s well being. But it’s not as simple as just adding up oppressions and addressing each one individually.

Racism, sexism, and ableism exist on their own. But when combined, they compound and transform the experience of oppression. Intersectionality acknowledges that unique oppressions exist but is also dedicated to understanding how they change in combination.

The roots of intersectionality lie within the Black Feminist movement with legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw originating the term. Crenshaw felt that anti-racist and feminist movements were both overlooking the unique challenges faced by Black women. She stated that legislation about race is framed to protect Black men.

And legislation about sexism is understood to protect white women. So simply combining racism and sexism together does not therefore protect Black women. Intersectional theory is now applied across a range of social divisions and also to understandings of domination, such as those associated with whiteness, masculinity, and heterosexuality.

Intersectionality is not only about multiple identities. And it’s not a simple answer to solving problems around equality and diversity. It is, however, an essential framework as we truly engage with issues around privilege and power and work to bring them into the open. Intersectionality means listening to others, examining our own privileges and asking questions about who may be excluded or adversely affected by our work. As importantly, it means taking measurable action to invite, include, and center the voices and work of marginalised individuals.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

End transcript: Video 3: What is intersectionality?

Download

Video _unit4.7.1 Video 3: What is intersectionality?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

The Equality Network (no date) explains that ‘having an intersectional identity often generates a feeling that someone does not completely belong in one group or another, and can lead to isolation, depression and other mental health issues’. It provides two illustrative examples:

‘A gay man has to deal with homophobia. A black man has to deal with racism. But a black gay man will have to deal with homophobia and racism (often at the same time). It is often the case that he will face racism inside the LGBT community and homophobia in the black community.

Similarly, a disabled lesbian Muslim will have to deal with ableism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism and sexism. She might find physical barriers to accessing LGBT venues, but even when she can get into the building she might still face racism and Islamophobia from the white LGBT community.’

In the workplace, any diversity and inclusion activity that focuses only on one aspect of discrimination has the potential to be a negative experience for some of those involved.

Atcheson (2021) explains ‘When a company states that they’re prioritising ‘X’ group, they inevitably actually draw a circle around them, leaving any underrepresented group outside feeling less heard than ever. In fact, even those in the circle can feel misheard; attributed to one targeted demographic that may or may not resonate with their own self-perception.’

She advises ‘Ultimately, for diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies to work, defined focuses are needed. But these focuses should be approached with an intersectional lens. That way, individual problems can be highlighted and tackled, without creating an environment that’s exclusionary.’

Henke (no date) suggests six ways organisations can improve on intersectionality:

Recognise individual identities – enabling employees to identify their diversity dimensions voluntarily is a crucial starting point for revealing the different experiences of different groups.
Capture data and encourage people to tell their own stories – it is important to respond, so use this learning for something tangible, e.g. to support initiatives such as affinity groups, conscious inclusion training and benchmarking.
Capture a culture of acknowledgement and understanding – this will help to build an environment of openness and inclusion, with greater satisfaction and productivity.
Capture diversity of thought – breeding dynamic creativity, ideas and workforce agility, while maintaining a culture of inclusiveness.
Help leaders to understand – inclusive leadership is about creating a high trust culture, proactively seeking out or inviting divergent points of view. If people think your message is to ‘tick boxes’ they will not engage with it.
Educate colleagues – to ensure that a level of understanding exists across the entire workforce, e.g. a mandatory learning and development curriculum covering intersectionality, creating a culture of inclusion and how to be an ally; mixing peer-to-peer networks and promoting social interaction around global cultural events; sharing information through employee resource groups.

In the next activity, you’ll have the opportunity to reflect on diversity training you’ve had in the past, and whether it recognised intersectionality.

Activity _unit4.7.1 Activity 6 Recognising intersectionality

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes for this activity.

Take a few minutes to reflect on any diversity awareness training you’ve had, in the workplace, at an educational establishment or elsewhere. Did it take into account the concept of intersectionality or focus on one topic only? If it was single topic training, how might it have been done differently?

Comment

Much of the training we experience, while important, useful and well meaning, does tend to focus on a single issue, e.g. race or disability. By widening our discussions of inclusion, we can make them more inclusive and enhance our understanding of its importance and value.

Another important aspect of intersectionality is that different elements will become more or less important throughout our lives, as Asif Sadiq explains.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit4.7.2 Video 4: What is intersectionality

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4: What is intersectionality

Asif Sadiq

So no one person is one thing. No one’s just a woman or a person of colour or an ethnic minority or someone who is from the LGBTQ community or a person with disability. We have multiple layers to our unique identities. And interestingly, they intersect at different times. What we sometimes do is assume what we see is the only element. And usually within an organisation, that’s then assigned to you for the rest of your career that that’s your difference, that’s your diversity.

The truth is each and every one of us during our lifetime, different elements of diversity will be more important or less important. And it’s really important if we’re truly going to create an environment that’s inclusive, we adapt through that life journey of our employees as things change.

End transcript: Video 4: What is intersectionality

Download

Video _unit4.7.2 Video 4: What is intersectionality

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

7 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now that you’ve completed Week 3, you can take a short quiz to help you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 3 practice quiz

8 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week you have looked at several of the protected characteristics in more detail, exploring key issues and improving your understanding of what discrimination means for individuals with those characteristics. You’ve also considered social capital and intersectionality, and their impact on discrimination and inclusion.

You should now be able to:

describe key aspects of several protected characteristics, and reflect on related issues in the workplace
reflect on the impact social capital can have on diversity and discrimination
understand the concept and impact of intersectionality.

Next week, you’ll start to look at some of the barriers to diversity and inclusion that you might encounter.

You can now go to Week 4.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Over the last two weeks you have looked at a range of the Equality Act’s protected characteristics, exploring examples of discrimination and learning about key issues, recent cases and appropriate terminology.

You were also introduced to the impact of social capital on inclusion, and the concept of intersectionality, when a single individual has several diversity characteristics.

This week, you’ll pick up on some of the issues raised in more detail. You’ll explore challenges that might present barriers to the diversity you are aiming to facilitate, such as unconscious bias or fear of saying the wrong thing.

Start this week by watching some of our employers explain the value of listening to and learning from others, and owning the uncertainty you might feel.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 4

Video _unit5.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 4

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 4

Sophie Washington

Nervousness about talking about diversity and inclusion is completely understandable. Nobody wants to offend or upset anyone by accident. And sometimes it can be really difficult to find the correct language to use.

I think the most important thing to remember is that knowledge is power. And actually learning everything you can, speaking to people, finding their preferences, and generally speaking, if you approach people in the right way, even if you may use the wrong term, if you learn from that, most people won’t get offended or upset. They’ll be pleased to actually help you learn to do better for the future.

Craig Pemblington: Firstly, I’d say that feeling of nervousness is really natural and to embrace it a little bit, but I’d also suggest that they own it. And it’s OK to recognise that you have a challenge around diversity and inclusion in your organisation. And actually, a more authentic and honest approach to that is usually the best starting point, because what a lot of organisations might try to do is something that’s fairly tokenistic, so finding people within an organisation who are more representative but they’re a very small minority and then making that a focus point of recruitment campaigns and things. And actually, it’s not genuine. And I think that in terms of recruitment, but also in terms of customers, people recognise genuine authenticity.

So my thoughts are, own it and be brave. One of the ways in which we had to be really brave was that we tinkered a lot with our recruitment and selection process. But actually, we decided we wanted to run a positive action scheme, we had a major problem with not getting enough talent from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds, and we were worried. We were worried about legal ramifications, how do you hold the line between positive action and positive discrimination? And what we decided to do, ultimately, was to go for it and seek some relatively inexpensive advice about what we could and couldn’t say and do and just be brave and go out there and do it. And actually, we were respected more for that, and the results have been that, three years down the line, we’ve went from 7 percent BAME to 40, 4-0, percent BAME.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 4

Download

Video _unit5.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 4

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week you will be able to:

describe unconscious bias and the impact it can have on our approach to diversity
reflect on other potential barriers to diversity in your workplace, including privilege and diversity fatigue
understand the impact that your sector and location might have on diversity.

You’ll start by exploring the concept of unconscious bias and what you can do to combat it.

1 Unconscious bias

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

We all experience unconscious bias, it’s the way our brains work. Our unconscious biases can lead us to develop and rely on stereotypes which, in turn, can lead to prejudice and discrimination. So, it is important to raise our awareness of them and take actions to mitigate their impact.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of weighing scales, with a post-it labelled fact on one side, and a post-it labelled bias on the other side. The side with facts has more post-its and therefore suggesting that it weighs more.

The human brain can receive many more pieces of information than it can consciously process, so we have to rely on our subconscious to take short cuts. These short cuts are influenced by a wide range of factors.

The Managing Director of EW Group (Wilson, no date) defines unconscious bias as ‘what happens when we act on subconscious, deeply ingrained biases, stereotypes, and attitudes formed from our inherent human cognition, experiences, upbringing, and environment.’ She explains further:

If you act on your gut instincts, kneejerk reactions, or assumptions, there’s a chance you’re opening yourself up to unconscious bias. This can mean people affected by your actions might be unfairly discriminated against or favoured without you even realising, even if you don’t believe in stereotypes.

(Wilson, no date)

There are many different types of unconscious bias, some of which are outlined in this short video from the Democratic Society:

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 2: Unconscious Biases- Democratic Society UK

Narrator:

Without us realising it, our brains can sabotage our own thinking. Instead of thinking clearly, our mind can simply close itself off. Luckily, there’s a way to see the bigger picture. If you’re aware of these blocks, sometimes called cognitive or unconscious biases, you can address them.

This is particularly helpful when you’re working with others to make important decisions. There are many unconscious biases. We’re going to highlight six of the most common ones so that you can identify and work around them.

The first bias is anchoring bias, the first or last piece of information you hear or see can create a lasting memory. We tend to remember this information, even if it’s not the most useful or relevant piece of information that we have received. The second bias is The Bandwagon effect, sometimes called groupthink. When many people take one position, you might feel like you should join them even if their views don’t align with yours. Be clear on your own position and be wary of getting swept along.

The third bias is blind spot bias. We all have our blind spots, but they’re much easier to recognise in others than in ourselves. To address this, encourage others to watch for your blind spots and you can watch for theirs.

The fourth bias is confirmation bias. We’re comfortable with what we know and tend to approach new information with fixed ideas. We’re more likely to accept information that supports and reject information that contradicts our world view. This may lead us to stereotype those with a different viewpoint. This is perhaps the strongest bias and the most common. So watch closely for this one.

The fifth bias is information bias. Often when we in a group, we think we need more information before we can make a decision. Sometimes it’s necessary, sometimes it’s not. People can often make more accurate decisions with less information. Check that additional information is essential.

Delaying a decision for too long while you seek more information is a common sign of this bias. The sixth and final bias is the authority or anti-authority bias. Some of us defer to authority figures. If this person holds an important position, they must be right.

On the flip side, some of us disregard anything a person in authority says because we have a low level of trust in experts. Either way, your job is to interrogate the evidence and look closely at the facts not judge the person stating them. Critical thinking skills can help you do that.

Remember, there are many types of biases. These are just six that we often see when groups work together. Your job is to spot the bias in others and yourself. If we can all do that we’ll make better decisions together.

End transcript: Video 2: Unconscious Biases- Democratic Society UK

Video 2: Unconscious Biases- Democratic Society UK

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Other biases that are commonly experienced in the workplace include:

Affinity bias – which describes how we gravitate towards people who share our background, interests, values and beliefs.

Halo and horn effect – where our judgement of a person is based on a particular characteristic that we observe, i.e. one good thing about them leads us to believe they are good at lots of things (halo), or one bad trait leads us to believe they are bad at other things too (horn).

The impact of unconscious bias can be varied, potentially affecting how intently we listen to someone, who we assign credit or blame to, who is trusted with high-profile work, the feedback we give to different people and even our body language when we are in their company.

There are too many biases to methodically go through each one every time we make a decision, so Lewis (2017) explains the work of the NeuroLeadership Institute, which groups all these biases into 5 underlying causes with their SEEDS model:

Similarity – we think people similar to ourselves are better than others
Expedience – we think our first feeling must be true
Experience – we think our subjective perceptions are objectively true
Distance – we think people closer to us are better than those far away
Safety – we think bad outcomes are more powerful than good outcomes (risk averse).

Although we all have biases and we can’t make them go away, we can become more aware of them.

Ritchie (2021) suggests six ways to reset the way we think:

Understand what unconscious bias is – being aware of it will help you to spot it
Be curious – curiosity makes us more open-minded and can protect us from a host of biases
Stop and think – pausing gives you time to reflect on instinctive reactions and to ask yourself questions such as ‘What could I know?’, and ‘What should I know?’
Seek diversity – if you mix with people from outside your traditional circle, that will help to break down assumptions
Listen and learn – your workplace may offer formal and informal opportunities to nurture curiosity about diversity and inclusion
Consider organisational policies – your company may already support initiatives to counter bias and to further embed diversity and inclusion.

On this last point about policies, you may also want to analyse the various steps in your current processes and plans, to work out how bias might influence your actions and decisions.

Unconscious bias is often discussed in the context of recruitment, and you’ll explore that aspect in more detail in Week 6.

Activity _unit5.2.1 Activity 1 Your own Unconscious biases

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Reflecting on the six examples of unconscious bias outlined in the Democratic Society video, i.e.

anchoring bias
bandwagon effect
blind spot
confirmation bias
information bias
authority bias.

choose one, and spend some time thinking about examples of your own unconscious biases in that category. For example, do you often jump on the bandwagon even when you feel that the group might be wrong? Do you have a tendency to rebel against authority?

A recent example of authority bias would be refusing to have your COVID vaccination due to a distrust of the government.

Comment

This is a useful exercise to undertake as many of us can feel ashamed of our biases. By confronting them and understanding that they are entirely normal and based on our life experiences and instincts, we can start to recognise and question them. This is a strong step towards ensuring that we don’t continue to act on them.

If you want to explore your own biases in a more structured way, Harvard University provides a range of ‘Implicit Association Tests’, intended to measure attitudes and beliefs that people are not always willing or able to report. You can find them here: Project implicit.

We also tend to rely on our biases more when we are tired, stressed or having to make a decision quickly, so taking care of our overall wellbeing can also play a part in tackling them.

Unconscious bias training

Atcheson (2021) feels that ‘Training hiring managers and interviewers on unconscious bias is essential. That way they can start to spot it in themselves, in their fellow interviewers and even in debrief.’ She also signals its importance in leaders and managers to help them understand the bias that someone in their team is experiencing, and to look out for and address it.

Many organisations offer unconscious bias training to their staff, with the aim of raising their awareness and changing their behaviour. However, some organisations, including the UK government, have recently been cancelling the training due to insufficient evidence of its success.

Herbert (2021) looks at this in detail in a recent blog post, concluding that as a one-off, standalone training programme, there is no strong evidence for its effectiveness in reducing implicit prejudice. But there is evidence to support significantly increased awareness, and ‘while it is generally accepted that awareness is not a sufficient condition for behavioural change, it is usually necessary.’

He suggests that unconscious bias training provides a ‘foundation on which other interventions can be built’, and goes on to outline indirect effects, including:

if key groups within an organisation ‘find it valuable to have a forum where the day-to-day bias they face is acknowledged and recognised’ then the training is ‘helping to create a more inclusive work culture’
the training can signal managerial commitment to diversity, which is known to be linked with a workforce’s willingness to engage with it.

Pressure to conform

Another unwanted side effect of unconscious bias is that your diverse team members may feel a pressure to conform and slowly quiet themselves.

This is why creating a safe space for people to be their authentic selves is so important, and you’ll look at that in more detail in Week 8 when you explore groupthink.

In the next section, you’ll look at something which links closely with unconscious bias, and that’s the concept of privilege.

2 Privilege

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

In Week 2 you looked at the concept of white privilege, but here you’ll explore the broader definition and see that it can be applied wherever there is a dominant group whose needs have traditionally been prioritised.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a pair of shoes that do not match

Malone (2021 p60) describes privilege as

‘Any and all unearned benefit, right or advantage an individual receives in society by nature of their identities, race, wealth and other characteristics.’

Watch this short film from BuzzFeed to see privilege demonstrated in a more visual way:

Video 3: What is privilege?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

A key point is that privilege doesn’t mean that you are immune to the challenges and hardships in life, it just means that the nature of your identity gives you advantages, often without you even realising.

Bias and privilege are closely linked. In the closing advice in her recent book, ‘Demanding More’ Atcheson (2021, p. 212) says:

Bias plays hand in hand with privilege and it’s important to acknowledge this every day. This means taking more time on decision making, and spending time and headspace on really thinking about why you’re making a decision, who it affects and whether it affects different groups of people disproportionately.

Atcheson (2021, p. 212)

Hive learning (no date) describes 5 main types of privilege and points out that most of us are privileged in at least one way:

White privilege – benefits white people at the expense of people of colour, e.g. doing well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to your race
Religious privilege – includes being able to find a place of worship near you and feeling a sense of connection between your religious celebrations and wider society, e.g. automatically having a day off from work for your religious holidays
Gender privilege – usually refers to male privilege, a set of privileges distributed to men on the basis of their gender, e.g. being treated more respectfully and listened to more in everyday conversations
Heterosexual privilege – describes the advantages granted to someone because of their heterosexual orientation, e.g. not having to fear that your co-workers will find out about your sexual orientation and that their knowing will have negative consequences
Socio-economic privilege – having enough resources to be able to take on the opportunities that life has given you, e.g. unpaid internships.

Of course, there are many other examples, including able-bodied privilege, birthplace privilege or location-based privilege.

Privilege is not something to be embarrassed or ashamed of, but it is something to recognise. Ferguson (2021) explains that ‘understanding privilege is a step towards empathy and helps to build a more inclusive culture.’ She goes on to suggest some next steps to ‘destigmatise privilege and unlock its potential instead’:

focus on the future – use your advantages to advocate for equity and inclusion across your organisation and community
if you have overcome significant obstacles – use that experience to inspire others to be empathetic leaders
stay focused on action and behaviour change, not just understanding and awareness
invest your time in volunteering or mentoring
support culturally diverse businesses
offer internships
invest in start-ups headed by under-represented founders.

Microagressions are some of the outward manifestations of bias and privilege, and you’ll learn more about those in the next section.

3 Microaggressions

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a person with their head down and three people giving them verbal abuse.

Grant-Ford & Kahanov (2021) describe microagressions as ‘a form of discrimination in which verbal, nonverbal, intentional, unintentional, or environmental insults are made to or about marginalised societal groups.’ They go on to divide them into three categories:

Microinsults: insensitive or rude remarks that convey contempt for the target. The transgressor is often unaware of the offensive nature of their comments and may believe they are paying the person a compliment.

Example: ‘I love your accent, but is there any way you could tone it down a bit when you’re talking to clients? It doesn’t sound very professional.’
Microassaults: these behaviours are most closely aligned with isms like sexism or racism. They can be verbal, nonverbal, implicit or explicit (i.e. intentional). Avoidance behaviour is also a microassault.

Example: Someone pushes a person in a wheelchair without asking for permission first.
Microinvalidations: These comments are dismissive of the feelings or experiences of the person being addressed or denying one’s own (possibly unconscious) biases towards a social group.

Example: I don’t believe John was being sexist or racist with his comments. You’re blowing this out of proportion.

As you discovered in Week 2, microinvalidations might also be referred to as gaslighting – leading the individual experiencing the discrimination to question themselves.

As suggested here, a key reason why microaggressions can present a barrier to diversity and inclusion is that people with privilege are often oblivious to them. Taylor (2020) describes them as ‘implicit biases coming to life in everyday interactions’.

A common interpretation of microaggressions is that the people making the comments or actions are doing so unknowingly and that those on the receiving end are being oversensitive, but this underestimates the regularity of these comments and actions, which can have a very significant effect on an individual.

Watch this short video from Imperial College London for a useful insight.

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4: Microaggressions – what you need to know

Narrator

Microaggressions are subtle, invisible, and insidious. They’re so normalised that the perpetrator often has no idea about the effect that they have.

But they can often produce an internal conflict for those who experience them. Did that person really just say that? Should I say something? If I do, will people think I’m overreacting? Will I make it worse if I draw attention to it?

The thing is, if you’re putting up with micro-aggressions on a daily basis, it can have a cumulative psychological impact, not just on you as an individual, but on an organisation’s culture. It has been described as death by 1,000 cuts. When you think about these examples, how do you think they could make the person feel?

End transcript: Video 4: Microaggressions – what you need to know

Video 4: Microaggressions – what you need to know

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Activity _unit5.4.1 Activity 2 Examples of microaggressions

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on microaggressions that you have observed or experienced. They might be things that other people have done or said or perhaps comments or actions that you have made yourself that you now see could have been perceived negatively by the person receiving them.

Even if you have been on the receiving end of microaggressions yourself, you might realise that you have made assumptions about others that you now view differently.

Comment

Examples of microaggressions in the workplace include:

being ignored or interrupted in meetings
having your name mispronounced
people making assumptions about your skills, abilities, and temperament
people making stereotypical judgements.

Many microaggressions are unintentional, but the key learning here is to try to recognise them and either call them out or avoid them in the first place.

Microaffirmations

Although microaggressions are an uncomfortable concept, Golden (no date) explains that they have an inverse, known as microaffirmations, which can be just as powerful, building on each other and creating a positivity loop. She suggests various examples for us to look for and push, or follow:

Open doors to opportunity – invite someone to a business networking event, include them on an important committee or project
Show inclusion and caring – stop by someone’s office for a chat, socialise with them, get to know about their life outside of work
Listen – invite someone to speak, pay attention to their words, ask thoughtful questions
Give credit – make sure people’s contributions are known and acknowledged
Offer support – stand up for people when they’re being discredited or demeaned
Provide feedback – help everyone to recognise and build on their strengths and overcome their weaknesses.

Golden suggests that affirming other people’s work is an effective way to motivate them, and if everyone in your department adopts this behaviour, it will contribute to the creation of a more supportive and inclusive culture.

In the next section you’ll explore some of the fear that can be associated with talking about diversity.

4 Feeling fearful

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Fear can be another barrier to effective implementation of diversity and inclusion within the workplace. This could be:

the fear of an individual who has faced discrimination and their subsequent reluctance to engage with the agenda or speak out, or
the fear of getting things wrong due to privilege or unconscious bias.

In this short film, Asif Sadiq explains that making mistakes is natural, and why we shouldn’t let that stop us from trying.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit5.5.1 Video 5: Making mistakes

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 5: Making mistakes

Asif Sadiq

Making mistakes is a natural thing. Within the DNI space, we can never get it perfect. We’ll always make mistakes. What’s really important is that we do try.

As organisations, we can’t wait for that perfect moment. There never is a perfect moment to do something. The perfect moment, actually, is about doing the right thing at the right time and trying.

We need to value our intent. And sometimes our intent is really positive, but the impact might not be so positive or might not have the desired outcome. That’s fine. We can always go back again and look at what more we can do to have that positive impact.

But not trying is not an option. Waiting for someone else to do it first, your competitor, another organisation, doesn’t give you that edge, doesn’t give you that lead, doesn’t give you that authenticity as an organisation that truly wants to try to drive change. That requires us to be bold, us to stand up and say, we will try, we will make mistakes, we will learn and grow.

I guess the most important thing, when it doesn’t feel like the right thing, when you try something positive, and actually there’s a few people who end up saying it’s not positive or it’s negative. The truth is we do live in a very diverse world. There’ll always be people that don’t agree with you, and there’ll be those that agree with you.

The truth is there’s sometimes this misconception that diversity means that we must all think the same. We don’t have to. We can think differently but still respect each other. So when we do have people who are not happy, it’s about trying to educate or trying to make them understand why we are driving positive change in this space.

Communication is critical. Diversity is not about communicating to that one group. If we truly believe in what we’re saying, if we truly believe in our product around inclusion or our values around inclusion, then we must tell all our people and we must do it with confidence and ready to be challenged, because that’s fine. But as long as we try, and we try to get that message across, that’s the most important thing.

End transcript: Video 5: Making mistakes

Download

Video _unit5.5.1 Video 5: Making mistakes

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

To highlight workplace diversity issues and fear, employee engagement consultancy Scarlett Abbott (no date) refers to the SCARF model (Rock, 2008), which looks at five domains of human social experience. Their report provides useful examples of how individuals from minority or majority groups might feel as a result of each of these five factors.

Table _unit5.5.1 Table 1: **Status** – our relative importance to others
Minority	I have to hide who I really am for fear of discrimination.
Majority	Programmes accelerating career progression for women or people of colour might mean I miss out on a promotion I deserve.

Table _unit5.5.2 Table 2: **Certainty** – our sense of knowing what’s to come
Minority	I can’t work with that team. I never know what they are going to say to me.
Majority	It’s just banter, I didn’t know you were going to be offended by that.

Table _unit5.5.3 Table 3: **Autonomy** – our sense of control over events
Minority	I was the best qualified candidate, but they didn’t give me the job… again.
Majority	Why do they keep making us do these diversity courses?

Table _unit5.5.4 Table 4: **Risk** – how safe we feel with others
Minority	I’m not going to challenge that comment. That person could make things difficult for me if I make a fuss.
Majority	I don’t trust him. You just need to look at the papers to see why people are worried around him.

Table _unit5.5.5 Table 5: **Fairness** – how fair we perceive a situation to be
Minority	How dare they treat me like that? I am furious.
Majority	Why am I in trouble? I don’t even know what I did to upset them.

Reducing the sense of threat triggered by each of these factors can support diversity and inclusion initiatives that might otherwise be treated with caution by those you wish to engage. Scarlett Abbott’s paper discusses recommendations for reducing each threat and concludes with advice for moving forward and engaging the majority.

Share evidence of the business benefits and positive outcomes for everyone when a business gets diversity and inclusion right
Provide a platform and safe space in which people can educate themselves about how to behave more inclusively
Expand the conversation to a more three-dimensional view of diversity to enable people to see what they have in common with others, rather than what makes them different
Challenge stereotypes, call out negative behaviours and share stories that bust myths and preconceptions
Encourage role models to share stories of their experience to generate empathy and change perceptions.

4.1 Impact of discrimination on health and wellbeing

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

When there are limited measures in place to support diversity and inclusion, the discrimination experienced by an individual can have a significant effect on their health and wellbeing.

When examining the impact of perceived discrimination during social interactions, Richman et al (2010) identified increases in both blood pressure and heart rate in the person reporting the discrimination. Results suggested that ‘perceived discrimination is related to cardiovascular and affective responses that may increase vulnerability to pathogenic processes.’

In other words, people facing discrimination experience an increase in blood pressure and heart rate that may make them more vulnerable to illness and disease.

There can also be an impact on mental health. McMenamin (2021) explains that ‘While society has long associated workplace trauma-induced mental illness with certain occupations like firefighting and the military, the notion of trauma developed from a toxic job or workplace is becoming increasingly recognised throughout the workforce.’

It’s easy to see how these negative impacts on health and wellbeing can lead to a fear of engaging with challenging or difficult conversations and situations.

One way that individuals might choose to ‘blend in’ is by code-switching. This is a when a person tones down some of the characteristics that associate them with a particular community, such as style of speech, appearance or behaviour, in order to fit in.

In their study of the way black professionals navigate mostly white organisations in the US, McLuney et al (2019) describe some of the negative consequences of code switching:

Seeking to avoid stereotypes is hard work and can deplete cognitive resources and hinder performance.
Feigning commonality with co-workers reduces authentic self-expression and contributes to burnout.

4.2 Fear of saying the wrong thing

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Fear of saying the wrong thing, of upsetting someone, of making a fool of ourselves, can often stop us from doing things. But not doing anything at all is not going to encourage and nurture diversity, in fact it will perpetuate inequality.

Watch this short video, in which Aggie Mutuma, CEO of Mahogany Partners, talks about getting over the fear of talking about diversity:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 6: How to get over your fear of talking about diversity

Video _unit5.5.2 Video 6: How to get over your fear of talking about diversity

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 6: How to get over your fear of talking about diversity

AGGIE MUTUMA:

Yes. So overcoming the fear, especially for leaders-- a really good question-- so I, in my coaching-- I do quite a bit of executive coaching-- come across a lot of leaders who happen to be white males of a certain age who’ve done really well in their career. And when you discuss inclusion, there is a real reticence for them to engage in it, and that comes from fear-- fear of potentially being seen as sexist, or racist, or homophobic if they express what they’re thinking.

And there’s also this piece around feeling as though inclusion is a conversation about everybody who is not them. The conversation is about women. The conversation is about people of color. The conversation is about people in the LGBTQY community, people with disabilities-- so everyone who is not them.

So there’s this also reticence around, actually, it’s not about me. Should I be talking about this? Do I have the qualifications or the right to talk about this? And what I will say, in terms of my response, is that inclusion is about absolutely everybody. It’s about everyone. It is about women. It is about people of color. It is about people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community, everybody.

It is also about the white man as well. And a recent study was done by MindGem And it looked at organisations that were exclusive, so not inclusive, and they found that a large proportion of people felt like they had to cover and couldn’t be who they are at work and had to hide certain elements of who they are.

They also found that 45% of white men also felt like they couldn’t be themselves. So where an organisation is exclusive to people who are in there who are less represented, it is also exclusive to people who are represented. So inclusion is about absolutely everybody.

And then the second piece around engaging in the conversation and potentially feeling like you don’t have the right to speak about it, or feeling as though you may get it wrong, or you may upset someone-- the answer to that is that you probably will get it wrong. And you probably will at some point in time make mistakes. We all do. We all do. These are complex issues. These are individual issues. They’re different for different people, aren’t they? So you probably will make some errors and some mistakes.

What I would suggest, though, is you still go ahead, and you have the conversations, and you learn. Do some research first-- Google’s your friend. Your HR team is your friend. You can work with consultants, whatever you need to do. Do some preliminary work to understand some of the language and to understand some of the challenges, maybe, but definitely go into the conversations and if you need them to be facilitated for you, that’s absolutely fine.

But the worst thing I would suggest that you can do is to say nothing. The worst thing that you can do is to do nothing. Because, firstly, you stay in ignorance because you don’t learn. The world moves on, and you’re still in where you are. So you become less, and less, and less aware about what the conversations are. That’s the first thing.

And then secondly, your people think you don’t care. Your teams think you don’t care about them, their experiences, and you don’t care about making your organisation inclusive. So definitely the worst thing you can do is to not say anything. So please do speak up. Do engage in the conversations. Do some prework first so you don’t go in completely blind, but you are going to make mistakes. That is part of the process, so just go ahead and dive in.

End transcript: Video 6: How to get over your fear of talking about diversity

Download

Video _unit5.5.2 Video 6: How to get over your fear of talking about diversity

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Another common experience is fear of using the wrong language. As you’ll already have seen, the terminology in some areas of diversity changes quickly so if you are unsure, it is usually best to ask the individual which words they would prefer you to use. If they don’t wish to engage with you in that moment, you could suggest another time to speak.

There are also useful glossaries available for further research. See Further reading for a list.

Activity _unit5.5.1 Activity 3 Time to reflect

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Take a few minutes to reflect on what makes you nervous about the diversity and inclusion agenda. For example, is it fear of offending someone by doing or saying the wrong thing, or is it fear of the consequences of being honest and open?

Comment

Reflecting on your own fears should help you to identify the most relevant content to help you start to address those fears as you progress through the course.

4.3 Fear of conflict or difference

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

In the UK in particular, many of us try to avoid the awkwardness of conflict, perhaps even seeing it as unproductive, but handled the right way it can clear the air and enhance mutual understanding. This short video from Eyes Up Training outlines the problem:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 7: Emotional Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Why Diversity and Inclusion keeps failing

Video _unit5.5.3 Video 7: Emotional Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Why Diversity and Inclusion keeps failing

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Emotional Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Why Diversity and Inclusion keeps failing

SPEAKER:

If we want to solve racism, gender inequality, or any other type of diversity and inclusion issue, we have to solve one other issue, conflict avoidance.

One of the things that I have discovered with somebody when we have a chat is that while we are passionate about bringing change to the issue, we try to do this in a way that we don't step on any other person's feet. We try to do this without offending anybody. We try to do this without engaging in conflict. And that is not possible.

A few years ago, I started some research around the idea of conflict, and I made some discovery. Conflict avoidance is very, very strong and very, very high. 80% of people strongly avoid conflict.

Now, I ask in that research a few other questions regarding emotions and regarding setting boundaries. And there was something very suspicious about those results. People said that they would strongly avoid conflict. But some said there are really good in setting boundaries, and others said they're actually really good in dealing with their emotions in the process.

And I was wondering, for me, that doesn't work. You're either not actually really good at setting boundaries, and that's why you avoid conflict, or you can't be emotionally safe in yourself and dealing with emotions in a good way and at the same time avoid conflict.

And I wondered, what is behind this? What is the result of conflict avoidance? Actually, the result of conflict avoidance is to disconnect.

But if we want to solve racism, inequality, and all the other diversity and inclusion issues, we have to have one goal. And that is to connect. And I know from my own life, one of the best ways to learn about someone, like about learning about my wife, learning about some other people, learning about different cultures, is to take the risk and enter an arena of conflict by asking questions and by going into it.

And go into it open-minded, not for the sake of feeling offended, but for the sake of really learning about the other person, even though my questions might offend the other person. And I think this is the one thing that we need to learn if we want to solve the diversity and inclusion paradigm.

End transcript: Video 7: Emotional Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Why Diversity and Inclusion keeps failing

Download

Video _unit5.5.3 Video 7: Emotional Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Why Diversity and Inclusion keeps failing

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

The video raises important issues such as setting boundaries, dealing with emotions and keeping an open mind.

Ridley (2020) suggests three tips for a more positive way of dealing with diversity and inclusion related conflict. All are focused on communication:

Establish a process – be clear on expected behaviours and identify a point of contact for employees to consult when a conflict arises. Communicating the process clearly will reassure staff of the organisation’s commitment.

Speak up – staying silent suggests that you support the inappropriate or hurtful comment or action. While diversity-related conversations can be uncomfortable, not speaking up allows hurt feelings and misunderstandings to fester, which leads to employees feeling they don’t belong and damages the credibility of your efforts to foster a culture of inclusion.

Engage in respectful dialogue – the aim of speaking up is to understand and bridge differences. Don’t assume the other person intended harm. Phrases such as ‘I’m curious to know what you meant by your comment’ or ‘I know you meant that to be funny, but it was hurtful to me because…’ can be useful in encouraging the other person to share their perspective. The goal is not to resolve the conflict in a single conversation, but to leave the door open for further conversations – that’s when greater meaning and deeper relationship building occurs.

This short video from Heineken illustrates the importance of communication when conflict looks like a possibility:

Video 8: This new Heineken ad is brilliant

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

In the next section you’ll explore why diversity and inclusion initiatives sometimes fail.

5 Why diversity and inclusion initiatives fail

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a burned plug.

If the workplace culture isn’t right, there is more chance of a diversity initiative failing. Daya (2021) explains five of the more common reasons why diversity and inclusion programmes fail:

Creating awareness but not moving to sustainable actions – employees are left with a heightened sense of awareness but no practical advice on what to do next
No strategic ownership of the diversity and inclusion agenda – placing ownership with your Human Resources team signals that this is a functional responsibility, when in fact it needs to be owned across the business as an area of strategic importance
Focus on diversity numbers and inadequate attention to cultural transformation – diversity representation numbers are important, but without a truly inclusive environment, diversity alone will not result in innovation, participation or business growth
Trying to change individuals instead of the places where they work – the biased structures and systems in a work environment will neutralise any efforts made by an individual to change
Not applying the lens of intersectionality – organisations which consider intersectionality are better placed to remove inequality and reduce the effects of groups with different degrees of power and privilege continuing to marginalise each other.

The author concludes by explaining that the needs of employees, and environments in which companies operate, are continually changing so any diversity and inclusion programmes must reflect this – being continually updated and evaluated for success.

6 Diversity fatigue

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

According to Waldon (2020), diversity fatigue was a phrase first used in the US in the 1990s to describe ‘the stress associated with management’s attempts to diversify the workforce through recruiting and retention efforts’. In recent times it has gained a broader definition to include ‘people just feeling tired of talking about diversity, or the lack thereof.’

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a person at a laptop looking fatigued.

Waldon goes on to describe three different experiences of diversity fatigue:

distress for those who are committed to the work but see inadequate results
irritation for those who see diversity work as being merely for the sake of political correctness
frustration for those who see it as a strategy used by organisations solely to enhance and further their brand.

Marr (2019) suggests that ‘when good intentions and hard work don’t produce results both leaders and employees begin to feel diversity fatigue. […] At its core it is about losing hope that the status quo can change.’ She goes on to advise three ways to overcome diversity fatigue:

diagnose the specific diversity and inclusion (D&I) challenges the company is facing rather than relying on a standard set of programmes or initiatives
encouragement from the top is crucial, but organisations also need to ensure functional and business unit leaders are reinforcing the importance of D&I in daily operations
make diversity and inclusion relevant to everyone in the organisation, not just diverse groups.

Activity _unit5.7.1 Activity 4 Perceptions of diversity training

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Considering your own organisation (or one you know well), reflect on how diversity training is presented by your leaders and perceived by your colleagues.

Does the process currently feel like a box ticking exercise?

Does the workforce receive feedback on the impact of the training, such as actions participants have gone on to undertake?

Is there anything that could be done differently?

Comment

You’ve learned how important it is for the leaders of your organisation to own this agenda and be seen to support it – is that something you were able to identify and reflect on?

Feedback is an important part of the process as people are more likely to engage with something when they can see how it will benefit them and their organisation.

In the final section this week, you’ll look at some of the barriers to diversity that an organisation might find it more difficult to influence.

7 Other barriers

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

As well as the emotional and psychological barriers already described this week, there might be other barriers to nurturing diversity in your workplace that you can have less of a direct influence on. In this section you’ll explore two of them.

Show description|Hide description

Illustration of different physical barriers.

Occupational segregation

The American Psychological Association (APA, no date) defines occupational segregation as

‘the extent to which people of the same gender or ethnicity are employed in some occupations to the exclusion of others.‘

Many sectors experience the impact of occupational segregation for a variety of reasons, but it is commonly discussed in the context of gender and the gender stereotyping that begins with young children.

Lakritz (2019) describes ten occupations that are still dominated by men in the US, including:

Software developer (19% women)
Construction industry worker (9.9% women)
Aerospace engineer (7.8% women)
Aircraft pilot and flight engineer (5.2% women)
Firefighter (3.5% women).

If your organisation represents one of these industries, you may struggle with maintaining a positive gender balance within your workplace, but there are things your sector can do (and is probably doing already) to broaden its talent pool. For example, Williams (2019) explains what the UK’s tech industry is doing to tackle gender imbalance, including introducing:

mentorship schemes
enhanced parental benefits and shared parental leave
flexible working and a ‘work from anywhere’ culture
fair recruitment processes
unconscious bias training.

Occupational segregation can also be relevant in other contexts. For example Vieira (2016) highlights the overrepresentation of gay and lesbian workers in psychology, law, social work, and university teaching. Their research concludes that these are careers requiring above average task independence and/or social perceptiveness.

Geographical location

The geographical location of your organisation is another factor that can influence the diversity of your workforce. If you are based in an area where a particular demographic is more or less prevalent, this could have an impact. If most of your sector is traditionally based in a particular location, this could have a wider impact on the diversity of your industry.

Mazur (2018) explains that in the US, many jobs ‘simply aren’t accessible to the majority of American workers. For example, an office located in a predominantly white suburb is probably going to attract only employees from that suburb.’ He also makes the point that ‘being located in close proximity to public transit […] will make your workplace much more attractive to many different populations’.

To expand your horizons, Mazur recommends:

researching data on demographics, education levels and income disparity in the area where you are located – a wider range of demographics will make it easier to recruit a diverse set of candidates
explore public transport proximity and transit times – this might give you some clues about new, potentially more diverse areas you could target for future recruitment
make contact with appropriate talent pipelines in the areas you identify – are there any educational institutions you could work with to raise awareness?

However, following the COVID-19 pandemic, research by Kura (Churchill, 2021) suggests that one in five workers hope they will never return to commuting, with others looking to commute for a reduced number of days per week. This could potentially have a positive impact on the diversity of your workforce, if you are able to offer flexible working or a ‘work from anywhere’ approach.

Activity _unit5.8.1 Activity 5 Reflecting on the impact

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes considering whether your sector or organisation is impacted on by either of these issues.

Comment

If there is an issue in your sector, it can be worth visiting the website of your professional body, or any other sector representative organisation, as they will probably be addressing it. For example, they may have a focus group looking at the problem. Is this a discussion you’d be interested in joining?

If you can’t find anything relevant – perhaps you could raise the issue with your managers and start a conversation.

8 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

It’s now time to take the Week 4 compulsory badge quiz. It’s similar to previous quizzes, but this time instead of answering five questions there will be 15.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 4 compulsory badge quiz

Remember, this quiz counts towards your badge. If you’re not successful the first time, you can attempt the quiz again in 24 hours.

9 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week you have developed your awareness of some of the barriers to encouraging and nurturing diversity in your workplace, including unconscious bias and privilege. You’ve considered what can go wrong with diversity training, including different causes of diversity fatigue, and you’ve looked at some potentially sector wide issues, such as occupational segregation.

You should now be able to:

describe unconscious bias and the impact it can have on our approach to diversity
reflect on other potential barriers to diversity in your workplace, including privilege and diversity fatigue
understand the impact that your sector and location might have on diversity.

Next week, you’ll start to look at some of the tools available, both personal and professional, to help you overcome these barriers and advance the diversity and inclusion agenda within your organisation.

You are now halfway through the course. The Open University would really appreciate your feedback and suggestions for future improvement in our optional end-of-course survey, which you will also have an opportunity to complete at the end of Week 8. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

You can now go to Week 5.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Last week you looked at some of the potential challenges and barriers to your diversity and inclusion work, exploring unconscious bias, privilege and diversity fatigue.

This week, you’ll look at some of the skills and strategies that can help you to take things forward, focusing on the personal skills and behaviours needed to drive diversity and inclusion, as well as some of the professional tools, such as strategies, models and measurements, that can support your progress.

Watch this short video in which our employers describe the importance of key skills, such as self-reflection and clear communication.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 5

Video _unit6.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 5

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 5

Craig Pemblington

You need to be able to challenge your way of thinking, actively challenge. So when you’re coming out with decisions, it’s thinking where is this decision rooted in, where is this thought rooted in. And recognise your own perceptions, cultural bias, the engagement that you’ve had with other people, your upbringing, your background, all plays into your truest version of yourself. So you need to be able to reflect on that within any conversation around diversity and inclusion.

Yusuf Nagdi

During that process, this two year program, I started changing as an individual without knowing it and probably without even wanting to, it was just happening and I didn’t realise why or how. And little comments like from home, my wife would say, you’re becoming far more reflective than you’ve been before. And what I found was I was starting to think, myself, about the bigger picture.

Craig Pemblington

I think genuinely reflecting on the self can bring so much to the conversation, because that’s as much about recognising what experiences you have that are valuable and also what experience you have that are potentially detrimental to the actions that you want to take.

Sophie Washington

With WizKids, one of the new things that I’ve started since becoming volunteer support officer is sending out monthly newsletters to our volunteers, and also hosting regular informal just coffee morning type sessions, and having that open channel of communication so that it’s possible to start those conversations, and so that people feel comfortable in bringing up maybe something that they need to make it easier for them, and actually just having that conversation, as well, so that you’ve got that awareness.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 5

Download

Video _unit6.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 5

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week you will be able to:

identify key skills and behaviours required to drive diversity and inclusion, and consider areas for your personal development
describe strategic and analytical tools to aid in developing, implementing and measuring the success of your diversity agenda
create a vision statement, strategy and action plan.

You’ll start by focusing on yourself, and the skills and behaviours that you can build and develop to support your diversity and inclusion journey.

1 Personal skills and behaviours

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Most organisations will have some kind of diversity and inclusion agenda, but how you choose to engage with it, and where you can best lend your expertise, will depend on the skills and behaviours you have developed throughout your career. It’s never too late to develop new skills or hone the ones you have, and this section aims to highlight some of the skills and behaviours that will be particularly useful in this context.

Show description|Hide description

Image of a person at a laptop thinking.

A very relevant starting point is the skill of self-reflection.

Self-reflection

Several of the activities you’ve already undertaken during this course have been self-reflective, and in the context of diversity and inclusion, this is a vital part of your personal journey.

Whether you are reflecting on your own unconscious biases or privileges, or thinking back to a conversation you had with someone or a meeting you organised, and considering what actions you might take next time to be more inclusive, this is an important step towards change and improvement.

The following activity encourages you to be reflective, focusing on your own development needs to support this agenda.

Activity _unit6.2.1 Activity 1 What skills do you need to support this agenda?

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes thinking about your own strengths and weakness and see if you can identify any areas for further development that will help you with your own approach to diversity and inclusion.

In the tables below, you will find a list of skills and attributes that are regularly quoted as relevant to the diversity and inclusion agenda. If you can think of any more from your own experience, add them to the empty boxes in the table.

Score your level of expertise against each skill and ability as follows:

0 = no experience yet
1 = basic
2 = competent
3 = proficient

Add at least one example of when you’ve demonstrated that skill in practice. Your example doesn’t need to have a diversity and inclusion context – in this activity you’re looking at proficiency in the skill itself, which you will have the capability to use in a range of situations.

When you’ve completed the task, ask a colleague, manager, mentor or friend who knows you well whether they agree with your assessment. Note down their comments.

Table _unit6.2.1 Table 1: Personal skills and attributes
	Proficiency	Evidence
Communication	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 1, Your response 1	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 2, Your response 2
Self-awareness	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 3, Your response 3	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 4, Your response 4
Self-reflection	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 5, Your response 5	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 6, Your response 6
Adaptability	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 7, Your response 7	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 8, Your response 8
Empathy	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 9, Your response 9	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 10, Your response 10
Curiosity	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 11, Your response 11	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 12, Your response 12
Resilience	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 13, Your response 13	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 14, Your response 14
Negotiation	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 15, Your response 15	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 16, Your response 16
Motivation	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 17, Your response 17	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 18, Your response 18
Provide your answer...	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 19, Your response 19	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 20, Your response 20
Provide your answer...	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 21, Your response 21	Table 1: Personal skills and attributes 22, Your response 22

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Other useful skills and attributes in this context include: cultural awareness, courage, openness, active listening, conflict resolution and continuous learning.

Even when we already have a skill, it is always possible to develop it further, and this week you’ll focus on some of the key skills required to support this agenda effectively.

You’ll be able to convert your areas for improvement into an action plan in Week 8.

Self-reflection plays a key role in developing your emotional intelligence, and you’ll look at this in more detail in the next section.

1.1 Emotional intelligence

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

The key to becoming more comfortable with and conscious of the differences between you and others is your emotional intelligence, also known as EI or EQ. It incorporates skills and aptitudes you’ve already touched on, such as self-awareness and empathy.

Show description|Hide description

Image of a hand drawing: left-hand box labelled IQ know how and right-hand box labelled EQ know you. There are arrows going in and out of each box towards each other.

People Builders (no date) suggest the following ways in which emotional intelligence (EI) can enhance diversity and inclusion in the workplace:

Developing empathy – i.e. being able to put yourself in others’ shoes and to understand their perspectives, but also willing to help them improve their situation. This is a crucial skill when dealing with differences and building relationships.
Reducing unconscious bias – EI can mitigate against the impact of your unconscious biases by improving your self-awareness, assertiveness, adaptability and impulse control.
Creating an inclusive culture – EI gives you the relationship management skills to make an inclusive culture a reality, including multicultural competence and effective team development.
Improving mindfulness – Emotions are organised responses to internal or external events, resulting in positive or negative meanings for the individuals involved. Understanding your inner landscape is vital in determining your response to the various social situations that a diverse workforce can create.
Improving constructive thinking – helping you to generate creative ideas, settle disagreements, influence co-operation and build trust. The higher self-awareness and impulse control of emotionally intelligent people helps them to apply their knowledge constructively.

Watch this short video to find out more about it and how you can develop yours further:

Video 2: Developing Emotional Intelligence

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

In the next section, you’ll look at communication, another vital aspect of creating better and more inclusive relationships and environments.

1.2 Communication

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of different types of microphones.

There are a number of ways in which good communication can play a part in making your workplace more inclusive, including:

understanding barriers to effective communication
learning the skill of active listening, where you can listen attentively to a speaker, understand what they’re saying, respond and reflect on what’s being said, and retain the information for later (Leading Effectively Staff, 2021).
learning to avoid communication errors, such as using incorrect or inappropriate terminology
developing the communication skills required to have honest, challenging and sometimes uncomfortable conversations
clearly communicating your organisation’s vision for inclusivity, and the expectations for all staff members
clear delivery of training to ensure that key messages are communicated, and appropriate actions are taken
creating a safe space for everyone to communicate their feelings and experiences, and to be heard
using communication to network effectively and increase social capital.

Asif Sadiq talks here about the importance of listening and creating safe spaces for everyone to be heard.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 3: Creating safe spaces

Video _unit6.2.1 Video 3: Creating safe spaces

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 3: Creating safe spaces

Asif Sadiq

When we think about inclusion for our staff, when we think about the things that we put together, we must acknowledge and understand that might not be suitable for every single person. But how do we create an environment that we can learn? And that requires us to truly listen, to listen and create that psychological safety to have difficult conversations, to have uncomfortable conversations, because the truth is we need to get better at being comfortable with being uncomfortable. But that requires us to create that safe space.

People will not challenge us or give us a different idea unless they feel that psychological safety. So we must create environments where there is that psychological safety and people can give us a different opinion. We must also listen actively. Many people talk about diversity conversations being difficult, that it’s hard, I don’t want to say the wrong thing, I don’t want to use the wrong language, I don’t want to get it wrong.

The truth is as long as we approach these situations with genuine intent, genuine curiosity, but also listen so when we receive an answer that might not compute with what we expected and it might be different, how open are we to listening to that, how open are you to listening to that. Those are the critical things in that learning journey, so not judging things from our perspective, but being ready to explore, learn, and most importantly, listen without judgement.

End transcript: Video 3: Creating safe spaces

Download

Video _unit6.2.1 Video 3: Creating safe spaces

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Humphrey (2015), recommends several tips for enhancing communication to promote workplace diversity. While Humphrey’s article is focused on workplace communication between men and women, particularly at a leadership level, you’ll see that her advice is applicable more widely across the diversity spectrum:

listen more closely and more often – a person who doesn’t feel heard will often withhold their views. Invite everyone to participate in the conversation by asking for their ideas and opinions.
don’t interrupt – being interrupted can make the speaker feel their point is of little value. Listen until they have finished speaking and then ask for clarification if you need to.
don’t step in to explain for others e.g. ‘What X is trying to say is…’ – this can appear patronising. Instead, offer a reinforcing statement, such as ‘You raise an important issue’ and then ask them to clarify their position.
consider your attitude – avoid a strong tone of voice, and condescending expressions like ‘Really?’ or ‘Prove it!’ This can cause people to become defensive. Adopt a supportive tone and encourage everyone to share their ideas.
watch your body language – make eye contact with the speaker, show warmth with your facial expressions, and don’t fold your arms or make any other gesture that appears cold or closed off.

Another important element of communication in a diverse workplace relates to cross cultural communication. Watch this short video from the American Management Association to hear more:

Video 4: Communicating Across Cultures

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Activity _unit6.2.2 Activity 2 Communicating with colleagues

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Consider the following scenario:

You’re leading a work meeting with a culturally diverse group of colleagues. You want to discuss a sensitive issue. You want to hear everyone’s opinions about it so you can make an informed decision about how to proceed. You introduce the topic, and two members of the team become quite heated in their debate. But while they are clearly focusing on the conversation, no-one else contributes.

What could you do next to encourage their input? Make some notes in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Depending on the different cultures represented in the meeting, it is possible that several of the team might feel deeply uncomfortable sharing their views openly in this type of forum. If they were disinterested and failing to concentrate, there might be other reasons for their lack of enthusiasm, but if their non-verbal cues or body language suggest engagement, something else must be stopping them from speaking up.

Knight (2015) has the following advice:

be aware of the variations that exist among cultures and how those differences play out in the workplace
create protocols and establish norms so that your colleagues understand how meetings will run
incentivise colleagues to step outside their cultural comfort zones
remember people are capable of adapting and adjusting their cultural default
solicit colleagues’ opinions in other venues and encourage people to provide feedback in different ways
encourage colleagues to get to know each other outside of meetings so that cultural differences won’t seem as glaring.

Asif Sadiq summarises his thoughts on culture as follows:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 5: Dominant culture and the effect of DEI

Video _unit6.2.2 Video 5: Dominant culture and the effect of DEI

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 5: Dominant culture and the effect of DEI

Asif Sadiq

When we think about our world of work and what we create and how we communicate with our staff, we must acknowledge that we sometimes view things from a dominant cultural perspective. And when we live in a truly global world, when our staff come from so many different backgrounds, different cultures, we can’t view good or view what’s best based on our cultural preference. We must acknowledge and understand what does this mean for different groups, different cultures, what’s the impact.

And maybe if I give you a very short example around that, we can sometimes view goodness someone who’s very loud, who speaks a lot. That might be a cultural preference, is it a requirement of the job? And if the requirement of the job is not that, then we can’t utilise that to determine good. So we must value global cultures and how we can create environments that we’re not dominating within our own culture.

End transcript: Video 5: Dominant culture and the effect of DEI

Download

Video _unit6.2.2 Video 5: Dominant culture and the effect of DEI

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

1.3 Resilience

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

When engaging with diversity and inclusion, resilience can be another important skill. This might be:

the resilience required to keep challenging discrimination whenever you see or hear it
the resilience required to speak with managers and leaders when you are experiencing discrimination yourself
the resilience required to persevere with the diversity and inclusion agenda in your organisation, despite facing the barriers you considered in Week 4.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a huge rock at sea, with a tree growing from the middle of the rock.

In each case, your personal resilience will play an important part in maintaining your progress.

Watch this short animation to learn more about personal resilience and how you can build it.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 6: Resilience in the workplace (Please note this video has no spoken audio.)

Video _unit6.2.3 Video 6: Resilience in the workplace (Please note this video has no spoken audio.)

Download

Video _unit6.2.3 Video 6: Resilience in the workplace (Please note this video has no spoken audio.)

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Activity _unit6.2.3 Activity 3 Reflecting on the resilience video

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes for this activity.

Reflecting on the video you have just watched, what are the key takeaways for you? Make some notes in the box below. Watch it again and pause it if you need to.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

You might have chosen to highlight the point about focusing on what you can control and having a plan, or you may have noted the importance of replenishing your own energy in order to enhance your resilience in the face of adversity.

Resilience is an increasingly important skill in the changing workplace, so it is well worth developing.

Developing your resilience

Waters (2021) offers the following tips:

pay attention to your health – healthier people are more resilient
focus on your physical wellbeing – through adequate sleep, healthy eating and regular exercise
practice relaxation techniques – staying relaxed in stressful situations will make you more resilient
practice reframing threats as challenges – seeing something as a challenge means we recognise the possibility of growth
mind your mindset – our beliefs, attitudes and mindsets influence our resilience
get connected – having a good social support network is important
practice self-awareness – this can help us recognise when our resilience is low
watch your stress levels – learning to recognise when we feel stressed, and knowing what helps us to de-stress, allows us to catch ourselves before it spirals.

The personal resilience of those leading or supporting the diversity and inclusion agenda within your workplace can have a big impact on the success of their leadership.

If you want to learn more about resilience at work, investigate the OpenLearn badged open course: Developing career resilience.

1.4 Continuous learning

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

While you might not immediately think of this as a skill, your openness and commitment to continuous learning is a vital aspect of diversity and inclusion. For example, your willingness to learn about different world views, perspectives and lived experiences, will enhance your diversity and inclusion knowledge and practice. Also, as this is an ever evolving topic, continuous learning is a necessary approach.

Watch this short video in which Asif Sadiq explains the importance of continuous learning and the concept of conscious inclusion.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 7: Continuous learning

Video _unit6.2.4 Video 7: Continuous learning

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Continuous learning

Asif Sadiq

So, many times, we think of training as a one-off experience, unconscious bias training, everyone must do it, we must get our organisations through this unconscious bias training. The truth is, learning is a lifelong experience. There’s different elements that we must embrace, we must introduce. But we must create environments where people continue to learn, that they continue to learn in many different ways, from taught sessions, to self learning, to experiential learning. So we must enrich those processes of learning if we’re truly going to really embed diversity, equity and inclusion as a critical principle.

The other key element to understand is that when we think about tackling our biases, and there’s many biases, even I can’t name all the biases, and if we sit and spend time wondering which bias is coming in or which bias should I be mindful of, it is very hard. But what we can do is start to think about how can we be consciously inclusive in every decision we make, every conversation we have. And when we start framing everything around conscious inclusion, that means we’re thinking before we make those decisions, we’re thinking who’s missing from the room, who could be included in this, what could I do to support this group. And that conscious inclusion can drive more positive change and impact than just worrying about what biases we have or knowing that we have biases and then not knowing what to do with that.

End transcript: Video 7: Continuous learning

Download

Video _unit6.2.4 Video 7: Continuous learning

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Valamis (2022) describes continuous learning as follows:

Continuous learning is the process of learning new skills and knowledge on an on-going basis. This can come in many forms, from formal course taking to casual social learning. It involves self-initiative and taking on challenges. Continuous learning can also be within an organisation, or it can be personal, such as in lifelong learning.

Valamis (2022)

You can see from this description that personal characteristics, such as initiative and willingness to take on a challenge, are going to be important. Reflection also plays a key role in consolidating your learning.

Walsh (2018) emphasizes the importance of motivation, and you’ll explore that in more detail in the next activity.

Activity _unit6.2.4 Activity 4 What is your motivation?

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes thinking about your motivation for supporting the diversity and inclusion agenda in your workplace. Make notes in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Walsh (2018) describes a number of potential motivations for continuous learning, do any of these align with your thoughts?

Inspiration – you’re trying to solve a problem and you need something to inspire you
Frustration – you’re unhappy with the status quo and you want to find a way to change it
Self-improvement – you have an inbuilt desire to do better
Ambition – to drive your career forward
Status – to feel valued and contributing
Embarrassment – you may be exposed in front of colleagues or clients
Fear – of missing out on something important.

Now that you’ve considered some of the personal tools (i.e. skills and behaviours) that you can develop to support your work on this agenda, the next section will focus on some of the professional tools you could use.

2 Professional tools

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

In order to take your diversity and inclusion agenda forward, you will need to have a strategy. But before you create your diversity and inclusion strategy, you will need a vision to work towards. The strategy then outlines the different actions that will help you to achieve that vision.

Show description|Hide description

Image of different cogs, labelled strategy, mission, vision and plan.

A vision statement also plays an important role in communicating your intention to both staff and customers.

Writing your diversity vision statement

Most organisations will have a vision statement somewhere prominent on their website, and many have now devised a specific diversity statement.

Kelly (2021) has spent some time collecting 25 examples of good diversity statements from a number of well known companies. Although some of those statements have been updated since the article was written, the author usefully highlights the common attributes of a good statement:

the main statement is 20–75 words in length
a headline is used to help the message stand out
they are easily readable, i.e. the language used does not include complex business jargon
they use short sentences
there are lots of positive words, e.g. empower, purpose, improve, authentic

Here are some examples of good practice (up to date at the time of writing):

Box _unit6.3.1 Build for everyone

Google

Including all voices. Building a world where progress, equitable outcomes, diversity, and inclusion can be realities both inside and outside our workplace.

Box _unit6.3.2 Be yourself. We like it that way.

T Mobile

Diversity fuels the Un-carrier spirit. Our commitment to equity and inclusion across race, gender, age, religion, identity, and experience drives us forward every day.

Box _unit6.3.3 Diversity & Inclusion

Genentech

We firmly believe that embracing diversity and inclusion (D&I) drives innovation, improves scientific and clinical outcomes and contributes to equitable healthcare access for all.

Here at Genentech, that means fostering belonging within our own walls, advancing inclusive research and health equity in our industry at-large and transforming society through partnerships across healthcare, education and within all communities.

If you followed the links, you’ll have seen that some organisations share this statement on a wider webpage, incorporating stories, data and links to relevant reports or policies.

It is also important that the diversity statement aligns with, and is informed by, the overall vision and strategy for the organisation.

Activity _unit6.3.1 Activity 5 Researching diversity statements

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Use your preferred search engine to research the diversity statements of businesses that are closely aligned with the organisation you work for (or the one you have chosen to focus on in these activities). Make notes on what you like or dislike about them.

Referring to your notes, choose which diversity statement(s) you plan to align with or aspire to.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

If you are a small business, you may find that similar small businesses don’t currently share diversity statements on their websites.

But even if you don’t employ a large number of staff, and feel you can communicate your message to them in other ways – communicating your vision for diversity more publicly will make you more attractive to a diverse audience during any future recruitment. Signs of commitment to this agenda are also something that clients and customers are increasingly looking out for.

In the next section, you’ll start to look at key aspects of writing your strategy.

2.1 Strategy setting tools

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

There are several tools you can use to analyse your current diversity and inclusion activities and to help you work towards a strategy for the future.

Show description|Hide description

An image of different papers of graphs laid out with a magnifying glass and calculator on top.

Most of us have heard of a SWOT analysis, but have you heard of the SOAR analysis? It takes a very similar approach, but strives to be more forward thinking, a useful attribute when working with diversity and inclusion.

SOAR analysis

Quick Books Canada (no date) explains that while a SWOT analysis ‘takes a look at where a company is, SOAR strives to be forward thinking to address the potential of the business. By eliminating weaknesses and threats, SOAR focuses on positive elements more likely to be influenced by the company.’

They also describe SOAR as ‘a stronger option for younger, less-developed companies’, and ‘more beneficial for organisations striving for a breakthrough or innovation as opposed to incremental improvement.’

SOAR stands for:

Strengths – what can we build on?
Opportunities – what can we leverage for success?
Aspirations – what do we want to achieve?
Results – how will we know we are succeeding?

Miro (no date) suggests using a SOAR analysis when you want to bring people together and encourage them to take action – a core element of a successful diversity and inclusion agenda.

They propose several questions to ask during a SOAR analysis:

What are our greatest strengths?
What are our best opportunities for growth?
What are our best opportunities for success?
What future are we working towards?
What measurable results will show us that we have achieved that vision of the future?

In the context of diversity, Stavros and Cole (2015) explain that SOAR ‘promotes an inclusive environment that facilitates positive performance among diverse teams in which strategy is a dynamic and generative process that focuses on strengths, whole system solutions, and stakeholder inclusion’.

Another way to assess your organisation, and to consider future strategy, is to use a diversity and inclusion maturity model.

Diversity and Inclusion maturity models

As Tapia et al (2020) explain, these models are useful ‘because they offer a simple yet comprehensive current snapshot of how mature an organisation is in diversity and inclusion.’ They can also be an ‘effective strategy setting tool to create a roadmap of where the organisation wants to go and at what pace.’

Here is an example of a diversity and inclusion (D&I) maturity model from PwC (Karren & Lee, 2018).

View larger image

Show description|Hide description

A diagram of a line chart. The title is: The impact of an organisation’s D&I program is related to their maturity in each of the four areas

The Y-axis is Business Impact and the X-axis is D&I Maturity. The line is a steep incline with four points labelled, from the bottom point to the top point of the line graph:

Tactical: Emerging: Rudimentary programs exist, but are piecemeal, siloed, seen as separate from elements of the talent lifecycle, and do not tie to business needs; some employees start to understand what D&I is as a concept.

Basic: Basic program, process, and infrastructure foundation have some alignment with the talent lifecycle; a broader set of employees understand basic D&I concepts as well as the business value.

Progressing: Programs, practices and infrastructure are more highly integrated with the talent lifecycle; some employees begin to internalise D&I and view it as a core competency.

Strategic: Differentiated: Employees view diversity and inclusion as essential to driving people and business performance; inclusion is naturally embedded throughout all aspects of the employee and customer experience.

The bottom of the image has: Workforce of the Future | PwC

Once you’ve identified which of the four areas your organisation currently sits in, the aim is to move towards ‘differentiated’, i.e. fully mature. Karren & Lee go on to explain that a company can ‘only ascend the D&I maturity curve when supported (and pushed) by sound data collection and analytics’. They describe the main drivers for successful organisations as:

robust metrics
business-focused strategies
leadership alignment
integrated talent processes.

This is a very brief introduction to a detailed modelling approach. There will be another opportunity to explore this type of tool further in Activity 6, or find the link to Karen & Lee’s article in References.

In the next section, you’ll look at metrics and data in more detail.

2.2 Metrics and data collection

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Measuring diversity and inclusion can be challenging, but being able to identify where it thrives within your organisation and where it needs more work, whether that is across particular employee groups or certain sections of your business, is vital.

View larger image

Show description|Hide description

An example of an infographic showing metrics and data. No actual data is shown.

Measuring diversity

It is important to understand your workforce composition. You can do that by encouraging employees to share their personal data, explaining why it is important and what you are going to do with it, and by analysing the diversity data you hold.

Norman (no date) explains ‘The basis of diversity data is the different protected characteristics of your workforce and job applicants so it’s a way of collecting people’s ethnic identity, sexual orientation, disability status, gender identity etc. It is anonymised so it is never about identifying one person but about looking at trends across different processes.’

Once you have this basic data there are other things you can measure, for example are some groups more likely to get shortlisted and appointed, obtain promotion, have opportunities for development? These all tell part of the story and help to clarify where your organisation is at a given time.

Measuring inclusion

Inclusion focuses on the employee experience in the workplace and so can be more difficult to measure. The data you must collect is more orientated towards feelings and perceptions, such as how an employee feels about your organisation’s practices, how included they feel in decision making, how they interact with their line managers/peers etc. You need to gauge whether your employees feel they are heard, valued and have equal opportunity to fulfil their potential.

After conducting a survey of approximately 10,000 employees around the world, research and advisory company Gartner has distilled its findings into seven statements that best represent different elements of inclusion (Romansky et al, 2021). These form the basis of their Gartner Inclusion Index.

The greater the degree to which employees agree with these statements, the more inclusive your organisation:

Fair treatment: Employees at my organisation who help the organisation achieve its strategic objectives are rewarded and recognised fairly.
Integrating differences: Employees at my organisation respect and value each other’s opinions.
Decision making: Members of my team fairly consider ideas and suggestions offered by other team members.
Psychological safety: I feel welcome to express my true feelings at work.
Trust: Communication we receive from the organisation is honest and open.
Belonging: People in my organisation care about me.
Diversity: Managers at my organisation are as diverse as the broader workforce.

Romansky recommends that ‘using a framework like the Gartner Inclusion Index, can provide some hugely helpful insights and serve as a benchmark across time’. But there are potential pitfalls, including:

Taking too much time to get from analysis to an action plan
Assuming that survey results will be sufficient to fully guide the action planning process
Neglecting to share the actions taken as a result of employee surveys.

Ellsworth et al (2021) present a different model, where they divide overall inclusion into personal experience and enterprise perception.

Table _unit6.3.1 Table 2: Overall inclusion
Overall inclusion
Personal experience	Enterprise perception
Authenticity – individuals feel encouraged to be themselves and speak up at work	Acceptance – employees value and embrace diversity
Belonging – individuals feel connected to others at work	Camaraderie – employees have strong bonds and work together toward shared goals
Meaningful work – individuals feel their work is personally meaningful and valued, and contributes to the company’s success	Fairness – employees receive equitable treatment and have a fair chance to succeed

They explain that ‘comparing these two elements can highlight discrepancies that may occur between them.’ For example, an employee may perceive that an organisation (enterprise) has the systems in place to facilitate inclusion, e.g. fair and unbiased performance evaluations, while simultaneously feeling that they are not personally included, e.g. not having a voice in team decisions.

2.3 Benchmarking

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Another way to measure progress is to use existing benchmarks.

Global diversity equity and inclusion benchmarks (GDEIB)

The Centre for Global Inclusion helps organisations to ‘determine strategy and measure progress in managing diversity and fostering inclusion’. It does this through the GDEIB, which is a free booklet that can be downloaded after submitting their ‘user agreement’. They also offer a suite of user tools to help with implementation and analysis, all aimed at businesses of any size.

The GDEIB contains 275 benchmarks, divided into 15 categories across four groups. Each category has five levels ranging from ‘little work being done’ to ‘best practices’. Examples of best practice from each group (GDEIB, no date) include:

Foundation Group, Category 2: Leadership and Accountability
- A large majority of employees across a wide array of diversity dimensions rate their leaders as trustworthy, citing equitable and inclusive treatment.
Internal Group, Category 6: Job design, classification, compensation
- Regular reviews of pay differentials are conducted and discrepancies between underrepresented groups and the dominant group eliminated
Bridging Group, Category 10: DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) learning and development
- DEI is integrated into all learning offered internally and externally to key stakeholders
External Group, Category 13: Services and product development
- The organisation successfully leverages diverse teams, including diversity networks, customers, partners, the community, and other stakeholders, to improve its products and services.

Users describe the tool as ‘a practical guide for leaders across a variety of business functions’; ‘a powerful enabler of strategic conversations and an effective planning tool to create an inclusive culture in organisations’; ‘a great roadmap to build a culture of inclusion’ and ‘a valuable framework to create diverse and inclusive organisations.’ (GDEIB testimonials, no date).

Activity _unit6.3.2 Activity 6 Choose a tool

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Choose the tool from this section that resonates most with you and spend a few minutes exploring it in more detail. Useful resources include:

Make some notes in the box below about why you think this tool might be useful to use within your organisation.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

If you want to take this a step further in your own time:

Choose an aspect of your organisation that you’d like to consider in more detail, for example your recruitment processes, and spend some time applying your chosen analysis.

Ideally this would be your current workplace, but it could be one you’ve worked in previously, or perhaps an educational institution or a club you are a member of.

It is important to include colleagues in these types of analytical activities, so you will probably find it useful to repeat this exercise with your team, or even across your organisation.

Sharing and building on each other’s ideas can be a really positive, motivating activity, and will allow you to invite a crucial range of diverse views and inputs. However, starting your thinking in advance can give you the confidence to participate fully or even steer the discussion.

You can also find benchmarks that focus on a particular diversity characteristic, such as the seven calls to action described in Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter (no date).

Appoint an executive sponsor for race
Capture ethnicity data and publicise progress
Commit at board level to zero tolerance of harassment and bullying
Make equity, diversity and inclusion the responsibility of all leaders and managers
Take action that supports Black, Asian, Mixed Race and other ethnically diverse employee career progression
Support race inclusion allies in the workplace
Include Black, Asian, Mixed Race and other ethnically diverse-led enterprise owners in supply chains.

An internet search focusing on your chosen diversity characteristic, alongside‘benchmarks in the workplace’ should present some ideas that are relevant to your needs.

Once you have a good understanding of where you are now and where you want to be, you can write your strategy, using these tools to determine appropriate measures of success.

3 Writing the strategy

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

It is important to involve everyone in your strategic planning process as the more engaged your workforce is, and the more they feel their voices are represented, the more likely they are to support the actions required for success. Plus – a strategy document can be challenging to write on your own! This involvement might include organisation-wide events, smaller team meetings, or one-to-one discussions.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a compass pointing to strategy.

A good strategy document will usually include:

the vision statement
an overview of where the organisation is now
an exploration of what the future holds and why the organisation needs to adapt and change (these sections can be informed by any analysis you’ve done)
a clear statement of your strategic aims and objectives
an action plan to detail how you will achieve the goals outlined and who will be responsible for them, at an individual and a leadership level.

Action planning

Once you have articulated your vision and strategy for diversity and inclusion, the next step is to work out the actions you need to take to move from where your organisation is now, to where you want it to be.

In their book, Inclusive Leadership, Sweeney and Bothwick (2016) include a useful action plan template with the following headings:

Table _unit6.4.1 Table 3: Action plan template
Focus area	Actions	Owner	Timescales	Impact measures

It is important to name an individual who will own each action and monitor progress, to set a deadline for completion, and to plan how you will measure the impact of that action so you can report back on its success, both to senior leaders and to the overall workforce. Sharing progress with employees is an important aspect of maintaining momentum.

Through the timescales you will also be able to demonstrate progress over time.

Another useful template is this example from the Arts Council: Action plan template. When you click on the link it will give you the opportunity to download and save the document, which then allows you to type directly into each box.

Activity _unit6.4.1 Activity 7 Identifying an action

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

While the strategy writing and action planning process is best done in collaboration with colleagues, following organisational consultation, you might find it useful to quickly practice action planning.

Using the template suggested by Sweeney and Bothwick, choose a relevant action, e.g. a particular diversity and inclusion training need, or an important policy review, and work through the sections.

Comment

This can sometimes be a harder task than you might initially think!

Choosing the right owner, and making sure they are aware of their responsibility is important. For example, assigning the action to a senior colleague can emphasize the importance of this part of the plan, but ensuring that staff at all levels have their own responsibilities is a useful way of including them in the agenda. If you are the writer of the action plan, make sure you don’t assign too many actions to yourself. While it can be tempting to take control, it is vital that this is seen as a shared agenda and not something that one person is responsible for delivering.

The timescale you choose is also important. It needs to communicate the urgency of the organisation’s intention to create change, but also be achievable and realistic.

There are many ways to measure impact – both qualitative and quantitative. These might include focus groups, anonymised surveys, etc.

You’ll learn more about setting SMART goals and the associated action planning in Week 8.

4 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now that you’ve completed Week 5, you can take a short quiz to help you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Week 5 practice quiz

Open the quiz in a new window or tab, then come back here when you’ve finished.

5 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week you have focused on your personal diversity perspective, exploring skills, behaviours and aptitudes that can enhance your work on this agenda. You’ve also investigated some of the wide range of analytical tools that can help you to consider the current position and future strategy of your organisation.

You should now be able to:

identify key skills and behaviours required to drive diversity and inclusion, and consider areas for your personal development
describe strategic and analytical tools to aid in developing, implementing and measuring the success of your diversity agenda
create a vision statement, strategy and action plan.

Next week, you’ll focus on diversity and inclusion in the context of recruitment processes and the career progression of your employees.

You can now go to Week 6.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Last week you focused on the personal skills and strategic tools you can use to support your work on diversity and inclusion.

This week, you’ll take a look at recruitment – a core process where diversity and inclusion must be embedded. You’ll consider some of the key issues to be aware of as well as good practice ideas and examples.

First, watch this short video of Mark Ealing, one of our employer interviewees, sharing his thoughts on the importance of communicating genuine, inclusive messages throughout the recruitment process.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 6

Video _unit7.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 6

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 6

Mark Ealing

The way an organisation describes itself has to be genuine, and it has to be genuine to the people that already work there. So I spent at least a year refusing to talk outwardly from our business until we were in a position where we had something to say. We were actually taking some actions that would make people feel included, and that it’s valuable to us and we’re spending time and effort doing it.

Once it feels like we’ve actually got something to say, then we started to say it externally. And also, it needs to sound genuine to people who are from underrepresented groups. If you’re a disabled person, you get very attuned to when companies are saying it because it’s a legal requirement or they pick some wording off the internet. People get very attuned to who’s genuine and who’s ticking some boxes.

And that takes time and it needs to be in every communication that you play. So whether you’re in your job advert, the way you represent yourselves on your website, the offer letters, the information that you send along with, this is the business. People become very attuned to these things. And unless it’s consistent and heartfelt throughout, people will spot it. And if they spot it, they’ll recognise that you don’t mean it and they might vote with their feet.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 6

Download

Video _unit7.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 6

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week you will be able to:

understand the importance of inclusive business branding
describe useful tactics and techniques to support diversity during the recruitment process
recognise the value of promoting inclusivity during onboarding/induction and beyond.

Most large employers have the capability and resources to build comprehensive recruitment systems with diversity and inclusion at their core, so this week’s content may be more useful for smaller organisations without dedicated teams or large budgets.

However, even if you are an experienced HR professional, there will hopefully be some nuggets of recent thinking to catch your attention.

You’ll start by looking at making your employer branding more inclusive.

1 Your brand

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Most employers are very well aware of how important their brand is, to customers, employees (present and future) and other stakeholders.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a building in a busy city with multiple digital billboards covering the building with different adverts and branding.

Robbins-Rynne (2021) explains:

Employer branding is the story you tell the external world about what it’s like to work for you. From the policies and mission statement to in-house tech capabilities and workplace culture. It’s a sneak preview into the full employee experience, and savvy candidates will usually want to know what you offer before they shake your hand.

Robbins-Rynne (2021)

While it plays a significant part in the recruitment of new talent, it is also important for your current workforce to be proud of the brand, for example, what they say on social media can have a big impact on how your organisation is perceived.

1.1 Is your brand inclusive?

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Messages about diversity and inclusion are becoming increasingly important in your employer branding. The high profile of campaigns and movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, and the socially and ethically orientated priorities of Millennials and Generation X, mean that prospective candidates are more aware than ever of the impact of discrimination, and many are actively seeking evidence of an inclusive working environment in the employers they target.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a magnet on a table with 5 wooden people surrounding the magnet.

Carrion (2020) recommends five ways to make your employer brand more inclusive:

Share stories of role models – gives an authentic insight into your company’s culture
Leverage social media – 48% of job seekers use it in their job search
Showcase your company’s journey and commitment to diversity – including relevant programmes, benefits, policies, etc.
Encourage employees to advocate for your brand – create content they can share with their networks
Highlight your leaders’ commitment to diversity – share content on their commitment, efforts and diverse experiences.

Activity _unit7.2.1 Activity 1 Social media research

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Choose a large organisation that interests you, and check out their careers and/or recruitment activity on your preferred social media platform. It could be Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or any other that you are familiar with.

If you don’t currently use social media, use your preferred search engine to search for a particular company followed by the word twitter, e.g. BBC Careers twitter, and this should give you access to a range of their tweets without having to log in.

Keep diversity and inclusion in mind as you browse their messages. What do you observe?

Comment

Did they raise diversity issues specifically? Did their imagery represent diversity? Did you get a sense of whether they are an inclusive employer?

If you look at their more generic social media – focused on advertising their products or services rather than recruitment – is there still the same emphasis on diversity and inclusion?

Keeping your social media messages fresh and interesting can be a challenge. Kunzle (2021) provides useful examples of employer branding on social media, showcasing the following approaches:

Content variety – using different formats and ideas to share your message
Story telling – including video content and employee interviews
Strong brand identity – using a cohesive colour palette and consistent tone of voice.

And content ideas, including:

Vacancy posts
Employee quotes and stories
Interactive posts – using polls and quizzes
Company facts and statistics
Fun facts – or ‘did you know?’
Welcoming new starters.

In the next section, you’ll move on to look at where you promote your brand and the impact that might have on your organisation’s future diversity.

1.2 Where do you promote your brand?

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Where you promote your brand can also have an impact on the diversity of the talent pool you are attracting.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of Gants Hill underground station in London.

As you’ve already seen, social media is a great tool for brand promotion. It has the advantages of being inclusive, and of reaching a potentially huge audience.

Dalsfelt (2021) has collected together some recent diversity-related statistics, including:

In terms of overall gender percentage use, 62% of men and 71% of women use social media (Razor Edge Media, no date).
In the US, 69% of White people, 77% of Black people and 80% of Hispanic people use social media (Pew Research Centre 2021).

It is also worth considering that the specific social media platforms you choose will potentially be targeting your messages to different user groups. For example, in the UK, 57% of LinkedIn users are between 25-34, whereas TikTok appeals more to a younger, 18-24 year old, demographic (Zivkovic, 2022).

Other ideas for brand promotion

Does your organisation have a dedicated careers website or webpage? This could be a very relevant place to share important messages about diversity and inclusion.

Box _unit7.2.1

Examples of interesting career focused pages with an emphasis on diversity:

Adidas ‘Join a diverse team’

Sprout Social ‘Building a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace’

Twitter ‘Inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility – you belong here’

Another option might be setting up or being present at local events. You learned in Week 4 about the impact that location can have on diversity within your organisation – are there events where your presence will enable you to promote your employer brand?

For example, The UK Careers Fair website provides a list of local careers fairs across the UK.

The concept of corporate social responsibility (which you touched on in Week 1) can play a useful role here. If your organisation is involved in community projects that reflect the diversity you are hoping to promote or attract, e.g. mentoring members of a local LGBTQ+ group, or creating a sensory garden for people with disabilities, this will send positive messages about your commitment, to both community members and current employees.

Offering work placements or other work experience opportunities could be a useful way to attract individuals who might otherwise not have considered your organisation. ‘Try before you buy’ can work both ways!

Or you could establish relevant connections, within the community or beyond, to help widen your talent pool. For example, if you are looking to recruit new graduates you could work with university widening participation advisers or particular student societies, or engage with organisations such as Bright Network or 10,000 Black Interns.

Box _unit7.2.2 Newcastle City Council (Stonewall Top 100 Employers, 2020)

Stonewall’s Employer of the Year, Newcastle City Council, hosted an event that gave the opportunity for the community to connect with LGBT-inclusive employers and they’ve utilised LGBT community events, such as Prides, to reach out to LGBT talent and encourage them to apply for roles within the council.

Another option might be sponsorship of diversity awards at a local or national level.

Activity _unit7.2.2 Activity 2 Who do you need to target?

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

For this activity, access to your organisation’s diversity data will be useful.

Using the data to identify any gaps, spend some time reflecting on where diversity is lacking in your workplace? For example, is the gender or ethnic diversity makeup of your workforce representative of your sector, or the community around you?

See if you can identify one opportunity to reach out to an under-represented group. This could be an idea for an event or a social media campaign.

Note – if the diversity data is not currently available, you could spend some time instead considering how you might collect that data from the employees within your organisation.

Comment

Your organisation might already conduct pulse surveys, or a more comprehensive staff survey each year or every other year, which will usually include diversity data. If your organisation doesn’t yet do this, perhaps due to its size, PwC has a useful guide that aims to help you answer the following questions:

How can I build the case for gathering diversity data?
What data should I be collecting?
Who should I involve in the process?
What are common pitfalls along the way?
How can I use the data I gather to gain insights from it and drive change?

You can access it here: Diversity Data Guide: Collecting and analysing data on the inclusion and diversity of your workforce

When advising clients on applying for jobs, careers professionals often suggest talking to someone who works in their target organisation, with the aim of exploring what it’s really like to work there.

Do you make it clear how a candidate can contact diverse employees within your organisation? Would your employees feel confident about sharing positive messages regarding the inclusive working environment you’ve created?

Making sure that the people who already work for you are fully aware of your organisation’s commitment to diversity, relevant initiatives and the aims and objectives for the future, is an important part of your diversity and inclusion agenda.

In the next section you’ll start to focus your attention on the recruitment process itself – starting with the job ad.

2 Diversity and inclusion in the recruitment process

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

From the candidate’s perspective, the beginning of the recruitment process and their interaction with your organisation, is often the job advertisement.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a person holding their hand out to shake hands, with multiple people behind watching.

Writing inclusive job adverts

The job advert writing process has to start with a good job description. This gives you a detailed breakdown of the role, from which you can take key elements to include in your advertisement. Norman (no date) asks two simple questions for your job description checklist:

have you defined – as clearly as possible – what the job role is and the skills it requires?
could someone outside your organisation easily understand what is needed?

The language you use in your ad is important as it can directly impact on its inclusivity. Make sure you don’t use industry jargon or gendered/ageist language.

Activity _unit7.3.1 Activity 3 What is wrong?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Look at the following paragraph from a job advert. How could it be improved?

‘We’re looking for a digital native to collaborate with and support both colleagues and clients. You must have access to your own vehicle and be prepared to work and play hard in our hectic but nurturing office space.’

Comment

To help you identify the problems with this paragraph, watch this short video from Monster. This film contains a lot of detail so to catch everything, you may find it useful to pause as you watch!

Video 2: How to write job ads with diversity and inclusion

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Certain phrases can be alienating to particular groups of applicants, for example:

‘Digital native’ describes a young person who has grown up with access to computers and technology, so could be off-putting to older applicants. Likewise, an environment where you work hard and play hard, might not feel inclusive to applicants with children or other caring responsibilities.
Words like ‘collaborate’, ‘support’ and ‘nurture’ are gender-coded words that could align more closely with what female applicants are looking for. Total Jobs offers a useful gender bias decoder, which allows you to check your proposed text for bias.
‘Must have access to your own vehicle’ is potentially discriminatory to applicants with disabilities. A better phrase would be ‘access to reliable transport’.

Demonstrating your commitment to inclusivity

As well as the importance of the language you use, a second takeaway from the Monster video you’ve just watched is to consider how you might reflect your organisation’s inclusivity in your advert.

Perhaps you could include a version of the diversity statement you considered in Week 5, or provide a link to your diversity and inclusion policy, or a relevant web page on your site. For example, the Open University includes the following:

We value diversity and we recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength.

Alongside the text, another consideration is the imagery you use when you advertise the vacancy – make sure it will appeal to a wide range of candidates, including images of people who reflect the diversity you are aiming to achieve.

You should also ensure that any information you make available is in a format that works well with a screen reader.

Positive action vs positive discrimination

In the UK, positive discrimination i.e. giving preferential treatment to someone due to a protected characteristic rather than their suitability for a role, is not legal.

However, positive action is legal. This means that you can encourage job applications from under-represented groups, for example by placing your job adverts where they are more likely to be seen by that group. Also, if you have two equally suited candidates for a vacancy, you can legally select the candidate who is under-represented, as long as you can justify your action, e.g. with evidence from equality monitoring data (Kings College London, 2021).

This is also covered in section 159 of the Equality Act, 2010. You can find the link in Further Reading.

Artificial intelligence in the recruitment process (AI)

Large employers are increasingly using AI during the recruitment process, but as Rouse (2021) explains, this can also have inbuilt biases that limit inclusivity. For example,

Facial recognition software can’t always pick up on skin tone, gender, expression or body language, which can have a negative effect on scoring.
AI applications that use word association elements can create results that are gender biased.
Number of years of work experience generally aligns with age, so programming AI hiring software to weigh this metric to measure skill can prevent entire demographics from even being considered.
Enunciation, body language, and facial expressions are all potential characteristics that are scored by AI hiring software. A wide variety of disabilities can impact on how a person presents during a phone or video interview, which could exclude them from the selection process.

Solving these issues can be as simple as altering a line of code, so coding engineers need to be focused on inclusivity too. Another way to monitor the software is to periodically use it to score a candidate and then carefully analyse the score for any signs of bias.

Using apprenticeships to target diverse talent

Apprentices can be employed at different levels, from school leavers and university graduates to people looking for a career change. They can be a useful way to invite greater diversity into your team.

Box _unit7.3.1 Software company Datactics – recruiting apprentices

Datactics have found that apprenticeships are a ‘great way to find people who are at different stages of life, or may be from different socio-economic backgrounds, and would like the opportunity to gain a qualification alongside employment.’

At a recent roundtable, sponsored by the Open University and the HRDIRECTOR (HRD) publication (HRD, 2020), a range of employers explored diversity in apprenticeships. They agreed that apprenticeships were a good way to hire individuals from different backgrounds, but that more work was needed to promote them effectively. For example, many people ‘don’t realise the broad spectrum of opportunities that apprenticeships now cover’ and they are often seen as a ‘second rate progression track’. One delegate felt that apprenticeships are ‘invisible, intangible to most sections of those communities that we’re trying to reach through diversity’. Despite this challenge, examples were given of apprenticeships attracting more mature applicants, those with disabilities, individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and more ethnically diverse talent. To read the report in full, find the link in References.

Depending on the size of your organisation, your HR department may offer training on inclusive recruitment processes – so this is worth checking.

Next, you’ll look at the job application process itself.

2.1 Applications, interviews and assessment centres

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Many different aspects of recruitment can influence the diversity and inclusivity of your organisation. You’ll look briefly at some of the key features in this section.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of 8 people sat on chairs in a line against a wall, each with papers in their hands.

Applications

If your application process involves a CV, then the applicant can obviously choose what they tell you and how they share it. However, if you use an application form, you’ll need to ensure the use of inclusive language in your questions.

Think about whether the questions you are asking are all necessary. Are they all inclusive? For example, do you really need to know the gender of the applicant? If you do, asking for their preferred pronoun can be a positive, inclusive gesture.

Many graduate recruiters have traditionally focused on specific degree level requirements, e.g. a 2.1 or above, but some employers have now removed that expectation, testing skills and strengths in more inclusive ways to enable access to a wider range of candidates.

If you want to view a basic example of an application form, ACAS provides a simple template here.

Shortlisting

Norman (no date) offers two useful pieces of advice for making this process fair:

Have at least two people shortlisting in a formal meeting setting so they can actively challenge any assumptions made by the other.
Assess the applications after the personal information has been removed by an individual who is not involved in the process. This will ensure that you remove any unconscious bias against diverse applicants.

This is often known as anonymised recruitment.

In addition to this, a diverse panel of shortlisters would be ideal, to avoid similar people choosing individuals with the same backgrounds as them.

It is also possible to purchase software, which aims to make the recruitment process more inclusive. Here is Sophie Washington, one of the employers we interviewed, discussing a new tool that her organisation is trialling.

Download this video clip.Video player: author="sm36828" timestamp="20220801T165736+0100"

Video _unit7.3.1 Video 3: Sophie on recruitment software

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 3: Sophie on recruitment software

Sophie Washington

In terms of making sure our recruitment is as diverse and inclusive as possible, we’ve recently started trialing a new recruitment software which kind of turns recruitment into a bit of a blind audition, like The Voice. So it’s designed to make recruitment as unbiased as possible. So we don’t actually see a lot of the identifying information that could identify someone’s socioeconomic background or ethnic background so that we can ensure that we are recruiting the people that are right for the job and there is no hidden bias.

At the moment, it’s just being trialed for our staff. But if it works, I can see that being rolled out to our volunteer recruitment, as well. I am actually responsible for our volunteer recruitment at the moment, and I try to make sure that it’s as diverse and inclusive as possible. We recruit on a number of different platforms and accept applications from anyone over the age of 16. We make sure that we cover volunteer expenses so that our volunteers aren’t out of pocket, which makes it more accessible to those from different socioeconomic backgrounds, as well.

End transcript: Video 3: Sophie on recruitment software

Download

Video _unit7.3.1 Video 3: Sophie on recruitment software

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

2.2 Interviews and assessment centres

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Traditionally, employers have seen the interview as an opportunity to assess whether a candidate will fit well within their organisation. But in this short film, Asif Sadiq explains that rather than looking for ‘cultural fit’ among your interviewees, you should be looking for ‘cultural add’.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit7.3.2 Video 4: Diversity in recruitments

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4: Diversity in recruitments

Asif Sadiq

So, many times, when we think about recruitment, the first thing that comes to us is, who’s going to fit our culture. And the truth is, we shouldn’t be looking for cultural fits. We should be looking at who adds to our culture, so a cultural add.

What’s the difference? Well, if we continue to recruit people who are like us, people who think like us, people who don’t challenge us, people who just agree with us, how will we ever create better products, better consumer experience, better output as organisations? We need people who think differently, who have different lived experiences, different perspectives. And that’s where the cultural add piece comes in, people who add to our culture and help us as organisations truly be successful by bringing a different perspective to the table.

End transcript: Video 4: Diversity in recruitments

Download

Video _unit7.3.2 Video 4: Diversity in recruitments

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Interviews

Another way to look at this is through the lens of unconscious bias. You learned about unconscious bias in Week 4, now watch this short video from Liz Kingston, who talks about the three most common unconscious biases that can affect us when we are interviewing.

Video 5: How to Overcome Unconscious Bias When Interviewing & Hiring

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Preparation is key to conducting a fair and inclusive interview – including creating an appropriate panel of diverse interviewers, ensuring you ask each candidate the same questions and developing a shared scoring system.

Box _unit7.3.2

Law firm, Clifford Chance conducts what it calls ‘CV blind’ interviews, which means that the interviewers know nothing about the candidate before they enter the interview space.

To further signal your commitment to diversity and inclusion, you might choose to ask a question about it during the interviews you conduct. Indeed (2021) makes the following suggestions:

What does diversity, equality and inclusion mean to you?
How do you approach understanding co-workers from different backgrounds?
How will you promote diversity, equality and inclusion among those co-workers who report to you?

A focus on strengths-based interview questions is a good way to assess future potential rather than previous experience. This more inclusive approach doesn’t discriminate against those who may not have been able to access relevant work experience, for example due to caring responsibilities or issues of social inequality. Swain (2021) provides examples of strengths-based interview questions, including:

What energises you?
Do you most like starting tasks or finishing them?
Describe a successful day. What made it successful?
What do you enjoy doing the least?
What tasks are always left on your to-do list?
Have you ever done something differently the second time around?

Rinderknecht (2021) describes the benefits of sharing interview questions with candidates before the interview. These include:

Creating a level playing field.
Reducing a candidate’s stress.
Helping the candidate understand what you are looking for.
Generating more thoughtful answers.

This approach can benefit a wide variety of candidates in different ways. For example, it gives neurodiverse candidates time to prepare and the opportunity to present their thoughts in an ordered way; where English isn’t a candidate’s first language, it gives them the chance to plan and articulate what they want to say; introverts who find it difficult to ‘sell’ themselves will have time to present their answers in a more authentic way.

Interviewers report that the conversation flows more, making it easier to have meaningful conversations about a candidate’s experience and strengths.

Box _unit7.3.3

Due to the nature of its work, British intelligence agency GCHQ (Izundu, 2020) recruits a large number of neurodivergent individuals. As a result, it has significant experience of appropriate support mechanisms during the recruitment process and beyond.

For example, during recruitment, they have implemented the following adjustments:

allowing candidates to take notes and mind maps into interview
providing extra time to compensate for slower processing speed
not asking multiple questions at the same time
using a whiteboard or flipchart to ‘car park’ questions to return to later.

Video interviews

While video interviews were already in existence, the pandemic has certainly increased their prevalence, with many organisations now choosing to use them.

Ewuru (no date) has the following advice to ensure that the process is as inclusive as possible:

Keep your applicants informed – let them know in advance it will be a video interview, and advise them on how to ensure their tech set-up is suitable (you don’t want them to drop out because their technology isn’t at a high enough spec)
Make sure you provide a plan B just in case the technology goes wrong – for example, the opportunity to continue the interview by phone
Make your candidate feel comfortable – reassure them that their performance won’t be jeopardised if there is some form of external disruption; if internet bandwidth is a challenge, suggest that after initial introductions cameras could be turned off and then on again at the end of the interview to round up
Let the candidate know they can stop the interview and ask questions if something seems wrong with the technology.

Reasonable adjustments to interviews

A candidate with a disability can ask for changes to job interviews and associated tests to ensure that they are not disadvantaged.

One way to encourage this would be to ask about it in your interview invitation correspondence. Creative Diversity Network suggests the following approach,

‘Do you require any adjustments because of a disability?’, followed by an offer to answer any questions the applicant has about the interview process to help them work out if they need to ask you for anything. This is also an opportunity to be clear about whether the interview will take place in a building with level access and if a hearing loop is available.

Giving the candidate a sense that this won’t be a problem for you reinforces the inclusivity of your working environment.

Many employers include a question about adjustments on the application form, but Creative Diversity Network (no date) recommends that you don’t do this, as it will be better to keep this information separate to the application in order to avoid any suggestion of discrimination later on.

Activity _unit7.3.2 Activity 4 Learning from the experience of others

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Watch this video case study from Marshall E-learning Consultancy. In it, some staff within a university are shortlisting candidates for interview.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 6: How to Get Inclusive Recruitment and Selection Right

Video _unit7.3.3 Video 6: How to Get Inclusive Recruitment and Selection Right

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 6: How to Get Inclusive Recruitment and Selection Right

Speaker 1

Ms. Monica Brooke. Assistant Manager of Student Services at Watermouth University. Good start. Criterion one, facilitating multidisciplinary teams. Well, the job is evidence for that. Score, three.

Speaker 2

Criterion two, setting benchmarks for well-being and mental health services. I don't know about benchmarking, but your job will oversee those areas. And you volunteer for the Samaritans. Criterion two, met.

Speaker 3

Right. Monica, do you meet criterion three? Experience working with volunteer staff and distributed teams. Right. Well, the Samaritans is all volunteers so tick that. But distributed teams, no, you don't mention anything specifically. So partly scores criterion. Score, one.

Speaker 1

So Monica is through to interview. Next. Nick Hedges. Has a degree in business management. Criterion one, managed an arts festival. That's very multidisciplinary. Score, three.

Speaker 2

Mr. Nick Hedges. Why, oh, why did you add a photo. All I can think about is that beard.

Speaker 1

Criterion two, well-being and mental health. Nothing. That's a zero.

Speaker 2

No mental health experience. Sorry, Nick that's a rejection. And it's not the beard, it's the process.

Speaker 3

This is people's lives, whether they'll be happy in their job, what they learn, where their family will live. Maybe that last criterion's too tough. No. We agreed, this is the process. Sorry, Nick. All right.

Speaker 1

Tough but fair. Next.

Speaker 3

Ali Asante. Ali Asante. Ali Asante. Right. You are currently employed in a large multiacademy trust. Right. No wonder you're looking for change.

Speaker 1

Ali Asante. Education management background. Not higher ed but meets criteria one and three. What about well-being and mental health?

Speaker 2

You set up a youth outreach service. Good for you, Ali. You exceed criterion two. Score, three. But you've only had one employer since graduating.

Speaker 1

Four promotions in seven years. CV answers all the criteria. Very promising.

Speaker 2

Experience with different employers isn't a required criterion. So Ali, see you at the interview.

Speaker 1

Wonder how Jo and Diana are getting on.

Speaker 3

How many more of these? OK.

Speaker 2

This isn’t as bad as I thought. 10 more, then lunch.

End transcript: Video 6: How to Get Inclusive Recruitment and Selection Right

Download

Video _unit7.3.3 Video 6: How to Get Inclusive Recruitment and Selection Right

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

What can you take away from this film? Is there anything you could introduce into your own processes and procedures?

Comment

Taking a more structured approach with a scoring system and a diverse panel of assessors, will enhance the fairness of the process. The scoring system also allows assessors to pause and recognise their own potential biases when they arise.

Assessment centres

Assessment centres are often used in graduate recruitment or for management roles. An assessment centre is a collection of tests and activities designed to simulate the working environment and to test a candidate’s abilities and potential.

Common activities include group discussions, in-tray exercises, presentations and case studies.

There are many ways in which some of the activities might not be seen as inclusive. For example, an individual with autism may find a group discussion difficult. Equal Engineers (2020) suggest a couple of ways to support this:

offer those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) the chance to write their ideas down during the group session and to submit them at the end
ask for every individual’s ideas one by one during the exercise.

These could be useful tactics for any group discussion, supporting candidates who have a more introverted preference and who may be feeling overwhelmed by the process.

Some employers have taken away the timed element from the assessment activities, or removed group exercises altogether. Others have introduced support prior to the assessment centre for under-represented candidates.

Box _unit7.3.4 Social work charity, Frontline (Bright Network, no date)

After pinpointing ethnicity and gender as demographic groups to concentrate on, Frontline have worked to attract more BAME and male candidates onto their programme and into social work.

Data showed that BAME candidates were less likely to succeed in assessment centres and so Frontline worked with Rare Recruitment to provide coaching for candidates prior to attending. Additionally, they provided their own coaching for under-represented groups, encouraging candidates to reflect on their experiences and how they might demonstrate their skills in the selection process.

This has resulted in a 20% improvement of BAME candidate performance at the assessment centre stage.

Once you’ve recruited someone to a post, the next crucial stage in successfully communicating your diversity and inclusion agenda is effective onboarding, and you’ll look at that in the next section.

3 Onboarding

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Onboarding is a term used by HR professionals to describe the processes involved in welcoming and introducing a new hire to your organisation. Another word that is commonly used for this is induction.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a hand holding a post-it note with the words: Welcome to the team! There is a laptop in the background.

The general consensus is that onboarding, or induction, should take at least three months, although there is a view that continuing it for the employee’s first year can increase retention.

Martin (2021) outlines a number of useful statistics in support of a strong onboarding programme, based on a wide range of relevant research, including:

Having a great onboarding programme increases staff retention by 82%.
A one-on-one with a manager is a crucial part of onboarding for 72% of employees.
Employees who have poor onboarding experience are two times more likely to look for a new job soon.

So there’s little doubt that it’s important, both for staff satisfaction and retention, but also to communicate clearly what your commitments and expectations are around diversity and inclusion.

Gittens-Ottley (no date) describes ten ways to build an inclusive onboarding experience:

Let new hires know that inclusion matters – share any resources and explain how your organisation approaches diversity and inclusion.
Paint the big picture – share your team’s current strategy and provide an organisational chart so they can see where they fit in; talk about the practical ways in which the team works together, e.g. systems used.
Prepare your team – make sure they are clear on the new person’s responsibilities and set the expectation that inclusivity is everyone’s responsibility.
Help them speak your language – provide a glossary of terms.
Contextualise their experience – consider using a buddy system to show them the ropes; set up a series of one-to-one meetings with key people who can welcome and integrate them across the organisation.
Time it right – i.e. avoid holiday periods or bringing them in just before their manager goes on leave.
Give space for settling in – recognise that not everyone takes in information the same way.
Add a personal touch.
Celebrate small wins.
Get feedback.

Arranging an informal meeting with your new hire will allow you to get to know them better and ask them:

about their background and culture
how they like to be referred to and what is important for them
about their disability and any reasonable adjustments you can put in place
what they are happy for you to share with the wider team
for their first impressions and perspectives on how you could change/improve things.

This is also an opportunity for you to share:

how they can contribute to the decision making process
what opportunities for development will be available to them
any diversity and inclusion training data.

Activity _unit7.4.1 Activity 5 Compare and contrast

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on the induction or onboarding experiences that you have had through your career.

What worked particularly well?
What went badly or left you feeling uninformed?
Did they include any activities or information relating to diversity and inclusion?

Now consider any onboarding activities you have been involved with in support of someone else. What did they involve and what messages did you try to get across?

Comment

Referring back to Gittens-Ottley’s list, did your own experiences include any of the examples of inclusivity that are recommended?

Have you seen any of those ideas reflected in subsequent inductions for new staff within your organisation?

Perhaps you could look at your organisation’s induction materials and consider whether anything needs to change.

ACAS (no date) provides a useful induction template that is free to download and use. It includes ideas for the first day, first week, first month etc. Find the link in References.

4 Career progression

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

So far this week, you’ve focused on the beginning of someone’s career within your organisation, but career progression also plays an important part in maintaining their commitment and focus.

In this short film, Asif Sadiq explains the role of equity throughout the recruitment process and beyond – creating a level playing field for people from all backgrounds to succeed.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit7.5.1 Video 7: Equity

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Equity

Asif Sadiq

Many times we talk about equity, but people say, well, actually we’re trying to embrace equality, we want to treat everyone the same. The truth is, we can’t assume that if we give every single person the same tools they will succeed because people have different needs. What equity is about is about providing different tools to different individuals based on their needs, not to give them an advantage, but to bring them to the same start line to level the playing field.

So when we think of recruitment and we think of equity within recruitment, it’s not about giving someone a job because of their diversity or the different elements they bring, it’s about bringing them to that same level as others, having the same opportunities. But as I said, we know that because of historical challenges or other challenges that different underrepresented groups face, they will not have that equity. So we need to create that.

The other big point with equity is that equity doesn’t mean tokenism. It’s not about that we need to because of equity employ a woman or someone who’s from an ethnic minority background and so on. It’s really about creating for those diverse groups, the various groups that we have, the opportunity to be able to at least access the process, access the system.

And then when we talk about inclusion in the workplace, equity doesn’t end unfortunately just at the recruitment stage. Equity continues within people’s experiences, their day to day experiences in the workplace, but also their career journey. During that career journey, we need to continue to create that equity and create that level playing field for each and every person.

End transcript: Video 7: Equity

Download

Video _unit7.5.1 Video 7: Equity

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Ensuring that all opportunities for progression and development are made transparent and inclusive, is another important step.

Transparent career paths

Coffman et al (2021) describe three steps an organisation can take to establish a culture of transparency in this context:

create strong career paths, determining the required skills and competencies to reach various roles or career stages
identify available training and professional development resources for employees to gain those skills
clearly and consistently communicate that information to employees so they can make informed decisions and pursue growth opportunities at the company.

Once everyone knows, or can easily find out, what their options are, careful monitoring of the diversity characteristics of those who apply for and obtain the various opportunities should be undertaken.

If the results of that monitoring demonstrate an issue with inclusion, there are a number of initiatives an employer might consider.

Career mentoring and sponsorship

Mentoring is a more familiar concept for most of us, described by Omadeke (2021) as

‘a relationship between someone sharing knowledge and providing guidance (the mentor) and someone learning from that person’s experience and example (the mentee).’

Sponsorship can be thought of as a more active process, in which the sponsor advocates for the sponsee in situations where they are not in the room, e.g. with senior leaders or decision makers.

Watch this short video from Everywoman Ltd., explaining the importance of sponsorship to those who are under-represented.

Video 8: The importance of mentors and sponsors | Sarah Churchman

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

If you’re interested in finding out more, Bain and Company have some advice about developing a sponsorship and mentoring programme:

Video 9: Developing a Sponsorship and Mentoring Program

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Development programmes

In her article on diversity, equity and inclusion ‘game changers’, Corrales (2021) shares several examples of employer initiatives that are making opportunities more accessible for under-represented groups. These include programmes focusing on:

Women in leadership
Autism at work
Youth employment
Flexibility and work life balance
Targeted groups, e.g. migrants and refugees, or ex-military.

In several cases, an external organisation has been brought in to provide the structure for specialised training, coaching, networking etc.

Box _unit7.5.1 The BBC, working with EW group (no date)

Under pressure over its lack of diverse ethnic representation at senior levels, the BBC worked with equality, diversity and inclusion consultancy, EW Group to develop training for a group of Black, Asian and minority ethnic mentees and their in-house, career development mentors.

After training, which included elements of skill development, knowledge sharing, profile raising and awareness building, all participants left with a practical toolkit to support them in being the best possible mentor or mentee.

After just three months, 38% of the first cohort had achieved recognised career development moves. The training is continuing with new mentors and mentees.

4.1 Imposter syndrome

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

One of things that mentorship, sponsorship or development programmes can help to combat is imposter syndrome, i.e. ‘the belief that you are less capable than those around you, that your success is the result of luck or other external factors and that you will be discovered as a fraudster’ (Kandola, no date).

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a person wearing a wig, glasses and a false moustache.

Unsurprisingly, this feeling can be greater in individuals who are from a different demographic to the norm in a particular working environment.

Tulshyan & Burey (2021) ask that we ‘stop calling natural, human tendencies of self-doubt, hesitation, and lack of confidence imposter syndrome’ and instead question the culture in the workplace. They suggest a series of actions that employers can take to end it in their organisations, creating work cultures where all are welcome. These include:

Pivot the language employees use to describe themselves – have honest conversations about what it takes to ‘win’; share your own experiences of imposter syndrome; think about the values, ideologies and practices that create it in your organisation.
Be honest about the impact of bias – managers cannot be considered effective if they can only manage employees who are like them, and all managers must help to filter out and address biased decision making and communication to their employees.
Be data driven and rigorous – measure employee sentiment through anonymous feedback surveys throughout the year, including questions about how much an employee feels they can contribute, grow and learn, as well as the barriers to those things; make current and past demographic data publicly available, including measures on pay equity.
Set up accountability mechanisms for change – such as evaluating all employees on how their work performance advances diversity specific company goals; mandating a minimum threshold for year-round participation in awareness-building activities; implementing performance improvement plans with associated consequences for employees struggling to meet inclusion expectations.

While the focus of their article is on the experiences of women of colour, and they talk specifically about sponsoring and mentoring, and reducing biases against this group, there are valuable lessons here in the wider diversity context.

Activity _unit7.5.1 Activity 6 Have you ever felt like an imposter?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on whether you’ve ever felt like an imposter? How did you feel? Why did you feel like that? Did the feeling wear off quickly? What helped you to overcome it?

Comment

Common characteristics of imposter syndrome include self-doubt, disconnection from team members, perfectionism, low self-esteem and fear of failure (Martins, 2021). But there are ways to overcome it, including:

Focusing on the facts
Sharing how you’re feeling
Reframing your thoughts
Celebrating what you do well.

By being transparent about opportunities for career progression, and providing appropriate support for those who are under-represented, we can ensure a more sustained approach to diversity and inclusion.

5 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now that you’ve completed Week 6, you can take a short quiz to help you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 6 practice quiz

6 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week, you have explored diversity and inclusion in the context of recruitment processes, from employer branding to onboarding. You’ve also looked briefly at career progression and its importance in building an inclusive workplace.

You should now be able to:

understand the importance of inclusive business branding
describe useful tactics and techniques to support diversity during the recruitment process
recognise the value of promoting inclusivity during onboarding/induction and beyond.

Next week, you’ll review examples of good diversity and inclusion practice, learning about culture change, communication and maintaining momentum.

You can now go to Week 7.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Last week you looked at aspects of the recruitment process, starting with your brand and moving through to onboarding new employees. You also considered how to support the career progression of a diverse workforce.

This week, you’ll continue to look at examples of good practice, to inspire and motivate your own ideas and plans.

In this week’s video, our employers enthusiastically describe the benefits of learning from other organisations and individuals.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 7

Video _unit8.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 7

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 7

Mark Ealing

One of the joys that I’ve found in this space is it’s very collegiate. People want to share what’s working, because they’re working to something which is really positive, even though, if you think about it logically, there’s a corporate advantage if you get this right. But that’s not what I find, people are very willing to share what works for them and more specifically what definitely doesn’t work for them.

Yusuf Nagdi

Look at what other people have to offer, just like we did. And don’t just look in your own area of expertise. I looked at other police forces and what they did and I didn’t get the answers I was looking for, so I went to look wider. I looked at universities I looked at other government agencies. The positive impact of that has been, we’ve been really successful in Leicestershire Police. We’ve now had other police forces have come to speak to us to learn from us, so have the County Council, so have Leicestershire Fire and Rescue. Don’t be afraid to learn from others.

Sophie Washington

I speak to a number of different people, both in work and in my personal life, too. And I think being able to have open and honest conversations is massively important in diversity and inclusion. Yesterday, I was actually having a conversation with someone and they said, ooh, I hope you don’t mind me asking-- and we had a really great conversation about a lot of the challenges that I’ve faced as a wheelchair user in work. And they were apologising to me, saying they sound really ignorant and that they should do better. And I think actually having that conversation and learning is the first step in doing better, because a lot of people, it isn’t that they aren’t interested or they don’t want to do better, it’s they don’t know how, and having that conversation can prompt that.

Mark Ealing

By talking to other organisations and other practitioners, not only is it inspiring but it’s also a great way of not making the same mistakes that they naturally do.

Yusuf Nagdi

Don’t keep all the good stuff to yourself. Let’s share it with other organisations. Let’s try and collectively be more successful. There’s plenty of people out there for us.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 7

Download

Video _unit8.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 7

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week you will be able to:

describe examples of good diversity and inclusion practice
reflect on the actions of others in your sector and beyond
identify opportunities to apply their ideas within your organisation.

You’ll start by exploring good practice focused on culture change.

1 Changing the culture

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

There are many different ways to influence change in the inclusion culture within an organisation, and in this section you’ll see a range of examples from various employers.

It may be reassuring to first hear Asif Sadiq explaining that this doesn’t necessarily require significant financial investment!

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit8.2.1 Video 2: Investment in DEI

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 2: Investment in DEI

Asif Sadiq

To improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, it doesn’t require the millions of pounds, dollars, euros that we sometimes think about. It’s creating the right intent, the right drive, the right sustainable long term systematic change that truly has an impact. And now you’re probably wondering, why is that important?

Well, it’s important because in order to retain, attract, progress the best staff, the most diverse staff, the staff that bring different ideas, different thoughts, different experiences, which are all the great things that we aspire to achieve as organisations, is only achieved if we’re truly embedding DEI as critical to our organisations. But as I said, it’s not about the money, it’s about the intent and the impact we have with that intent.

End transcript: Video 2: Investment in DEI

Download

Video _unit8.2.1 Video 2: Investment in DEI

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Training sessions and diversity initiatives

Many employers offer training to their workforce on topics such as unconscious bias or other aspects of diversity. The following example highlights a successful approach:

Box _unit8.2.1 US based marketing services firm Ansira (Fister Gale, 2020)

A key takeaway is the trainer’s approach, which is interactive and story-driven. He describes the sessions as ‘more of a conversation than a lecture’. He deliberately doesn’t dictate what learners should do or say, explaining ‘you never want to accuse, you have to let people do their own self-analysis.’

An example of this is using ‘I couldn’t help but notice…’ when responding to biased behaviour. In the article, the trainer shares the example of a female CEO who was asked at a CEO conference who her husband was. By saying ‘I couldn’t help but notice you assumed I’m a spouse and not a CEO. Why did you make that assumption?’ she forced the questioner to do his own self-analysis, rather than accusing him of bias and putting him on the defensive.

Depending on the focus of the training, it might be more appropriate to target key groups, rather than offering it to the whole workforce.

Box _unit8.2.2

The Local Government Association (no date) offers a range of ‘Weekender’ events and programmes to young councillors (under 40), women and councillors from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. These events provide participants with opportunities to build support networks and develop personal, political and leadership skills, providing a bridge to more senior leadership positions.

They also provide an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion E-Learning module for councillors, which explores how councillors can act as effective community leaders to build social inclusion. In addition, the module looks at how non compliance with the Equality Act 2010 can lead to issues around discrimination, harassment and victimisation for councillors in their roles.

Reverse mentoring

Mentoring can provide a useful conduit for conversations and communication, and reverse mentoring offers the opportunity for a junior team member to mentor a senior colleague. In the context of diversity and inclusion, this allows them to share their experience of diversity and discrimination with someone who can use this learning to make a difference. This type of activity also contributes to changing the culture.

Box _unit8.2.3 Clifford Chance – reverse mentoring with clients (2020)

Senior manager Kalela Mwenya shares her experience of reverse mentoring on the topic of ethnicity:

‘For me, it is the opportunity for mutual learning that makes reverse mentoring so worthwhile […] I also believe that being paired with someone outside the firm helps to provide a healthy comparison in terms of what other organisations are doing, forcing me to be more objective in my thinking.’

‘We both offer important discussion points, which has triggered uncomfortable feelings, but that’s okay, as this is how we broaden perspectives.’

‘I truly believe these conversations are drawing us closer to our clients, with many positives resulting from the desire to work together to make progress.’

Box _unit8.2.4 Compass Group UK & Ireland (Molloy, 2022)

Taking the lead from their employees, in 2021 Compass launched a 6-month, pilot reverse mentoring scheme as a key strand of its diversity and inclusion strategy. Participants were given as much information as possible at the beginning of the pilot, including a welcome overview, Q&A launch calls with both groups and ‘connection calls’ in their pairs with the Diversity and Inclusion Manager. This approach was well received.

Due to COVID it was launched as a digital scheme, but several individuals have chosen to move to face-to-face meetings, and the pairs have developed ‘genuine, open relationships’. Insights gained will be fed into an overall strategy and a second scheme is in the pipeline.

Diversity ambassadors

Although HR staff are often key drivers of diversity and inclusion initiatives, in order to create a sense of shared responsibility, it can be useful to give different roles across the organisation an opportunity to champion key initiatives:

Box _unit8.2.5 Heineken’s inclusion & diversity ambassadors (Thorre, 2019)

Inclusion and diversity (I&D) ambassadors work with local teams to respond to local opportunities and issues around the world. For example:

In Poland, the focus has been on the differences and similarities between different generations in the workplace.
Heineken France organised LGBTQ+ workshops and awareness building activities.
In Serbia, they focused on Orthodox and Catholic specificities around the calendar and holidays.
Heineken Italy launched a digital life-based training program to support careers and personal parenting challenges, improving parental leave management and transforming parenting skills into powerful capabilities.

Activity _unit8.2.1 Activity 1 Training ideas

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes reflecting on these examples and consider if there are any ideas you’d like to develop. Make notes in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Learning from the ideas and actions of others can be inspirational! It might not be practical for your organisation to directly replicate their activity, but a version of it or another activity that captures its intention could work well.

2 Inclusion networks

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Also known as diversity networks, affinity groups or employee resource groups, these are groups that aim to ‘inform, support and advance employees with similar social identities’ (Dennissen et al, 2018).

Show description|Hide description

An illustration to demonstrate different digital networks.

Some organisations develop networks for their LGBTQ+ employees; Black, Asian and minority ethnic employees; or disabled employees. Networks may also be created to focus on issues relating to staff with caring responsibilities or employees who are homeworking.

The popular consensus is that they provide a support network that can help to advance an individual’s career, building community and creating safe spaces for employees to meet and discuss inequality issues.

Professional service firm EY (no date), describes the contributions made by its ‘employee networks’ as follows:

Raising awareness of the diversity of our people and promoting a culture of inclusive leadership. Educating the business by raising awareness of the issues facing some of our under-represented groups.
Attracting diverse new talent by contributing to the firm’s position as an employer of choice.
Providing members with personal development opportunities and creating a sense of affinity with the firm. Creating opportunities to connect with colleagues across all our service lines and in different geographical locations, providing wider personal networks.
Connecting to the market by providing opportunities to engage with our clients and potential clients.
Challenging the business to ensure that inclusive practices are ‘business as usual’.

Watch this short video to hear how a variety of people benefit from their membership of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy’s networks.

Box _unit8.3.1

Video 3: Why I joined the CSP’s diversity networks

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Dennissen et al (2018) looked closely at five diversity networks to explore whether they are always as effective as organisations suggest. Their work confirms that at an organisational level, networks are able to change norms, policies and practices in order to make them more inclusive – drawing management attention to inequalities.

However, on an individual level, their research found that diversity networks can make people more ‘individually responsible for their careers’, meaning that the ‘organisational barriers that impede upward mobility remain invisible’.

At a group level, community building is valued, but ‘there is a fear of stigmatisation and disadvantage when they are perceived as exclusive communities’, which can negatively impact on the group’s willingness to challenge inequality.

It’s important to be aware of the potential downsides so that you can consider them honestly and openly with those involved before they have the opportunity to arise.

Activity _unit8.3.1 Activity 2 What could a diversity network offer your organisation?

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Spend a few minutes thinking about how a diversity network might benefit your organisation. What aspect of diversity do you think is the biggest issue for you at the moment? What could a network achieve? Should the membership include allies from across the organisation?

If you already have one (or more) – what benefits do they provide at an organisational level? How might you explore whether Dennissen’s findings are reflected in your own networks?

Comment

While diversity networks can undoubtedly add value and create a sense of community, there is a risk that they can lead to resentment, particularly from those who do not feel represented. They don’t necessarily address the intersectionality of diversity either.

Before launching this type of initiative, it is important to consult widely to gain a perspective from your workforce.

This successful example of the use of diversity networks comes from a well-known sports club.

Box _unit8.3.2 Manchester United Football Club (Robert Walters, 2020)

Alongside their ‘#allredallequal’ campaign, Manchester United launched several employee inclusion networks across a number of different workstreams. Their aim was to provide employees with ‘the platform and opportunity to drive forward the club’s work across varied areas of diversity and inclusion. With the support of at least one Executive Sponsor, members are empowered to provide critical advice and guidance on business initiatives, as well as insights into policies, processes and initiatives.’

So far, outcomes have included the development of a ‘Supporting disability in the workplace policy’, the launch of a Mental Health and Wellbeing Network and the initiation of the club’s first LGBTQ+ supporters group.

This one is from a financial services firm.

Box _unit8.3.3 Financial services firm, Northern Trust’s ‘Business Resource Councils’ (Robert Walters, no date)

These affinity groups actively support workplace inclusion. They are employee initiated, governed and led and membership is open to any partner who shares an affinity for the mission of the group. Each council also has an executive sponsor. Activities include:

designing and developing professional development opportunities for the population which they represent
assisting in attracting diverse talent and supporting the diversification of the wider industry
providing diverse insights to the business.

While setting up these networks may be a deliberate part of your action plan, maintaining the flexibility to recognise an emerging need and respond to it is also important.

Box _unit8.3.4 Management consultancy firm, Capco (2020)

Nisaa tells her story about forming a new affinity group:

‘Coming to work after hearing that yet another tragedy has befallen the Black community takes its toll on you emotionally. It is hard to carry on as if everything is fine. I began to feel that my work life did not reflect enough my desire for community building and advocacy.

Capco needed a new network specifically for community building and advocacy for its Black employees, a network to advocate for diversity and to support each other professionally. With the support of Capco’s senior leadership, we formed the Black@Capco Affinity group. Black@Capco aims to create a space and network for Black employees to connect, engage, collaborate, and build professional and personal connections. Our mission is to partner with HR to recruit diverse talent, raise the rate of retention and improve advancement opportunities for Black employees. We have hosted a series of events, everything from virtual Jeopardy sessions to a training session on unconscious bias. To date, our events have been really well received and appreciated.’

If your organisation is too small to set up its own diversity networks, your relevant professional body might offer a similar opportunity.

Box _unit8.3.5 The UK’s library and information association (CILIP, no date)

CILIP has established three diversity networks providing support and a platform for workers from diverse backgrounds, and their allies. These are the BAME Network (for professionals from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds), LGBTQ+ Network and Disability Network. Membership is free and open to both members and non-members.

Each network provides a forum for colleagues to share knowledge, experiences and information, support each other and network.

3 Communication

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Communicating messages of inclusion throughout your organisation, and sharing the impact of your actions, is an important way to let the workforce know that this a serious, on-going commitment.

Asif Sadiq explains why your communications should always be authentic and honest.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video

Video _unit8.4.1 Video 4: Being authentic

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 4: Being authentic

Asif Sadiq

Many times, we put together communication when it comes to diversity or when we speak to our staff. And we do it in a corporate way, we make sure that we’ve ticked all the boxes, we’ve not said the wrong thing, we’ve not, we’ve used the right corporate language.

The truth is our staff, our consumers, they want to see the human side to us as organisations. They want to see that authentic want for change. And that doesn’t mean we have to get it perfect, that means that we can show vulnerability. A lot of people talk about what is leadership of the future and D&I?

People don’t want leaders who have all the answers, they don’t want organisations who’ve got all the solutions. But they want organisations who are ready to say, we haven’t got all the solutions but we want to try. Or this is what we want to achieve, and we want to explore how we’re going to do that.

So it’s really important not to get hung up on the fact that we must get it right or we must use the right language. People really do, we as humans engage with humans. And the more human we are within our communication, the more we show our positive intent, our positive emotions in this subject, the more likely people are to embrace it and understand it and understand the journey we’re going on.

End transcript: Video 4: Being authentic

Download

Video _unit8.4.1 Video 4: Being authentic

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

There are numerous ways in which effective communication can benefit your organisation’s progress with diversity and inclusion. This example from ASDA has a focus on uncomfortable conversations and microaggressions.

Box _unit8.4.1 Communicating messages at ASDA (MBS Group 2021)

After the Black Lives Matter protests, senior staff at Asda held listening groups to encourage the uncomfortable conversations that there had been uncertainty around in the past, ‘moving away from a policy of “we don’t condone” towards the more powerful and actionable stance of “we reject”.’ They also launched an Instagram campaign for Black History Month in which staff shared simple tips on how to avoid microaggressions, ‘things as simple as what to do when you see an unfamiliar first name on a name badge.’

Some organisations prefer to supplement their activities with more visual messages, such as RS Components ‘Bringing our true selves to work’ film:

Box _unit8.4.2

Video 5: Bringing our true selves to work

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

and Accenture’s #inclusionStartsWithI video:

Box _unit8.4.3

Video 6: Accenture Inclusion & The Power of Diversity

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Other organisations focus on creating written materials for use by themselves and clients in taking the agenda forward.

Box _unit8.4.4 Arts Council England – culture change toolkit (EW Group no date)

In partnership with EW Group, Arts Council England has created a good practice guide to diversity, culture change and people management, available online to support organisations across the sector.

Consultation involved staff from a wide variety of music, theatre and visual arts organisations, and the resulting guide is supported by a set of case studies ‘reflecting real-life, sector-specific examples of good practice’, alongside downloadable templates, checklists and other top tips.

If this sounds relevant to you, see Further Reading for the link.

Activity _unit8.4.1 Activity 3 How does communication work in your organisation?

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Take some time to reflect on the current methods of communication used in your business (or one you know well). Are they effective? Do you ever receive messages, whether verbal or visual, about diversity and inclusion? If you do – are they heard? Do you feel informed and included? Make notes in the box below.

Thinking about some of the communication tools and activities briefly discussed in this section – could any of those ideas make an effective addition to your current efforts?

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Communication plays a key role in inclusion, whether that involves creating safe spaces for people to share their own experiences, encouraging difficult conversations, or keeping everyone up-to-date with progress. The more diversity and inclusion can become part of the conversation, the more it will feel like a normal part of day to day working life.

Policies

Another way to communicate diversity and inclusion messages is to ensure they run through your organisational policies and procedures. EW Group suggest 10 policies that your organisation should consider, in order to effectively address diversity and inclusion (Wilson, no date). These are:

Diversity & Inclusion Policy
Recruitment & Selection Policy
Flexible Working Policy
Work-Life Policy
Code of Conduct
Dignity at Work / Bullying, Harassment & Discrimination Policy
Disability & Reasonable Adjustments Policy
Trans-inclusion Policy
Whistleblowing Policy
Mental Health, Wellbeing & Menopause Policy

Other organisations have chosen to formulate policy on specific discrimination characteristics, for example:

Box _unit8.4.5

The Creative Equity Toolkit, run by Diversity Arts Australia and the British Council, offers numerous links to relevant resources in its section on developing an anti-racism policy. Although there is an arts sector bias, examples of action plans and anti-racism initiatives should be useful to all. See Further Reading for the link.

Indiana University (no date) in the US also focuses on anti-racism, suggesting that you ask yourself the following questions when reviewing policies through an anti-racist lens:

Is the policy still necessary in light of its stated purpose and goals and is it free of bias or preferences?
Would the document function better as a set of procedures or guidelines?
Does the policy clearly and effectively communicate our values, including those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as the general purpose for the policy?
Does the policy function well as written, or should it be revised (e.g., by drafting it more clearly and intently) to improve its aim towards becoming an antiracist organisation?
Is the policy current?
Does it align with best practices in the area?
Is the policy being followed in practice fairly, equitably, and consistently per case and in each cycle, or is there a need to address and improve policy, procedures, and practical implementation?

While this list is specifically focused on anti-racism, there are several points here that could be applied in different contexts.

For more ideas about reviewing and creating policies, see Further Reading.

4 Maintaining the momentum

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

An organisational push to introduce new initiatives can create momentum and enthusiasm, but what can you do to maintain that momentum when the initial impetus wears off?

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of multiple people gathered around a table focusing on lots of different documents.

Internal communication

Whether you have a dedicated department or not, internal communication plays a significant role in keeping inclusion in the minds of all your employees and demonstrating your continued commitment as an organisation.

Norton (2020) has created a series of short videos explaining the importance of internal comms (IC) in promoting the diversity agenda. You can find them in Norton’s blog post, listed in the References section, but the one highlighted here includes some really useful tips about planning a calendar of messages throughout the year.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 7: Planning a calendar

Video _unit8.5.1 Video 7: Planning a calendar

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Planning a calendar

Russ Norton

So the next question we often have to answer is, how do I plan out what I’m going to talk about when in the space of diversity and inclusion, like we addressed in the last video? It’s a really, really big topic with many different angles that you can take. And it’s really important to be planful. Because in some organisations, you’ve got a full scale DNI team running their own activity and engaging employees in their own ways, and you as a DNI team have to find a way to kind of slot into their activity and help amplify it. And in other organisations, there’s only one or two of you doing IC. And therefore, it’s one of many priorities and conflicting needs that you need to do within your team.

So a couple of tips here to help you stay really, really planful. The first one’s really, really obvious, but it’s stay super close to that planned calendar of events. Pride Month, International Women’s Day, Black History Month, these give you a really, really good reason to communicate.

And there’s also some fantastic resources out there. Plymouth University has got the most amazing diversity calendar that lays out all of the religious celebrations, all of the international dates relating to different diversity dates. It’s just a really helpful resource to refer to. And another one that’s fantastic is daysoftheyear.com, that really maps how some of those slightly more abstract ones, like International Potato Day. But actually, there are some real nuggets in there that just inspire you to address some topics that you might not normally think about.

But don’t forget that what you talk about and when is entirely up to you. It’s absolutely OK to set yourself up a spreadsheet or a PowerPoint slide, map out the months of the year, and define what you’re going to talk about when. Ultimately, it’s your team, your business. You know your time and resource better.

The couple of things that I’d share here, the first one is that doesn’t have to be rigid. If International Women’s Day falls in March, it’s OK to talk about gender in April. The boundaries can absolutely blur. That planning mechanism just helps you narrow your focus and speak to the right people at the right time so that you’re not juggling too many balls in the air at once.

The other thing I’d say is that forward planning is really, really important. So that calendar is going to help you tackle topics at the right time in your organisation. But it’s also going to help you manage your workload.

And remember that telling stories about diversity can be quite sensitive. You might be dealing with some fairly tricky topics. And so the stakeholders that you’re going to be working with need time. They need time to craft that message, to share that story in a way that that’s impactful but is not revealing too much or putting them in an awkward position.

So that calendar becomes incredibly important. It helps you plan out what you’re going to say and when and also gives you that time to forecast ahead and give yourself the time to plan ahead. In the next video, I’m going to look at how you can make those messages relevant to everyone, not just minority communities.

End transcript: Video 7: Planning a calendar

Download

Video _unit8.5.1 Video 7: Planning a calendar

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Here is an example of an interesting campaign idea:

Box _unit8.5.1 Johnson & Johnson’s ‘You Belong’ campaign (Lee, 2019)

It became clear that despite offering initiatives celebrating various diverse groups, ‘these principally catered to employees who were already assured with their identities’. Creating the ‘You Belong’ campaign, encouraging staff to bring their ‘whole selves’ to work, allowed the company to empower less confident employees to feel more comfortable being themselves in the workplace.

‘You Belong’ has a dedicated website which reviews the impact of the campaign annually, sharing data and stories. Lee offers this advice:

‘take a look at your workforce and determine which groups of people could feel underrepresented and undervalued. Be genuine and show them that you cherish them, whether that be through developing policies that support them or launching internal campaigns that celebrate them. Internal communications are hugely valuable here, and we’ve found that our ‘You Belong’ campaign has been immeasurably effective.’

While you might not have the resources to create a dedicated newsletter or website, there’s no reason why you can’t communicate diversity and inclusion topics elsewhere, for example in your regular all staff emails or in a designated section of a more general staff newsletter.

Employee surveys

Regular feedback from employees plays a crucial role in keeping you up-to-date with diversity and inclusion in your organisation.

Often this involves measuring engagement through a staff survey. If you don’t already have inclusion related statements for staff to respond to, adding the following would allow you to explore their feelings (Maltese, 2020):

My opinions seem to count at work (a positive response tells you ‘I feel heard’)
The people I work with treat each other with respect (tells you ‘I feel respected’)
If I contribute to the organisation’s success, I know I will be recognised (tells you ‘I feel valued’).

The data you collect can help you measure the impact of what you are currently doing, but can also help you to plan what to do next.

An important part of the survey process is encouraging as many staff members as possible to complete it. This might involve clarifying the importance of collecting diversity data and how it can impact on your approach to inclusion.

Box _unit8.5.2 Lloyds Banking Group (McGregor-Smith review, no date)

Lloyds Banking Group launched regular communication campaigns, sponsored by senior leadership, to encourage colleagues to complete all personal details (including ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation) on their HR system. They linked the request to complete personal data with their Group purpose of Helping Britain Prosper through better representing the customers and communities they serve. This gave colleagues a positive reason to share their information.

The communication campaign was supported by equipping leadership and line managers with a guidance pack, including FAQs, to help them explain to colleagues the positive benefits of having accurate data around the diversity of the workforce. Since the launch of the communications campaign, they saw a 4% increase in completion of ethnic origin data, equating to over 3,000 colleagues voluntarily updating their details.

Another approach, undertaken more frequently than the larger staff survey, is the ‘pulse survey’ – designed to quickly collect employee opinion about key workplace issues, i.e. to measure the workforce’s pulse.

Stange (2020) explains that a pulse survey should be short, simple, flexible and targeted, and can help you to increase transparency, build trust, improve culture and collect real time feedback to measure impact and inform your decision making – ideal in the diversity and inclusion context.

A crucial part of the feedback loop is providing information on the actions you’ve taken following survey findings.

Box _unit8.5.3 King County employees

King County is a US county in Washington State. Following a pulse survey of employees across the county, with a focus on the pandemic and remote working, it created this short film to highlight its findings and actions:

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 8: King County Pulse Survey Results (Please note this video has no spoken audio.)

Video _unit8.5.2 Video 8: King County Pulse Survey Results (Please note this video has no spoken audio.)

Download

Video _unit8.5.2 Video 8: King County Pulse Survey Results (Please note this video has no spoken audio.)

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Standards, frameworks and accreditation

Connecting and collaborating with organisations that are able to provide support and advice on specific areas of diversity can also help to maintain activity levels. As many of these organisations operate as consultancies, in most cases there will be a fee for their feedback and expertise.

One high profile organisation operating across all sectors is Stonewall, which runs two indices to help you assess your progress on LGBT inclusion in the workplace – one UK based, and the other global.

Other organisations are sector specific, recognising and responding to a particular issue. For example, in the HE and research sector, the Athena Swan Charter is a framework that encourages and recognises commitment to advancing gender equality. Organisations can apply for institutional and departmental Athena Swan awards recognising their gender equality efforts.

The Inclusive Employers Standard is an evidence-based workplace accreditation tool for inclusion and diversity. Participants answer 35 questions that cover all the protected characteristics and wider themes, and responses are used to measure inclusion and diversity and to assess where you are on your journey.

Show description|Hide description

Illustration demonstrating the six pillars of inclusion: evolve, engage, equip, empower, embed and evaluate.

The questions are divided across six pillars of inclusion that measure all areas of inclusion and diversity activity.

Box _unit8.5.4 The Calico Group (Inclusive Companies, 2020)

The Calico Group are a group of innovative charities and business working together to make social rather than financial profit. Working towards the Inclusive Employers Standard, they jumped a significant 20 places to rank 5^thin the Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers List 2020/21. Some of the actions that supported this improvement include:

making their diversity and inclusion strategy easily accessible on their intranet
setting up ‘This is me’ diversity networks across the organisation to celebrate and champion diversity through lived experience
delivering diversity and inclusion refresher training three times per year
measuring inclusion across the whole Group through monthly key performance indicators
identifying that their employees were aging and subsequently introducing an innovative and unconventional recruitment campaign via WhatsApp to attract younger applicants
tailoring their wellbeing offer to their older workforce, e.g. through retirement planning and menopause workshops.

Another useful organisation to be aware of is Business in the Community, which works with its members ‘to continually improve their responsible business practice, leveraging the collective impact for the benefit of communities.’ The cost of membership depends on the size and turnover of your organisation and the level of service you want access to.

There are some resources you can access without being a member, such as their downloadable toolkit (BITC, 2020), offering guidance on diversity and inclusion strategy and policy. Find the link in References.

Activity _unit8.5.1 Activity 4 Who could your organisation connect with?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Consider a current diversity related weakness within your workplace and, using your preferred search engine – make a list of the external organisations that might provide support and advice on that issue.

Or you might choose to explore the costs and benefits of membership of Inclusive Employers or Business in the Community.

Comment

It can also be useful to talk with contacts/peers within other organisations to explore what steps they have taken.

There are a wide number of consultancies and charitable organisations who can provide support, ranging from delivering training courses to helping you review your policies and procedures.

5 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now that you’ve completed Week 7, you can take a short quiz to help you to reflect on what you’ve learned.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 7 practice quiz

6 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week you’ve explored lots of ideas that could support your own organisation’s diversity and inclusion journey. Or if you’re not currently working for an organisation, you might choose to apply your learning to the processes of another business that you know well.

You started by looking at culture change, and finished the week with a focus on maintaining momentum, through ideas such as internal communications and pulse surveys.

You should now be able to:

describe examples of good diversity practice
reflect on the actions of others in your sector and beyond
identify opportunities to apply their ideas within your organisation.

Next week, you’ll bring all of your learning together and start to plan some next steps. You’ll explore useful resources and consider some future diversity themes.

You can now go to Week 8.

Introduction

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Welcome to the last week of this course! By now you should be feeling better informed about diversity and discrimination in a workplace context and be full of ideas about how to take things forward within your chosen organisation!

This week, you’ll bring all of your learning together and start to plan your next steps.

In this final introductory video, the employers share the importance of keeping the conversation going with all the staff in your organisation and being transparent about progress.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1: Introduction to Week 8

Video _unit9.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 8

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 8

Craig Pemblington

We keep a constant eye on particularly our sector but more broadly. We’re also really interested in what’s happening across national bodies. So thinking about what the work is of the social mobility commission, for example.

Mark Ealing

There’s a group of people within the business that just get it, that you’re preaching to the choir. And there’s a group of people in any business that will never get it. It’s not for them. They’re not interested.

Both of those groups are important, but that’s not where your focus really needs to be. Focus is needs to be the majority of the people that sits in the middle who don’t spend too much time thinking about it. They’ve got a day job. What we’re trying to do is get more of that group to come and support the energy of what we’re trying to do.

Craig Pemblington

I would hazard a guess that we have a diversity and inclusion conversation in maybe half, if not more than half, of every conversation I have about any work involving any kind of recruitment and selection at the moment. So I feel like I’m constantly being kept on my toes and learning new things from other people.

Yusuf Nagdi

I keep talking about it to everybody that I see, whether it’s people internal to the organisation, whether it’s people external. I know where my gaps are within Leicestershire Police. I know where I need to recruit people. And I need to keep the conversation going.

Every police officer that talks to me, I make it really clear to them that every interaction they have is an engagement opportunity.

Craig Pemblington

It comes to the point that I think diversity and inclusion is everyone’s responsibility actually in an organisation. And that conversation needs to happen at senior executives here who are probably thinking about it strategically. But particularly, for more junior staff, where it might not form part of the day to day, we create regular spaces through some particularly online and digital tools with people being remote. So Slack has been a great tool for us, keeping people connected and up to date with news flashes about interesting information within the space.

Mark Ealing

Ultimately, what we have to do is make systemic changes to the way we operate, and we need to explain why we’re making those changes and why it’s good for everyone.

And so if we’re making a tweak to a process, we need to bring people on board with why we’re making the tweak, test it, make sure that it works within our organisation, then roll it out, and we re-affirming why we’re doing it, and then be transparent with our performance, our results.

Transparency is really important, because without that, you won’t build the psychological safety. We’ve made a change, it’s made a difference, good or bad. And we’re going to carry on doing this or do less of this. So engaging with people about what you’re trying to do, what you hope to achieve, and then share your results.

End transcript: Video 1: Introduction to Week 8

Download

Video _unit9.1.1 Video 1: Introduction to Week 8

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

By the end of this week you will be able to:

reflect on how you can make a difference as an individual
describe organisational actions that will promote diversity in the workplace
access useful resources to maintain your awareness of diversity issues in the future.

You’ll start by focusing on your personal responsibilities.

1 Making a difference as an individual

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Throughout the course, you’ve learned about how individual actions, whether conscious or unconscious, can make a difference to diverse groups.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a person holding their hand out to shake hands, with other people watching behind.

In Activity 1, you’ll look back at some of the activities you’ve already completed in order to raise your personal awareness and consider where you need to focus on making a change.

Activity _unit9.2.1 Activity 1 Reflecting on your personal learning

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Here’s a list of the activities you’ve already completed on your personal journey:

Reflecting on those activities, which were the most challenging? Where do you need to do the most work to improve? For example, you might need to enhance your awareness of your own unconscious biases, or focus on how you could be a better ally.

Comment

Self-awareness and self-education play an important role in facilitating our personal diversity and inclusion journeys and the impact we can choose to have in our workplaces.

As has hopefully come across clearly throughout the course, we all have biases and privileges, and we shouldn’t be afraid of admitting that. The key is to acknowledge them, try to understand them and make an effort to stop them from influencing the way we interact with people who are different from us.

An important theme running throughout this course, and something that we can all work on at a personal level, is allyship, and you’ll explore that in more detail next.

1.1 Allyship

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Allyship is essential in creating inclusion in the workplace. Watch this short film, to hear a useful introduction.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 2: 5 Tips For Being An Ally

Video _unit9.2.1 Video 2: 5 Tips For Being An Ally

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 2: 5 Tips For Being An Ally

FRANCHESCA RAMSEY

Hey, friends. So I'm trying something different with my setup. And I don't know if it's working, but you will deal. [LAUGHS]

Imagine your friend is building a house and they ask you to help. But you've never built a house before. So it'd probably be a good idea for you to put on some protective gear and listen to the person in charge. Otherwise, someone's going to get seriously hurt.

Look, I'm helping.

It's the exact same idea when it comes to being an ally. An ally is a person that wants to fight for the equality of a marginalised group that they're not a part of. We need your help building this house, but you probably should listen so you know what to do first.

Let's do this.

So here are my five tips for being a good ally. Understand your privilege. Now, a lot of people get hung up on the word privilege. So let me break it down for you nice and easy. Privilege does not mean that you are rich, that you've had an easy life, that everything's been handed to you, and you've never had to struggle or work hard.

All it means is that there are some things in life that you will not experience or ever have to think about just because of who you are. It's kind of like those horses that have those blinders on. They can see just fine. There's just a whole bunch of stuff on the side that they don't even know exists.

So for example, there are currently 29 states where you can legally be fired for being gay. And there are 34 states where you can legally be fired for being trans. Now, as a straight cis woman, those are things that I don't have to ever think about if I don't want to.

I'm not going to be fired because I'm straight and I'm not going to be fired because I am cis. So it makes sense that before I can fight for the rights of others, I have to understand what rights I have and others don't. That's privilege.

Listen and do your homework. It sounds like a no brainer. But it's not possible for you to learn if you aren't willing to listen. So you've got to know when to zip the lip. I don't know. You get what I mean.

But that's the thing that's so cool about social media. There are so many people sharing their stories all around the world and connecting with people that they normally would never get a chance to without the power of the internet. So do your homework. Start reading blogs, tweets, news articles, and stories so that you can get caught up on the issues that are important to the communities that you want to support.

Speak up but not over. If the fight for equality was a girl group, the ally wouldn't be the lead singer or the second lead singer. They'd be Michelle. And ally's job is to support. You want to make sure that you use your privilege and your voice to educate others.

But make sure to do it in such a way that does not speak over the community members that you're trying to support or take credit for things that they are already saying. This isn't Mario Kart. Stay in your lane.

Realise that you're going to make mistakes, and apologise when you do. Nobody's perfect. Unlearning problematic things takes time and work, so you are bound to mess up and trip and fall. But don't worry. You can brush yourself off and get right back up. I'm back up.

Just remember that it's not about your intent. It's about your impact. So when you get called out, make sure to listen, apologise, commit to changing your behavior, and move forward.

Last but certainly not least, actually the most important thing on this list, is remember that ally is a verb. Saying you're an ally is not enough. You've got to do the work, 1 through 4, 1 through 4.

As always, there are links in the video description box, some of the things I mentioned in this video, along with some resources that have been really helpful for me as I've gone along in my journey to be more conscious. So I want to hear from you, in the comments, what are some sites that you suggest checking out and what are some things that have helped you become a better ally.

Let me know in the comments below. Don't forget to subscribe. And I'll see you when I see you. Bye.

End transcript: Video 2: 5 Tips For Being An Ally

Download

Video _unit9.2.1 Video 2: 5 Tips For Being An Ally

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Becoming a good ally is not a quick change, and it requires a consistent approach. Atcheson (2021) describes allyship as:

a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalised individuals and/or groups of people
not self-defined—work and efforts must be recognised by those you are seeking to ally with
an opportunity to grow and learn about ourselves, whilst building confidence in others.

On a personal level, there are many ways you can become a better ally. In their article, Melaku et al (2020) focus on gender and race related advice for white men in the US, but they ‘believe it can be used by members of any privileged group who want to create inclusive organisations’:

Educate yourself – take the time to read, listen, watch and deepen understanding. Recognise that members of an underrepresented group won’t all have the same experiences.
Own your privilege – acknowledge the advantages, opportunities and resources you have automatically been given, while others have been overtly or subtly denied them.
Accept feedback – establish trust with, and seek feedback from, people from marginalised groups. Be thoughtful and sincere, using responses such as ‘I recognise I have work to do’, or ‘how can I make this right?’
Become a confidant – let people know they can confide in you and make yourself available. Listen generously and try to empathise with and validate their experiences.
Bring diversity to the table – invite colleagues from marginalised groups to meetings. Ask them specific questions, encourage them to lead the meeting or to represent you at an event.
See something, say something – monitor your workplace for inappropriate comments and behaviour, and be clear and decisive in shutting them down. Frame any confrontation as a learning or growth opportunity for the person and the team.
Sponsor marginalised co-workers – get to know their strengths and weaknesses, help them to develop and put their names forward whenever new projects, stretch opportunities or promotions are discussed. Introduce them to key players in your own professional networks.
Insist on diverse candidates – strengthen your own recruitment processes (using some of the ideas you learned from Week 6).
Build a community of allies – look for like-minded people within your organisation and boost your impact by forming groups interested in fighting inequality.

You may find it useful to watch this short video from Lean In, which categorises allyship actions into three groups – individual, interpersonal and structural.

Video 3: Allyship in Practice

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Examples of allyship

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Some employers take this so seriously that they have entire programmes dedicated to the theme.

Box _unit9.2.1 Microsoft’s Allyship Programme (Ray, 2020)

The goal is to give all Microsoft employees the language they need to discuss different viewpoints and difficult issues in a way that offers empathy and inclusion to all, merging advocacy with the concept of the ‘growth mindset’.

The programme consists of 10 segments, including online classes, video scenarios and facilitated sessions focused on building skills and practicing behaviours. It teaches that ‘there’s no limit to who can benefit from a focus on greater inclusion – everyone has an opportunity to be an ally, and everyone needs allyship in some form’. People are encouraged to learn, grow, make mistakes and get better.

Others use their own sector specialism, in this case – making compelling films, to promote allyship to all their employees.

Box _unit9.2.2 Netflix allyship culture

Video 4: Netflix Culture Allyship

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Activity _unit9.2.2 Activity 2 Exploring allyship

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Part 1: Now you have a clearer understanding of what allyship is, spend some time thinking about ways you could use your own privilege and power to change the experience of marginalised groups. Make notes in the box below.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

Depending on your own position within your organisation, you can demonstrate your allyship in different ways. For example:

perhaps you’ve identified a colleague from an underrepresented group who you think has a useful perspective to share but who never gets invited to the meetings you go to. Chatting to them to find out their ideas would allow you to represent their views, or better still, arrange for them to attend the next meeting to speak for themselves
maybe your department will be recruiting soon, but you’ve realised that some of the processes are open to unconscious bias. Asking to be involved in (or to lead) a diversity and inclusion led review of those processes would be a strong step towards change.

Part 2: Imagine you have witnessed the following microaggression and think about how you might respond to it.

A new person starts in your office. Their name is Atinuke and when they are introduced, you hear a colleague say ‘That’s difficult to pronounce, do you mind if I call you Ati?’

Comment

A new person will often say ‘No, that’s fine!’ and keep their frustration hidden, not wanting to make an issue.

In a recent poll by Race Equality Matters (Race Equality Matters website, no date), 73% of respondents from more than 100 organisations said they had their names mispronounced. They said it made them feel ‘not valued or important’, ‘disrespected’ and ‘that they didn’t belong’. 88% of respondents thought a phonetic name spelling campaign would help tackle race inequality.

So Race Equality Matters started the ‘My name is’ campaign, introducing a digital tool to help people share their real names by translating them phonetically. They hope that organisations will standardise these phonetic spellings in email signatures and throughout their businesses.

Watch this short video in which Inein explains why this idea matters and can make a difference.

Video 5: Black History Month - My name is

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

If you want to try it out for yourself – visit https://mynameis.raceequalitymatters.com/

You can find a useful list of possible ways to respond to microaggressions here:

Responding to Microaggressions and bias

Now that you have identified some areas that you’d like to improve on, you’ll look at setting relevant goals and breaking down the actions you need to take in order to achieve them.

2 Setting SMART goals

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Show description|Hide description

Graphic of SMART Goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.

When you are setting yourself goals, it is important to make sure they are SMART. That means:

S = Specific – is your goal specific and clear?
M = Measurable – how will you measure your success?
A = Achievable/attainable – is your goal attainable, do you have the ability to achieve it?
R = Realistic – is your goal realistic in your context? Will it fit with other priorities in your life?
T = Timely/time bound – make sure you give yourself a deadline for achieving your goal.

This Goal Setting tool takes you through the SMART process and helps you to write down and plan your goals.

Here is another way of breaking down each goal.

Table _unit9.3.1 Table 1 Scenario A
Goal	To enhance my awareness of my own unconscious biases
Current status: a.Experience b.Knowledge c.Skills	a.I have unconscious biases b.I am now more aware of what they are (see Activity 1, Week 4) c.I am able to reflect on my previous actions, but need to develop my reflective thinking further.
Development/training/knowledge needed to reach my goal	I need to practice reflecting on past opinions/actions
Action plan	Purchase a notebook to use for making reflective notes Set aside a regular time for reflecting on past decisions, interactions etc. where I may have displayed unconscious bias Identify opportunities to mix with people from outside my usual circle Look for some relevant training on unconscious bias
Outcome (to be completed after a designated time period relevant to the complexity of the actions)	I’ve now spent some time reflecting on past experiences/decisions etc. in my notebook, and I’m starting to identify times when I’ve displayed my unconscious biases. I’ve enrolled on an unconscious bias training course in January. I’ve joined a working group looking at supporting disability in my workplace and have started to build connections with members of the group who have disabilities.
Evaluation	I have started to look at my working environment and the things I say to colleagues in a different way, and I want to share my learning with my team.
Next step	To investigate ways in which I can raise awareness of unconscious bias with my colleagues, particularly relating to our recruitment processes.

Table _unit9.3.2 Table 2 Scenario B
Goal	To build my personal skills to give me the confidence to call out discrimination when I see/hear it.
Current status: a.Experience b.Knowledge c.Skills	a.I have often observed microaggressions in the past, but haven’t had the confidence to question them publicly b.I feel better informed about what a microaggression is and how it can make the recipient feel c.I have the communication skills required to make an articulate comment, but don’t always feel resilient enough to say something.
Development/training/knowledge needed to reach my goal	I need to build my resilience and practice my allyship
Action plan	Research ways to build my personal resilience and put them into practice Talk to my colleagues and find out how I can be a better ally to them Find out what support my employer currently has in place to encourage staff to identify and tackle microaggressions Look for a training course focused on how to have difficult conversations.
Outcome (to be completed after a designated time period relevant to the complexity of the actions)	My employer hasn’t considered support for staff in tackling microaggressions, so I’m working with a member of the HR team to explore that in more detail. I’m building a more trusting relationship with two colleagues and supporting them with the microaggressions they are regularly exposed to.
Evaluation	I am making small steps to improve, and will continue to do so. I have suggested to my employer that we have Diversity Champions in our office.
Next step	Create a resource with my HR colleague to build awareness about microaggressions in the workplace.

These examples are of relatively short term goals that will move you forward incrementally, which is an approach that can work well with this type of personal development. Of course, this same process can also be used to consider medium or longer term goals.

Activity _unit9.3.1 Activity 3 Achieving your goals

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

Now it’s your turn! Use the template below to set goals and plan your next steps. For this activity, start with some short term goals.

If you have an alternative format you’d prefer to use, please do. You could also use the Goal Setting tool to make sure your goals are SMART.

Table _unit9.3.3 Table 3 Setting goals
Goal 1	Table 3 Setting goals 1, Your response 1
Current status: a) Experience b) Knowledge c) Skills	Table 3 Setting goals 2, Your response 2
Development/training/knowledge needed to reach my goal	Table 3 Setting goals 3, Your response 3
Action plan	Table 3 Setting goals 4, Your response 4
Outcome	Table 3 Setting goals 5, Your response 5
Evaluation	Table 3 Setting goals 6, Your response 6
Next step (include dates)	Table 3 Setting goals 7, Your response 7
Goal 2	Table 3 Setting goals 8, Your response 8
Current status: a) Experience b) Knowledge c) Skills	Table 3 Setting goals 9, Your response 9
Development/training/knowledge needed to reach my goal	Table 3 Setting goals 10, Your response 10
Action plan	Table 3 Setting goals 11, Your response 11
Outcome	Table 3 Setting goals 12, Your response 12
Evaluation	Table 3 Setting goals 13, Your response 13
Next step (include dates)	Table 3 Setting goals 14, Your response 14
Goal 3	Table 3 Setting goals 15, Your response 15
Current status: a) Experience b) Knowledge c) Skills	Table 3 Setting goals 16, Your response 16
Development/training/knowledge needed to reach my goal	Table 3 Setting goals 17, Your response 17
Action plan	Table 3 Setting goals 18, Your response 18
Outcome	Table 3 Setting goals 19, Your response 19
Evaluation	Table 3 Setting goals 20, Your response 20
Next step (include dates)	Table 3 Setting goals 21, Your response 21

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

If you have identified more than one goal, prioritise your plans. Are they sequential or can you do them all at once? Make sure you don’t take on too much – if you don’t achieve all your goals within the allotted time, this can be a negative experience.

You should now have a set of SMART, short-term, personal goals, and an action plan for achieving them.

In the next section, you’ll look at goals for your organisation.

3 Making a difference as an organisation

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

In many of the activities in this course, you’ve spent time thinking about your own organisation, or one that you are familiar with, and reflecting on how the diversity agenda might be improved.

Show description|Hide description

Photograph of a street sign, with the text: change just ahead.

While this is a process that ultimately needs to be done in collaboration with colleagues, the thinking that you’ve been doing over the last seven weeks should enable you to raise issues with your leaders from a point of careful consideration.

Activity _unit9.4.1 Activity 4 Reflecting on your organisational learning

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Here’s a list of the activities you’ve already completed on your organisational journey:

Reflecting on those activities, what feels like a priority for your organisation? Depending on where things stand within the diversity and inclusion agenda, it could be raising your organisation’s profile externally with key target groups, or starting at the beginning to develop a diversity statement.

Comment

When you’ve chosen what goal(s) you’d like to set your organisation, you need to work on an action plan, focusing on what your personal role in that might be. Think about who you will need to collaborate with in order to make progress. Remember to choose something that you can make into a SMART goal.

There may be many things that you want to take forward within your organisation, but breaking this down into a manageable process will make them easier to achieve. In the next section, you’ll revisit the goal setting process to identify what you can do to stimulate progress.

3.1 Your role in achieving organisational goals

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Unless you are the CEO of your organisation, it is unlikely that you will be able to make significant progress with your chosen goals alone. Even then, collaborating with colleagues is a much more effective way to engage them in taking the agenda forward. So in this section, you’ll focus on what you can personally contribute to each goal you’ve chosen.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph with a notepad and the SMART labels layed out. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.

Here’s an example of how you might break down your goal:

Table _unit9.4.1 Table 4 Goals
Goal	Write an organisational diversity statement
Current status	We don’t have a diversity statement
What can I contribute?	In this course, I’ve researched what other organisations have done (see Week 5, Activity 5), and considered best practice, so can share some useful examples and ideas.
What skills/knowledge/experience are needed?	Knowledge of existing vision, strategy and policy within the organisation Senior management representation Understanding of the current diversity agenda both internally and externally
Who do I need to collaborate with?	Colleagues with responsibility for organisational strategy and policy Senior management (may be the same people) Diversity groups within the organisation and potentially external experts Colleagues with responsibility for branding and external messages
Who should I approach first?	Identify the department or individual who owns this agenda within my organisation and have a preliminary conversation with them.
What actions need to be taken?	Set up a working group, ensuring that the membership represents diversity from across the organisation Share knowledge about best practice Write a diversity statement that aligns with the overall vision/strategy of the organisation Consult widely with stakeholders both internal and external Finalise the statement
Next steps	Create an action plan to support the statement and its ambitions Agree the actions with appropriate owners and create a time frame for progress Publicise the statement and utilise in branding etc.

Activity _unit9.4.2 Activity 5 Making progress

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

Using the template outlined above, work through the progress you’d like to make towards one of your chosen goals. If you find it useful, repeat the process for other goals you have in mind.

Table _unit9.4.2 Table 5 Setting organisational goals
Goal	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 1, Your response 1
Current status	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 2, Your response 2
What can I contribute?	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 3, Your response 3
What skills/knowledge/experience are needed?	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 4, Your response 4
Who do I need to collaborate with?	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 5, Your response 5
Who should I approach first?	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 6, Your response 6
What actions need to be taken?	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 7, Your response 7
Next steps	Table 5 Setting organisational goals 8, Your response 8

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Comment

You may find it useful to work through this table with a colleague, for example, sharing ideas about who you need to collaborate with, who you should approach first and what actions need to be taken.

If you are the owner of this agenda, then the advice about strategic planning for diversity in Week 5 will be particularly relevant, and your first step might be to create a diversity strategy or to update an existing one.

4 Keeping up to date

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

The diversity agenda is constantly changing, with new terminology and new perspectives developing at a fast pace. While this course aims to cover both the basics and some of the emerging issues, there will always be new aspects to discover and build your awareness of.

Show description|Hide description

An image of a pile of books.

So where can you look for up to date content and advice?

Inclusion and Diversity: The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has a very useful resource aimed at those with an interest in human resources and people development. They offer a wide range of reports, guides, factsheets and podcasts to support your diversity development.
For more practical support, The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) works with employers and employees to improve workplace relationships, providing advice, policy templates and training as well as useful news updates.
The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission offers advice and guidance to individuals and organisations on a wide range of diversity related topics.
Pearn Kandola is a business-psychology consultancy that provides access to useful podcasts, blogs and other free resources relating to diversity and inclusion.
Diversity Q supports organisations setting and enacting their diversity and inclusion strategies. Their website provides access to numerous blog posts covering best practice and providing insight.
Equality, diversity and inclusion resources: Wellbeing training and consultancy provider In Equilibrium, offers a useful selection of resources and blog articles.

There are also many businesses that offer membership or consultancy to organisations looking for support with their diversity agenda. These range from small consultancies to specialist recruitment agencies and professional bodies.

Examples include:

EW Group – an equality, diversity and inclusion consultancy that works to address unconscious bias and build inclusive leadership across businesses.
Goss Consultancy Ltd – working with organisations to ensure they are as diverse, accessible and inclusive as possible in the way they employ people, develop policies and deliver services.
Inclusive Employers – offers a membership organisation for employers looking to build inclusive workplaces, and provides expertise on workplace inclusion.
Business in the Community – an organisation providing expertise to measure and improve your impact in responsible business.
Delta Alpha Psi – an organisation that uses the science of psychology to help leaders get the best out of diversity in their organisations.

Some are more specialised in their focus:

Rare Recruitment – working to make the elite professions, e.g. law, more diverse.
Exceptional Individuals – providing consulting, recruitment and employment support to employers and individuals with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and autism.
Diversifying Group – diversity and inclusion recruitment and consultancy firm.

Activity _unit9.5.1 Activity 6 Finding resources

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Use your preferred search engine to look for resources or organisations that could support you in a particular initiative that you’re interested in developing. For example, helping to recruit from a particular target group or support with policy templates.

Make a shortlist of at least three websites you aim to revisit regularly over the next few months.

If any of the organisations listed here sound interesting, spend your time researching them and the advice or services they offer.

Comment

While there are a number of organisations that offer a more general set of resources, there will also be many that focus more specifically on needs such as yours. This might be an activity to repeat as you progress through your diversity agenda – identifying different resources and organisations to suit your needs at each stage.

Remember – this is not an agenda you have to move forward alone, there is a lot of support available.

4.1 Maintaining the dialogue

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Another important element of staying up to date is maintaining the dialogue and momentum within your organisation, and encouraging your staff to continue to share their experiences with you. ‘Diversity and inclusion’ is not something that you can ‘do’ and tick off – it is an ongoing commitment, and continuing discussions and conversations play an important part in that.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of three people talking around a table.

In Week 4, you considered the fear of saying something wrong and the fear of conflict or difference. Inevitably, the dialogue will sometimes be uncomfortable, so Coach Diversity Institute (no date) suggests ten strategies for holding difficult conversations about diversity:

Set the stage – let people know about the discussion ahead of time and be clear about its purpose and what you hope to achieve.
Establish discussion guidelines – e.g. listen without interrupting, give everyone an opportunity to speak, don’t criticise one another but challenge harmful ideas, allow questions without judgement.
Make the conversation a brainstorming session – prepare questions to get the conversation started in a warm and welcoming way so participants feel safe to discuss and share.
Expect different viewpoints and encourage humility – there’s a high probability that at least one person will react defensively. Open the conversation up by reassuring employees this is a safe space to express vulnerability and curiosity.
Listen more than you speak – encourage participants to pause before responding and really consider if they understand someone’s meaning or feelings before making assumptions or reacting defensively.
Encourage a lot of questions – questions are a critical part of the process, ask them on behalf of the group but encourage participants to ask questions as well.
Check your privilege – ask participants to consider how the advantages they’ve had in life might contribute to their opinions and actions, or how it has kept them from understanding or experiencing the struggles of others.
Don’t shame or humiliate – be prepared to shut down shame and humiliation. These conversations may get heated, but the anger or upset is likely directed at injustices in the world in general, rather than someone in particular.
Address hesitancy in the conversation – try to discover why it’s difficult to discuss. The odds are good that someone else feels the same way and is too afraid to speak up. These open interactions help people see their similarities with one another.
Remind everyone of the common goal – everyone is working toward equality, understanding, empathy, and to end discrimination, so focus your attention on the mutual gain.

Another way to maintain the diversity and inclusion dialogue is to ensure that your diverse new hires don’t descend into groupthink once they are embedded within your organisation.

Groupthink

If your organisation expects or encourages employees to conform to a certain set of values and beliefs, diverse voices will get lost amongst the more prevalent ones and even though they don’t think the same, they won’t feel empowered to say anything different.

Janis (1971) uses the term groupthink to refer to ‘the mode of thinking that persons engage with when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.’

Lau (2022) describes four symptoms of groupthink:

Trying to evade conflict within the group wherever possible
Having a know-it-all attitude and a lack of critical thinking, demonstrating biases and stereotyping
Lack of psychological safety (if you feel psychologically safe, you know you won’t be reprimanded or punished for expressing a concern or making a mistake)
Overly rigid thinking that doesn’t take intuition into consideration.

Lean Impact (no date) suggests useful strategies to combat groupthink:

Recruit a diverse team
Organise your space – while collaborative spaces can be useful for team building, creating spaces where people can go to be alone communicates that your organisation also values independent thought.
Make time for independent evaluation – not everyone enjoys brainstorming in meetings. Communicating challenges in advance, and encouraging everyone to develop an idea, will both give staff time to think about an issue, and make it clear that you value each of their ideas.
Encourage personal and professional development to avoid groupthink – if everyone reads the same articles, attends the same conferences, and experiences the same interactions and outcomes, how will your organisation maintain diversity of thought?
Celebrate diverse perspectives – encourage constructive debate by always asking ‘why’ when someone proposed something new. Highlight where an individual’s contribution made a difference to a strategy or piece of work.

In her article about groupthink, Lau (2022) refers to psychological safety, which involves creating an environment where individuals can be their authentic selves. While the concept often focuses on high performing teams, it can also be very relevant from the perspective of inclusivity.

Watch this short video from Berkely Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer talking about psychological safety.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 6: Berkeley Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer Talks About Psychological Safety

Video _unit9.5.1 Video 6: Berkeley Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer Talks About Psychological Safety

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 6: Berkeley Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer Talks About Psychological Safety

LADY IDOS

Psychological safety was coined in 1999 by an organisational behavioural scientist named Amy Edmondson. And she described it as feeling safe for interpersonal risk taking. So the value of psychological safety is making sure that we are creating an environment where people feel comfortable contributing and bringing their ideas forward.

If we have that environment where people feel comfortable, then we have this environment of support for better innovation. What they found at Google and Project Aristotle is that the teams with the most psychological safety were rated as effective twice as much by their leaders. They also brought in more revenue. They had more innovation.

And also, their employees actually stayed longer. They were engaged. And the retention was higher. So there's lots of benefits to having a high performing team with psychological safety. And you can tell in the rapport and the dynamics of the group.

One example that I've seen is that there is a project that people are working on. And then there's one person that holds a critical piece of information that can either lead the project to success or failure. And because that person doesn't feel safe to contribute, that idea, if you don't have psychological safety, gets lost. And so it's really important to draw out the ideas from people, to draw out their contributions to make sure that you have full information for better decision making.

So I can speak from experience, when I'm in a psychologically safe team, I feel empowered to ask questions. I feel empowered to take risks. And I think that's the kind of creativity that I really like in being part of a team environment. I feel fully seen, and I feel fully valued for what I bring to the table.

End transcript: Video 6: Berkeley Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer Talks About Psychological Safety

Download

Video _unit9.5.1 Video 6: Berkeley Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer Talks About Psychological Safety

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

In the final section this week, you’ll look to the future and explore some of the diversity and inclusion themes that experts think are likely to grow in profile and importance.

5 Diversity themes for the future

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Much of the dialogue about the future for diversity and inclusion focuses on more openness around organisational diversity data. This will, in part, be stimulated by a greater demand from potential employees who will prioritise the commitment to diversity of the organisations they are applying to.

Show description|Hide description

A photograph of a road with the years labelled on the floor. The road starts with 2021 and progresses up to 2025 before it goes out of sight.

Ellsworth et al (2021) describe three future steps towards a more inclusive workplace:

Make diversity a priority – evidence shows it’s good for business.
Challenge biases to increase equity – the push toward an equitable playing field in the organisation should begin even before candidates join. Challenge assumptions about the knowledge, skills, attributes, and experiences required to succeed.
Improve inclusivity – are the right communities and supporting mechanisms in place? Are managers having open conversations about what it takes to succeed, providing good feedback consistently, and being good sponsors?

In a report for the CIPD, Green et al (no date, pp20-24) focus their research on people professionals and looking towards 2030, advising the following actions:

Ensure people teams have the resources to drive diversity and inclusion (D&I) – with the resources to lead conversations on D&I, evaluate and adapt people management practices to be more inclusive, and support managers to lead inclusively.
Be curious and continually update knowledge on D&I – equipped with up-to-date knowledge and understanding of evolving social constructs, and taking an evidence-based approach to forecasting demographic shifts, people professionals will need to feel confident to champion diversity and to challenge and shape people practices accordingly.
Look outwards to understand the systemic barriers to D&I – people professionals will need to challenge existing and emerging biases that may develop as globalisation impacts businesses and our workforce demographics.

Here, Asif Sadiq talks about the multiple layers of people’s identities and the role that technology might play in diversity and inclusion.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 7: Diversity – looking ahead

Video _unit9.6.1 Video 7: Diversity – looking ahead

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 7: Diversity – looking ahead

Asif Sadiq

I think the most important thing going into the future will be about understanding that diversity is not just one thing. Over the years, we focused on different elements. We’ve gone from gender, we’ve gone to race, we’ve gone to disability, and so on. The truth is, in the future, people will have those unique identities I mentioned, or the unique multiple led of their unique identities. And how we truly embed that and how we embrace those will be critical.

Furthermore, as we think of the future, it’s important to also consider what does technology mean for us in the future? Many people talk about that diversity and inclusion will get and become great because we’ll use technology, we’ll eliminate biases from processes, from systems, and so on. The truth is the technology and the automation of many things that we are currently doing are only as good as the people who design them. You will always need that diversity of thought, diversity of lived experience, diversity of different elements within the build process.

So although, yes, I think a lot will change going into the future and how we do things, the critical elements that you’re focusing on today, those will remain no matter what the future environment. It’s creating that sense of belonging, creating that sense of inclusion will always be critical to whatever we do.

End transcript: Video 7: Diversity – looking ahead

Download

Video _unit9.6.1 Video 7: Diversity – looking ahead

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Boston Consulting Group (2022) also put the focus on intersectionality as a growing theme for the future, suggesting that companies must diversify from broad categories such as Black, LGBTQ or female, and instead:

consider the vast range of identities that their employees embrace
take a more holistic view of the solutions and initiatives offered to effect diversity and organisational change
ground all these efforts in the unique context of their individual organisation and workforce.

The final word goes to global organisational consulting firm Korn Ferry, from their report ‘Future of Work Trends in 2022: The new era of humanity’ (no author, 2022). In it they predict that power will shift from ‘me’ to ‘we’, and encourage organisations to ‘address the issues of “invisible people and unheard voices” to unlock the true power and potential of all.

6 This week’s quiz

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

It’s now time to take the Week 8 compulsory badge quiz. It’s similar to previous quizzes, but this time, like Week 4, instead of answering five questions there will be 15.

Open the quiz in a new tab or window, then come back here when you’ve finished.

Week 8 compulsory badge quiz

Remember, this quiz counts towards your badge. If you’re not successful the first time, you can attempt the quiz again in 24 hours.

7 Summary

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This week, you’ve considered your next steps and explored some of the useful resources available to keep you up to date as you continue your diversity journey. You’ve also looked briefly at some of the potential trends for the future.

You should now be able to:

reflect on how you can make a difference as an individual
describe organisational actions that will promote diversity in your workplace
access useful resources to maintain your awareness of diversity issues in the future.

Now watch a final video from Asif Sadiq, where he shares his advice and experience to help you take this forward.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 8: It takes everyone to make a difference

Video _unit9.8.1 Video 8: It takes everyone to make a difference

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Video 8: It takes everyone to make a difference

Asif Sadiq

So sometimes there is a perception that diversity is only led either by the top and the messages that come through that, that they will resonate across an organisation. The truth is how do we bring those messages to life, especially in that middle layer of our organisations where we know people are too busy. People have a lot of jobs to do, they have a lot of other things that they’re focusing on. How do we make sure that diversity is weaved into what they do there?

The critical thing to do that is to ensure that diversity isn’t something we spend five minutes before a meeting doing, or five minutes at the end. It’s something we weave into our conversations, into our language. So our language is about diversity. It doesn’t need a separate space, it needs to be crucial and critical to the main space that you have.

And the second element to that is sometimes we believe that diversity is too difficult. We need to do all these different things, we need to get it perfect and right. The truth is, no one will ever get it perfect. If we would have, we would see much more change. What is really important, though, is that we try. We try, we make mistakes, we learn, we acknowledge, and we try again. But not trying, waiting for that perfect moment doesn’t help. Because we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.

And the third point really is what does true difference mean within that busy team, that centre layer when people don’t have the time? It’s the small acts that we can do. It’s the same hi to someone you haven’t said hi to. It’s giving someone in a meeting an opportunity to speak up, who hasn’t spoken up. It’s having lunch with someone you’ve never sat next to or never had lunch with. It’s those human interactions and how we build those conversations that truly matter. That’s what people want to see, how included do I feel when I walk through the doors of your company.

There is sometimes this misconception that diversity is about a particular group or it benefits one group over another. The truth is diversity is about each and every person. Even a group that might seem like the majority within your organisation, if you take them to another country, another region, they might become the minority. Diversity changes globally, but the most common thing is inclusion doesn’t. Diversity is different, inclusion is the same. So it’s really important to understand that when we think of diversity, it’s not this exclusive club. It’s an inclusive club for every single person.

And also, when we have people who might be more resistant to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or who might not understand, or who don’t have the time to embrace it, the best thing to do in that situation in my lived experience and working experience, is to change the culture. If we make our culture, one of inclusion, where it becomes the norm, where we are having those conversations, we’re sharing those inclusive ideas, then it becomes the norm for everyone. The culture within our organisations will be, one, where you have to adapt to that new culture of inclusion.

End transcript: Video 8: It takes everyone to make a difference

Download

Video _unit9.8.1 Video 8: It takes everyone to make a difference

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Congratulations! You have now come to the end of the course. Don’t forget that to finish the course and get your badge you will need to complete this week’s quiz.

Tell us what you think

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Now you’ve come to the end of the course, we would appreciate a few minutes of your time to complete this short end-of-course survey (you may have already completed this survey at the end of Week 4). We’d like to find out a bit about your experience of studying the course and what you plan to do next. We will use this information to provide better online experiences for all our learners and to share our findings with others. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

References

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

Week 1

ACAS (no date) Discrimination and the law. Available at https://www.acas.org.uk/ discrimination-and-the-law/ direct-and-indirect-discrimination (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Alliant International University (no date) What are the 4 types of diversity? Blogpost, 29 Nov 2020. Available at https://www.alliant.edu/ blog/ what-are-4-types-diversity (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Anand, R. (2019) The connection between diversity, inclusion and corporate responsibility. Green Biz 26 Feb 2019. Available at https://www.greenbiz.com/ article/ connection-between-diversity-inclusion-and-corporate-responsibility (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Atcheson, S. (2021) Demanding more: Why diversity and inclusion don’t happen and what you can do about it. Kogan Page, London.

Better Team (2021) Diversity vs inclusion in the workplace, Blogpost. Available at https://www.betterteam.com/ diversity-vs-inclusion-in-the-workplace (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Citizens Advice (no date) Indirect discrimination. Available at https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ law-and-courts/ discrimination/ what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/ indirect-discrimination/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Clark, A. et al. (2021) Workplace discrimination as risk factor for long-term sickness absence: Longitudinal analyses of onset and changes in workplace adversity. PLoS One. 2021; 16(8): e0255697. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/ articles/ PMC8341535/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Cross, P. (2022) Inclusive leadership: embrace the friction. Blogpost, 9 Mar 2022. Available at https://medium.com/ philcross-net/ inclusive-leadership-embrace-the-friction-c882bc0d6bc (Accessed: 6 September 2022)

Darmanin, D. (2022) 70+ examples of core company values & how they shape your culture. Hotjar blog post, 10 June 2022. Available at https://www.hotjar.com/ blog/ company-values/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Diversity Council Australia (2018) Inclusion@Work Index: Mapping the state of inclusion in the Australian workforce. Infographic. Available at https://www.dca.org.au/ sites/ default/ files/ inclusion-at-work-index/ dca_inclusive_index_2019_synopsis_online_new_accessible.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Diversity Council Australia (2019) Inclusion@Work Index: Mapping the state of inclusion in the Australian workforce. Synopsis report. Available at https://www.dca.org.au/ sites/ default/ files/ dca_inclusive_index_2019_synopsis_online_new_accessible_0.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Eswaran, V. (2019) The business case for diversity in the workplace is now overwhelming. World Economic Forum blog post, 29 April 2019. Available at https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/ 2019/ 04/ business-case-for-diversity-in-the-workplace/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Ganti, A. (2022), Social responsibility. Investopedia blog post, 12 May 2022. Available at https://www.investopedia.com/ terms/ s/ socialresponsibility.asp (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Grammarist (no date) Birds of a feather flock together. Available at https://grammarist.com/ proverb/ birds-of-a-feather-flock-together/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Hewlett, S.A., Marshall, M. and Sherbin, L. (2013) How diversity can drive innovation, Harvard Business Review. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2013/ 12/ how-diversity-can-drive-innovation (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Hunt, V., Dixon-Fyle, S., Dolan, K. & Prince, S. (2020) Diversity wins: How inclusion matters. McKinsey & Company, May 2020. Available at https://www.mckinsey.com/ ~/ media/ mckinsey/ featured%20insights/ diversity%20and%20inclusion/ diversity%20wins%20how%20inclusion%20matters/ diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters-vf.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Janzer, C. (2021) Corporate Social Responsibility and the Rise of the Gen Z Worker. Zenefits Workest blog post, 24 February 2021. Available at https://www.zenefits.com/ workest/ corporate-social-responsibility-and-the-rise-of-the-gen-z-worker/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Korn Ferry (2021) 4-step guide to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Available at https://www.kornferry.com/ content/ dam/ kornferry-v2/ featured-topics/ pdf/ four-step-guide-to-dei-in-the-workplace.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Legislation.gov.uk (2022) Equality Act 2010. Available at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ ukpga/ 2010/ 15/ contents (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Menzies, F. (2021) Four ways that employee wellbeing and inclusion are linked. LinkedIn newsletter 26 July 2021. Available at https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/ four-ways-employee-wellbeing-inclusion-linked-felicity-menzies-fca-1c/ ?trk=read_related_article-card_title (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Porath, C. (2015) The leadership behaviour that’s most important to employees, Harvard Business Review, 11 May 2015. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2015/ 05/ the-leadership-behavior-thats-most-important-to-employees (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Prager, K. (2021) Seek diversity to solve complexity. Nature career column 1 July 2021. Available at https://www.nature.com/ articles/ d41586-021-01832-z (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Week 2

ACAS (no date) Disability discrimination at work. Available at https://www.acas.org.uk/ disability-discrimination/ types-of-disability-discrimination (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Aichner, T. (2021) The economic argument for hiring people with disabilities. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8, Article number 22. Available at https://www.nature.com/ articles/ s41599-021-00707-y (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Brett, E.G. (2021) 5 inclusive mindsets that create better businesses for employees with disabilities. Affirmity, 9 June 2021. Available at https://www.affirmity.com/ blog/ disability-inclusion-5-ways-create-better-businesses/ ?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=affirmity-2021-q2-email-5-inclusive-mindsets-blog (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Bright HR (no date) Racial discrimination examples. Available at https://www.brighthr.com/ articles/ equality-and-discrimination/ racial-discrimination/ examples-of-racial-discrimination-in-the-workplace/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

CIPD (2021) Sex discrimination and employment, CIPD factsheet. Available at https://www.cipd.co.uk/ knowledge/ fundamentals/ emp-law/ sex-discrimination/ factsheet#gref (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Disability Nottinghamshire (no date) Social model vs medical model of disability. Available at http://www.disabilitynottinghamshire.org.uk/ index.php/ about/ social-model-vs-medical-model-of-disability/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Disability Rights UK (no date) Adjustments for disabled students. Factsheet F11. Available at https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/ adjustments-disabled-students (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

DiversityQ (2021) Don’t forget hidden disabilities in your inclusion drive. Newsletter 18 Aug 2021. Available at https://diversityq.com/ dont-forget-hidden-disabilities-in-your-inclusion-drive/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Everton, S. (no date) Black Lives Matter: bringing change to the workplace. Myers & Co Solicitors blog post 10 Sep 2020. Available at https://www.myerssolicitors.co.uk/ black-lives-matter-bringing-change-to-the-workplace/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Fuhl, J. (2020) 10 ways to eliminate gender bias in the workplace. Sage blogpost 16 Nov 2020. Available at https://www.sage.com/ en-gb/ blog/ eliminate-gender-diversity-workforce/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

GOV.UK (2021) Inclusive language: words to use and avoid when writing about disability. Available at https://www.gov.uk/ government/ publications/ inclusive-communication/ inclusive-language-words-to-use-and-avoid-when-writing-about-disability (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

McIntosh, P. (1989) White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, July/August 1989, pp. 10–12. Available at https://psychology.umbc.edu/ files/ 2016/ 10/ White-Privilege_McIntosh-1989.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

MHFA England (2020) Supporting the wellbeing and mental health of People of Colour and Black people in the workplace. Available at https://www.managers.org.uk/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2020/ 09/ MHFA-Guidance.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Morris, N. (2020) What is ‘racial gaslighting’ – and why is it so damaging for people of colour? Metro blog post 18 June 2020. Available at https://metro.co.uk/ 2020/ 06/ 18/ what-racial-gaslighting-why-damaging-people-colour-12866409/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Nazeer, T. (2020) Racial gaslighting made me feel like a foreigner in my own home. BBC Real Life blog post 20 July 2020. Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/ bbcthree/ article/ 904d9237-1b8a-49bd-a801-448942b8cb52 (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Owen, J. (2020) Half of managers uncomfortable employing a neurodivergent worker, report finds, People Management blog post 29 Oct 2020. Available at https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/ news/ articles/ half-of-managers-uncomfortable-employing-a-neurodivergent-worker#gref (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

SME Loans (2021) MEN More Likely Than Women To Feel Discriminated At Work On The Grounds Of Gender, blog post 27 Sep 20201. Available at https://www.smeloans.co.uk/ blog/ gender-discrimination-in-the-workplace/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Spring (no date) Taking steps towards greater neurodiversity in workplaces. Available at https://www.spring.com/ -/ media/ adeccogroup/ brands/ spring-professional/ uk/ media/ Shared/ 2020-0210-SPR-Neurodiveristy-report-v6 (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Turner, L. & Andrew, N. (no date) The Law and neurodiversity at work, GMB Union Guide. Available at https://www.gmb.org.uk/ sites/ default/ files/ neurodiversity-law-guide.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

UCU (no date) Everyday ableism. Available at https://www.ucu.org.uk/ media/ 11222/ Everyday-Ableism/ pdf/ Everyday_Ableism.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

UN (2018) Disability and Development Report – Realizing the sustainable development goals by, for and with persons with disabilities. Available at https://social.un.org/ publications/ UN-Flagship-Report-Disability-Final.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

White, N. (2021) Gender pay gap in the UK: 2021. ONS release, 26 October 2021. Available at https://www.ons.gov.uk/ employmentandlabourmarket/ peopleinwork/ earningsandworkinghours/ bulletins/ genderpaygapintheuk/ 2021 (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Williams, S. (2020) How racial gaslighting invalidates my experience as a Black woman. Cosmopolitan blog post 20 Oct 2020. Available at https://www.cosmopolitan.com/ uk/ reports/ a34368664/ racial-gaslighting/ (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

World Economic Forum (2020) Global Gender Gap report. Available at https://www3.weforum.org/ docs/ WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2022)

Week 3

ACAS (2019) Age discrimination: key points for the workplace. Available at https://www.acas.org.uk/ sites/ default/ files/ 2021-03/ age-discrimination-key-points-for-the-workplace.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Atcheson, S. (2021) Intersectionality in the Workplace isn’t a ‘Nice to Have’ — it’s Essential, Peakon Post. Available at https://peakon.com/ blog/ diversity-equity-and-inclusion/ intersectionality-in-the-workplace/ (Accessed: 11 April 2022)

Bachmann, C.L. and Gooch, B. (2018) LGBT in Britain – Work report. Stonewall and YouGov. Available at https://www.stonewall.org.uk/ lgbt-britain-work-report (Accessed: 6 September 2022)

CIPD (2020) What is religion or belief discrimination? CIPD factsheet. Available at https://www.cipd.co.uk/ knowledge/ fundamentals/ emp-law/ religious-discrimination/ factsheet#gref (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

CIPD (2021) Inclusion at work: perspectives on LGBT+ working lives, Research report. Available at https://www.cipd.co.uk/ knowledge/ fundamentals/ relations/ diversity/ inclusion-perspectives-lgbt#_ga=2.202737041.1826865713.1633086659-1484599919.1632219698 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Claridge, T. (2014) What is social capital? Social Capital Research 3 Aug 2014. Available at https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ what-is-social-capital/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Claridge, T. (2017) Career advice for the modern age – build your social capital. Social Capital Research 25 April 2017. Available at https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ career-advice-modern-age-build-social-capital/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Clausen, T., Meng, A. & Borg, V. (2019) Does Social Capital in the Workplace Predict Job Performance, Work Engagement, and Psychological Well-Being? A Prospective Analysis, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 61(10): pp. 800-805. Available at https://journals.lww.com/ joem/ fulltext/ 2019/ 10000/ does_social_capital_in_the_workplace_predict_job.2.aspx (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Equality Network (no date) What is intersectionality? Available at https://www.equality-network.org/ our-work/ intersectional/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Henke, S. (no date) How can organisations improve on intersectionality, Hays blog post. Available at https://social.hays.com/ 2021/ 03/ 10/ how-can-organisations-improve-intersectionality/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Holmes, A. (2021) Getting the balance right when managing employees with conflicting philosophical beliefs. Allen & Overy Employment Talk 21 June 2021. Available at https://www.allenovery.com/ en-gb/ global/ blogs/ employment-talk/ getting-the-balance-right-when-managing-employees-with-conflicting-philosophical-beliefs (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

IResearchNet (no date) Social Capital, Career research report. Available at http://career.iresearchnet.com/ career-development/ social-capital/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Judicial College (2021) Equal Treatment Bench Book, Chapter 12 Trans People pp. 324-343. Available at https://www.judiciary.uk/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2021/ 12/ Equal_Treatment_Bench_Book_December_2021_interim_update.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Juster, T. (2021) Gender identity in the workplace. Farrer & Co blog post 1 April 2021. Available at https://www.farrer.co.uk/ news-and-insights/ blogs/ gender-identity-in-the-workplace/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Kopp, A. (2019) Social capital is key to creating equality for women in the workplace – here’s how. Fujitsue, 6 Feb 2019. Available at https://digitalworkplace.global.fujitsu.com/ social-capital-is-key-to-creating-equality-for-women-in-the-workplace-heres-how/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Knoke, D. 1999. Organizational networks and corporate social capital. Section 1 – Conceptual Issues, Corporate Social Capital and Liability, pp. 17-42. Springer: New York. Available at https://link.springer.com/ chapter/ 10.1007/ 978-1-4615-5027-3_2 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Kurnatowska, M. & Farr, R. Philosophical belief: Managing opposing beliefs in the workplace – what employers need to know. Employment Law Journal, July/August 2021 #222. Available at https://insightplus.bakermckenzie.com/ bm/ attachment_dw.action?attkey=FRbANEucS95NMLRN47z%2BeeOgEFCt8EGQJsWJiCH2WAVfnLVn2ghRGJYzGAQ9z4s5&nav=FRbANEucS95NMLRN47z%2BeeOgEFCt8EGQbuwypnpZjc4%3D&attdocparam=pB7HEsg%2FZ312Bk8OIuOIH1c%2BY4beLEAeHkilsz01uQo%3D&fromContentView=1 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Landau Law (no date) Religion or belief discrimination. Available at https://landaulaw.co.uk/ religion-or-belief-discrimination/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Lange, T. (2015) Social capital and job satisfaction: The case of Europe in times of economic crisis, European Journal of Industrial Relations, 21(2): 275-290. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/ 262914719_Social_Capital_and_Job_Satisfaction_The_Case_of_Europe_in_Times_of_Economic_Crisis (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24: 1-24. Available at http://faculty.washington.edu/ matsueda/ courses/ 590/ Readings/ Portes%20Social%20Capital%201998.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Psychology Today (no date). Sexual Orientation. Available at https://www.psychologytoday.com/ gb/ basics/ homosexuality (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Putnam, R (1995) Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy 6: 65-78.

Rogers, E. (2019) How to write the perfect dignity at work policy (free template included). Perkbox blog post 19 Mar 2019. Available at https://www.perkbox.com/ uk/ resources/ blog/ how-to-write-the-perfect-dignity-at-work-policy-free-template-included (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Samuelson, K. (2021) What are gender-critical beliefs? The Week 27 July 2021. Available at https://www.theweek.co.uk/ news/ society/ 953619/ what-are-gender-critical-beliefs (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Sato, T. (2020) Social capital is at risk in the new world of work. HR Zone blog post 24 Sep 2020. Available at https://www.hrzone.com/ community/ blogs/ takashi-sato/ social-capital-is-at-risk-in-the-new-world-of-work (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Simpson, L. (2021) ‘Shut out, forced out and overlooked’. The CBI, 7 Sep 2021. Available at https://www.cbi.org.uk/ articles/ shut-out-forced-out-and-overlooked/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Totaljobs (2021) Trans employee experiences survey: Understanding the trans community in the workplace. 22 Mar 2021. Available at https://www.totaljobs.com/ advice/ trans-employee-experiences-survey-2021-research-conducted-by-totaljobs (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Vantage Aging (2020) 6 Reasons Why an Age Diverse Workplace is Important. 23 Jan 2020. Available at https://vantageaging.org/ blog/ age-diverse-workplace-important/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Session 4

APA (no date) APA Dictionary of Psychology: occupational segregation. Available at https://dictionary.apa.org/ occupational-segregation (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Atcheson, S. (2021) Demanding more: Why diversity and inclusion don’t happen and what you can do about it. Kogan Page, London.

Churchill, F. (2021) One in five workers hope they will never return to commuting, poll finds. People Management blog post 7 July 2021. Available at https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/ news/ articles/ one-in-five-workers-hope-they-never-return-commuting-poll-finds#gref (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Daya, S. (2021) 5 Common Reasons why Diversity & Inclusion Programs Fail. LinkedIn blog post 26 Mar 2021. Available at https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/ 5-common-reasons-why-diversity-inclusion-programs-fail-sharita-daya/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Ferguson, J. (2021) Privilege is not a dirty word. Forbes blog post 29 Mar 2021. Available at https://www.forbes.com/ sites/ forbeseq/ 2021/ 03/ 29/ privilege-is-not-a-dirty-word/ ?sh=33a598fc7dc5 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Grant-Ford, M & Kahanov, L. (2021) Understanding privilege and microaggressions. Excerpt from Athletic Training and Therapy, Human Kinetics, Illinois. Available at https://us.humankinetics.com/ blogs/ excerpt/ understanding-privilege-and-microaggressions (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Golden, G. (no date) How microaffirmations flip microaggressions for a better work culture. Available at https://www.gailgoldenconsulting.com/ microaffirmations-work-culture/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Herbert, F. (2021) Is unconscious bias training still worthwhile? LSE Blog 24 Mar 2021. Available at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ businessreview/ 2021/ 03/ 24/ is-unconscious-bias-training-still-worthwhile/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Hive Learning (no date) 5 main types of privilege, Inclusion works blog post. Available at https://www.hivelearning.com/ site/ resource/ diversity-inclusion/ 5-main-types-of-privileges/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Lakritz, T. (2019) 10 occupations that are still dominated by men. Business Insider Australia blog post 14 Aug 2019. Available at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ male-jobs-women-underrepresented-numbers-2019-8 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Lewis (2017) Why Unconscious Bias Training Doesn’t Work—5 Ways to Actually Make a Difference. LinkedIn blog post 11 July 2017. Available at https://www.linkedin.com/ business/ talent/ blog/ talent-acquisition/ why-unconscious-bias-training-does-not-work (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Malone, T. (2021) Equality, diversity & inclusion: The practical guide. 2^nd ed. Mendip Hills Studio Ltd, UK.

Marr, V. (2019) Overcoming diversity fatigue. HR Magazine blog post 4 July 2019. Available at https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/ content/ features/ overcoming-diversity-fatigue (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Mazur, J. (2018) You Might Be Overlooking One Unexpected Factor About Your Company’s Diversity: Location. Entrepreneur blog post 28 Sep 2018. Available at https://www.entrepreneur.com/ article/ 320776 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

McLuney, C.L., Robotham, K., Lee, S., Smith, R. and Durkee, M. (2019) The costs of code-switching. Harvard Business Review 15 Nov 2019. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2019/ 11/ the-costs-of-codeswitching (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

McMenamin, L. (2021) Why long-term workplace trauma is a real phenomenon. BBC Worklife 19 April 2021. Available at https://www.bbc.com/ worklife/ article/ 20210415-why-long-term-workplace-trauma-is-a-real-phenomenon (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Richman, L., Pek, J., Pascoe, E. & Bauer, D.J. (2010) The Effects of Perceived Discrimination on Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Affective Responses to Interpersonal Stress Modelled Over 24 Hours. Health Psychology, 29(4):403-11.

Ridley, B. (2020) Tips to resolve diversity-based conflicts at work. Ridley Consulting Group 11 Nov 2020. Available at https://ridleyconsultants.com/ tips-to-resolve-diversity-based-conflicts-at-work/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Ritchie, R. (2021) It takes being aware of your bias ... six ways to reset the way you think. The Guardian. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/ it-takes-each-action/ 2021/ jun/ 07/ it-takes-being-aware-of-your-bias-six-ways-to-reset-the-way-you-think (Accessed: 11 April 2022)

Rock, D. (2008) SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, NeuroLeadership Journal, Issue 1, pp. 1-9. Available at http://web.archive.org/ web/ 20100705024057/ http://www.your-brain-at-work.com/ files/ NLJ_SCARFUS.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Scarlett Abbott (no date) Who’s afraid of diversity and inclusion? White paper. Available at https://scarlettabbott.co.uk/ uploads/ files/ Downloads/ SA-Whitepaper-diversity-and-inclusion.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Taylor, R. (2020) Microaggressions are blocking your agency’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Campaign blog post 3 Sep 2020. Available at https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/ article/ microaggressions-blocking-agencys-diversity-inclusion-efforts/ 1693189 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Vieira, H. (2016) There may be some truth to the ‘gay jobs’ stereotype. LSE blog post 18 Jan 2016. Available at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ businessreview/ 2016/ 01/ 18/ there-may-be-some-truth-to-the-gay-jobs-stereotype/ #comments (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Waldon, V. (2020) Diversity Fatigue: What it is and why It matters. Employers Council blog post 3 Sep 2020. Available at https://www.employerscouncil.org/ resources/ diversity-fatigue-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Williams, H. (2019) How the UK’s tech sector can tackle gender imbalance. ComputerWorld blog post 8 Mar 2019. Available at https://www.computerworld.com/ article/ 3558326/ how-the-uk-s-tech-sector-can-tackle-gender-imbalance.html (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Wilson, R. (no date) Unconscious bias in the workplace: how it’s defined and how to stop it. EW Group blog post. Available at https://theewgroup.com/ unconscious-bias-in-the-workplace-how-its-defined-and-how-to-stop-it/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Session 5

Business in the Community (no date) Race: About Business in the Community’s campaign for race equality in the workplace. Available at https://www.bitc.org.uk/ race/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Ellsworth, D., Goldstein, D. & Schanginger, B. (2021) Inclusion doesn’t happen by accident: Measuring inclusion in a way that matters. McKinsey blog post 16 Feb 2021. Available at https://www.mckinsey.com/ business-functions/ people-and-organizational-performance/ our-insights/ the-organization-blog/ inclusion-doesnt-happen-by-accident-measuring-inclusion-in-a-way-that-matters (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

GDEIB (no date) Best practice benchmarks sampler. Available at https://centreforglobalinclusion.org/what-we-do/the-gdeib/gdeib-checklist/gdeib-best-practice-benchmark-sampler.html (Accessed: 15 July 2022)GDEIB testimonials (no date). What users say. Available at https://centreforglobalinclusion.org/ what-we-do/ the-gdeib/ gdeib-stories/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Humphrey, J. (2015) 6 communication tips that promote workplace diversity. Fast Company blog post 10 June 2015. Available at https://www.fastcompany.com/ 3051833/ 6-communication-tips-that-promote-workplace-diversity (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Karren, J. and Lee, C. (2018) Where are you on the D&I maturity curve? PwC 17 December 2018. Available at https://www.pwc.com/ us/ en/ industries/ industrial-products/ library/ diversity-inclusion-maturity-curve.html (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Kelly, R. (2021) 25 Examples of awesome diversity statements. ONGIG updated August 15 2021. Available at https://blog.ongig.com/ diversity-and-inclusion/ 10-examples-of-the-best-diversity-statements/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Knight, R, (2015) How to run a meeting of people from different cultures. Harvard Business Review 4 December 2015. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2015/ 12/ how-to-run-a-meeting-of-people-from-different-cultures (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Leading Effectively Staff (2021) Use active listening skills to coach others. Center for Creative Leadership, 2 December 2021. Available at https://www.ccl.org/ articles/ leading-effectively-articles/ coaching-others-use-active-listening-skills/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Miro (no date) SOAR analysis template. Available at https://miro.com/ templates/ soar-analysis/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Norman, T. (no date) Data on diversity in the workplace: what is diversity data and how to collect it? EW Group. Available at https://theewgroup.com/ blog/ collect-diversity-data/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

People Builders (no date) Emotional Intelligence is at the Heart of Diversity and Inclusion, blog post. Available at https://www.peoplebuilders.com.au/ blog/ emotional-intelligence-is-at-the-heart-of-diversity-and-inclusion (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Quick Books Canada (no date) Why SOAR Analysis May Be Better Than SWOT Analysis.Blog post 30 Dec 2016. Available at https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ ca/ resources/ running-a-business/ why-soar-analysis-may-be-better-than-swot-analysis/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Romansky, L., Garrod, M., Brown, K. & Deo, K. (2021) How to measure inclusion in the workplace. Harvard Business Review blog post 27 May 2021. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2021/ 05/ how-to-measure-inclusion-in-the-workplace (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Stavros, J.M. and Cole, M.L. (2015) Promoting the positive effects of team diversity through SOAR: An inclusive approach for strategic thinking, planning and leading. Chapter 26, Positive Organising in a Global Society. Routledge, New York. Abstract available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/ chapters/ edit/ 10.4324/ 9781315794648-39/ promoting-positive-effects-team-diversity-soar-inclusive-approach-strategic-thinking-planning-leading-jacqueline-stavros-matthew-cole?context=ubx (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Sweeney, C. & Bothwick, F. (2016) Inclusive Leadership: The Definitive Guide to Developing and Executing an Impactful Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: - Locally and Globally. ‎Financial Times/ Prentice Hall; 1st edition

Tapia, A., Polonski, A., Kirtzman, F. & Gisbert, G. (2020) The Korn Ferry Diversity and Inclusion Maturity Model: A new understanding. Available at https://globewomen.org/ globaldiversity/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2020/ 03/ Korn-Ferry-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Maturity-Model-2020-Andres-Tapia.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Valamis (2022) Continuous learning. Knowledge hub information sheet 17 Feb 2022. Available at https://www.valamis.com/ hub/ continuous-learning (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Walsh, S. (2018) 10 Tips for Better Continuous Learning. Anders Pink blog post 17 April 2018. Available at https://blog.anderspink.com/ 2018/ 04/ 10-tips-continous-learning/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Waters, S. (2021) Why building resilience is a top skill for the workplace. Better Up blog post 9 Aug 2021. Available at https://www.betterup.com/ blog/ how-to-build-resilience-why-resilience-is-a-top-skill-for-the-workplace (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Session 6

ACAS (no date) Checklist for induction of new staff. Available at https://www.acas.org.uk/ checklist-for-induction-of-new-staff (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Bright Network (no date) Frontline: each person is different, Bright Network blog post. Available at https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/ employer-advice/ the-frontline-organisation/ frontline/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Carrion, K. (2020) 5 Ways Your Employer Brand Can Be More Inclusive. LinkedIn blog post 28 July 2020. Available at https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/ 5-ways-your-employer-brand-can-more-inclusive-karizma-carrion/ ?articleId=6693888076978241537 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Coffman, J., Rosenblum, E., D’Arcy, A. and Thompson Love, L. (2021) How Clear Career Paths Strengthen Retention—and Diversity. Bain & Company 11 Aug 2021. Available at https://www.bain.com/ insights/ how-clear-career-paths-strengthen-retention-and-diversity/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Corrales, C. (2021) Game changers: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives creating better career opportunities. Work 180 29 Mar 2021. Available at https://work180.com/ en-gb/ blog/ game-changers-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-initiatives-creating-better-career-opportunities (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Creative Diversity Network (no date) Interviews – What you need to ensure when asking questions about health or disability. Available at https://creativediversitynetwork.com/ diversity-in-practice/ resources/ interviews-what-you-need-to-ensure-when-asking-questions-about-health-or-disability/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Dalsfelt, S. (2021) How social media helps you with unbiased recruiting, Adway blog post. Available at https://adway.ai/ en/ insights/ how-social-media-helps-you-with-unbiased-recruiting/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Equal Engineers (2020) How to create inclusive assessment centres for people on the autism spectrum. Advice blog post 26 Feb 2020. Available at https://equalengineers.com/ 2020/ 02/ 26/ how-to-create-inclusive-asd-assessment-centres/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

EW Group (no date) Addressing chronic under-representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff at senior grades. Available at https://theewgroup.com/ case-studies/ bbc-2/(Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Ewuru, B. (no date) How To Ensure Diversity and Inclusion Using Video Interviews. Shine blog post. Available at https://www.shineinterview.com/ how-to-ensure-diversity-and-inclusion-using-video-interviews/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Gittens-Ottley, S. (no date) Inclusion starts on day one: 10 ways to build an inclusive onboarding experience. Wavelength. Available at https://wavelength.asana.com/ inclusive-onboarding-experience/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

HRD (2020) Diversity in apprenticeships – opening up talent and opportunity – roundtable report. 8 December 2020. Available at https://www.thehrdirector.com/ previous-roundtables/ diversity-apprenticeships-opening-talent-opportunity/ (Accessed: 9 August 2022)

Indeed Editorial Team (2021) 9 Sample Diversity Interview Questions and Answers. Indeed Career Guide blog post 25 June 2021. Available at https://uk.indeed.com/ career-advice/ interviewing/ diversity-interview-questions (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Izundu, C.C. (2020) Does your company nurture neurodiverse talent? BBC News 17 Jan 2020. Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/ uk-51014028 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Kandola, B. (no date) How imposter syndrome and racism overlap – and what can be done to tackle it, Pearn Kandola blog post. Available at https://pearnkandola.com/ diversity-and-inclusion-hub/ bias/ imposter-syndrome/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Kings College London (2021) Inclusive recruitment toolkit. Available at https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ ioppn/ assets/ cdi-documents/ ioppn-inclusive-recruitment-toolkit.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Kunzle, A. (2021) 12 employer branding social media examples to inspire your strategy. Content Stadium blog post 20 May 2021. Available at https://www.contentstadium.com/ blog/ employer-branding-social-media-examples/

Martin, M. (2021) 23 Employee Onboarding Statistics to Know in 2021. The Circular Board blog post. Available at https://thecircularboard.com/ uk-employee-onboarding-statistics/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Martins, J. (2021) Turn impostor syndrome into confidence: 15 tips for managers and individuals. Asana resources 11 Aug 2021. Available at https://asana.com/ resources/ impostor-syndrome (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Norman, T. (no date) Seven steps to inclusive recruitment and workplace diversity, EW Group blog post. Available at https://theewgroup.com/ seven-steps-inclusive-recruitment-workplace-diversity/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Omadeke, J. (2021) What’s the difference between a mentor and a sponsor? Harvard Business Review 20 Oct 2021. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2021/ 10/ whats-the-difference-between-a-mentor-and-a-sponsor (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Pew Research Centre (2021) Social media fact sheet. 7 April 2021. Available at https://www.pewresearch.org/ internet/ fact-sheet/ social-media/ ?menuItem=2fc5fff9-9899-4317-b786-9e0b60934bcf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Razor Edge Media (no date) Men vs women social media usage. Available at https://www.razoredge-media.co.uk/ men-vs-women-social-media-usage/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Rinderknecht, K. (2021) I’s time to start sharing interview questions before the interview. LinkedIn Mar 22 2021. Available at https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/ its-time-start-sharing-interview-questions-before-karl-rinderknecht/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Robbins-Rynne, C. (2021) Talent drought? It’s time to check your employer branding. Elite Business blog post 17 Aug 2021. Available at http://elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk/ people/ item/ talent-drought-it-s-time-to-check-your-employer-branding (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Rouse, T. (2021) The New HR: How AI Evolved the Hiring Process. Virtasant blog post 24 Aug 2021. Available at https://www.virtasant.com/ blog/ the-new-hr-how-ai-evolved-the-hiring-process (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Stonewall (2020) Stonewall Top 100 Employers 2020. Report available at https://www.stonewall.org.uk/ system/ files/ 2020_top_100_report.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Swain, R. (2021) Strength-based interviews. Prospects May 2021. Available at https://www.prospects.ac.uk/ careers-advice/ interview-tips/ strength-based-interviews (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Tulshyan, R. & Burey, J. (2021) End imposter syndrome in your workplace. Harvard Business Review blog post 14 July 2021. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2021/ 07/ end-imposter-syndrome-in-your-workplace (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Zivkovic, J. (2022) UK Social Media Statistics and Facts. Cyber Crew 31 Mar 2022. Available at https://cybercrew.uk/ blog/ social-media-statistics-uk/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Session 7

BITC (2020) Diversity and inclusion: Strategy and policy guidance advice. 27 Mar 2020. Available at https://www.bitc.org.uk/ toolkit/ diversity-and-inclusion-strategy-and-policy-guidance-advice/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Capco (2020) Forming a new affinity group. Employee stories 16 Sep 2020. Available at https://www.capco.com/ About-Us/ Diversity-and-inclusion/ Employee-stories/ Forming-a-new-affinity-group-black-at-capco (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

CILIP (no date) Diversity Networks. Available at https://www.cilip.org.uk/ page/ diversitynetworks (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Clifford Chance (2020) Campaigning for an inclusive future. Inclusion report. Available at https://www.cliffordchance.com/ content/ dam/ cliffordchance/ Our-responsibilities/ inclusion-report-2020.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Dennissen, M., Benschop, Y. & van den Brink, M. (2018) Diversity networks in organisations: are they really (net)working for equality? LSE blog post 26 Nov 2018. Available at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ businessreview/ 2018/ 11/ 26/ diversity-networks-in-organisations-are-they-really-networking-for-equality/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

EW Group (no date) Arts Council case study. Available at https://theewgroup.com/case-studies/arts-council-england/(Accessed: 14 July 2022)EY (no date) EY Employee Networks. Available at https://www.vercida.com/ uk/ features/ ey-employee-networks?company=350 (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Fister Gale, S. (2020) A diversity training success story. Chief Learning Officer blog post 4 Dec 2020. Available at https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/ 2020/ 12/ 04/ a-diversity-training-success-story/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Inclusive Companies (no date) The Calico Group. Available at https://www.inclusivecompanies.co.uk/ 2020casestudies/ thecalicogroup/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Indiana University (no date) Antiracist Agenda Suggested Guidelines for Reviewing Policies. Available at https://diversity.iu.edu/ doc/ anti-racist/ tools/ Guidelines%20to%20consider%20for%20policy%20and%20procedure%20review.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Lee, C. (2019) Johnson & Johnson’s ‘You Belong’ campaign sets the benchmark for D&I communications. DiversityQ blog post 29 April 2019. Available at https://diversityq.com/ johnson-johnsons-you-belong-campaign%ef%bb%bf-sets-the-benchmark-for-di-communications-1006398/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Local Government Association (no date) Equalities, diversity and inclusion in leadership. Available at https://www.local.gov.uk/ our-support/ equalities-diversity-and-inclusion-hub/ equalities-diversity-and-inclusion-leadership (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Maltese, A. (2020) Diversity and Inclusion Survey Questions To Improve D&I at Work. Quantum Workplace blog post 29 Oct 2020. Available at https://www.quantumworkplace.com/ future-of-work/ diversity-and-inclusion-survey-questions (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

McGregor-Smith, R. (no date) Race in the workplace: The McGregor-Smith Review. Available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/ government/ uploads/ system/ uploads/ attachment_data/ file/ 594336/ race-in-workplace-mcgregor-smith-review.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

MBS Group (2021) Diversity and inclusion in UK retail: where are we now and what comes next? MBS Intelligence report. Available at https://brc.org.uk/ media/ 677267/ diversity-and-inclusion-in-uk-retail-in-depth-research-and-analysis-from-brc-the-mbs-group-and-pwc-2021-002.pdf (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Molloy, E. (2022) How Compass Group UK & Ireland piloted their reverse mentoring scheme. CMI Case study 9 Mar 2022. Available at https://www.managers.org.uk/ knowledge-and-insights/ case-study/ how-compass-group-uk-ireland-piloted-their-reverse-mentoring-scheme/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Norton, R. (2020) Diversity & Inclusion comms. 5 tips for planning and crafting authentic messages, Scarlett Abbott blog post 8 July 2020. Available at https://scarlettabbott.co.uk/ topic/ diversity-inclusion-comms-5-tips-for-planning-and-crafting-authentic-messages (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Robert Walters (2020) Driving diversity and inclusion in the workplace – The D&I strategy report. Available on request at https://www.robertwalters.co.uk/ hiring/ campaigns/ diversity-and-inclusion.html (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Stange, J. (2020) Pulse Survey Best Practices for Collecting Real-Time Employee Feedback. Quantum Workplace blog post 1 April 2020. Available at https://www.quantumworkplace.com/ future-of-work/ pulse-survey-guide (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Thorre, P. (2019) 6 Amazing Examples of Inclusion in Action at HEINEKEN. LinkedIn blog post 25 June 2019. Available at https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/ 6-amazing-examples-inclusion-action-heineken-pascale-thorre/ (Accessed: 14 July 2022)

Wilson, R. (no date) Diversity & inclusion policy: the 10 policies your organisation needs. EW Group. Available at https://theewgroup.com/ blog/ 10-diversity-policies-you-need/ (Accessed: 6 September 2022)

Session 8

Atcheson, S. (2021) Allyship is Dictionary.com’s word of the year. So, what does it really mean? Forbes 9 Dec 2021. Available at https://www.forbes.com/ sites/ shereeatcheson/ 2021/ 12/ 09/ allyship-is-dictionarycoms-word-of-the-year-so-what-does-it-really-mean/ ?sh=58d26e38632a (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Boston Consulting Group (2022) A Closer Look at the Future of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. BCG Collections. Available at https://www.bcg.com/ capabilities/ diversity-inclusion/ future-of-diversity-equity-inclusion (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Coach Diversity Institute (no date) Ten Strategies For Holding Difficult Conversations About Diversity. Available at https://coachdiversity.com/ blog/ ten-strategies-for-holding-difficult-conversations-about-diversity/ (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Ellsworth, D., Mugavar-Baldocchi, M., Schaninger, B. & Sharma, K. (2021) The future of work: Three steps toward an inclusive workplace. McKinsey Organization blog post 6 July 2021. Available at https://www.mckinsey.com/ business-functions/ people-and-organizational-performance/ our-insights/ the-organization-blog/ the-future-of-work-three-steps-toward-an-inclusive-workplace (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Green, M., Peters, R. & Young, J. (no date) People Profession 2030: a collective view of future trends, CIPD report. Available at https://www.cipd.co.uk/ Images/ people-profession-2030-report-compressed_tcm18-86095.pdf (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Janis, I.L. (1971) Groupthink. Reprinted from Psychology Today magazine. Available at https://web.archive.org/ web/ 20100401033524/ http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/ faculty/ macdonald/ GroupThink.pdf (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Korn Ferry (no date) Future of Work Trends in 2022: The new era of humanity, Trend #6 Inclusivity: Unleashing the power of all. Available at https://www.kornferry.com/insights/featured-topics/future-of-work/2022-future-of-work-trends(Accessed: 16 July 2022)Lau, G. (2022) How to avoid groupthink: 5 tips for better collaboration. Dialpad, Jan 20 2022. Available at https://www.dialpad.com/ blog/ how-to-avoid-groupthink/ (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Lean Impact (no date) How to prevent and overcome groupthink in 5 steps. Lean Startup Co. Available at https://leanstartup.co/ 5-ways-to-overcome-groupthink/ (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Melaku, T.M., Beeman, A., Smith, D.G. and Johnson, W.B. (2020) Be a better ally. Harvard Business Review Nov-Dec 2020. Available at https://hbr.org/ 2020/ 11/ be-a-better-ally (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Race Equality Matters (no date) #Mynameis campaign. Available at https://www.raceequalitymatters.com/ my-name-is/ (Accessed: 16 July 2022)

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:36:11 GMT

This free course was written by Liz Smith, with contributions from Ayesha Peeran, Emma Laws, Julie Boak and Jennifer Adamson from The Open University Careers and Employability Services.

Critical review of the course was by Roberta Davies, EDI Learning and Development Officer and Khadija Patel, Partnerships Manager, The Open University.

With special thanks to Asif Sadiq, Craig Pemblington, Mark Ealing, Sophie Washington and Yusuf Nagdi for sharing their knowledge and experience of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Acknowledgements

Week 1

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Defining diversity and inclusion: photograph Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1.1: Different diversity characteristics: photograph wildpixel; Getty Images

1.2: The importance of an inclusive workplace: photograph NanoStockk; Getty Images

3: Benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace: Jacob Ammentorp Lund; Getty Images

3.2: Diversity and social responsibility: metamorworks; Getty Images

Audio/Visual

Video 3: What Is the Equality Act?: courtesy of tes; https://www.tes.com/

Video 4: Why is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) important in the workplace? Courtesy iHASCO Limited

Video 6: Social Responsibility Tips All Businesses Need to Know: courtesy of Jotform

Video 7: Inclusion Drives Innovation at JPL: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Week 2

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Disability: SeventyFour; Getty Images

2.2: Enhancing your awareness: courtesy of Genius Within CIC

3.3: Enhancing your awareness: Vadym Pastukh; Getty Images

4: Sex: marchmeena29; Getty Images

Audio/Visual

Video 2: Disability and reasonable adjustment at work: courtesy of BeyondHR

Video 3: What is neurodiversity?: courtesy of Differing Minds CIC

Video 4: J.P. Morgan’s Autism at work journey: courtesy of Narrowcast Media Group

Video 5: Diverted: courtesy of National Autistic Society

Video 6: This is What It’s Really Like to Have ADHD: How to ADHD; https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ji0hg1LduU8

Video 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality and Jellybeans: courtesy of Eliana Pipes

Video 8: What is Race Discrimination?: courtesy of: Equality and Human Rights Commission; https://www.youtube.com/ user/ EqualityHumanRights

Video 9: Centre On Dynamics of Ethnicity: The effects of racism at work: courtesy of: Director of the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE): https://www.ethnicity.ac.uk; https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/ portal/ bridget.byrne.html The University of Manchester

Week 3

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Age: fizkes; Getty Images

2: Religion or belief: fizkes; Getty Images

3: Gender reassignment: MissTuni; Getty Images

4: Sexual orientation: Circle Creative Studio; Getty Images

5: Social capital and diversity: Kenishirotie; Getty Images

Audio/Visual

Video 3: What is intersectionality?: courtesy of Professor Peter Hopkins

Week 4

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Unconscious bias: designer491; Getty Images

2: Privilege: monstArrr_; Getty Images

3: Microaggressions: Motortion; Getty Images

5: Why diversity and inclusion initiatives fail: Kira-Yan; Getty Images

6: Diversity fatigue: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

7: Other barriers: Nadiinko; Getty Images

Audio/Visual

Video 6: How to get over your fear of talking about diversity: courtesy of BIE Executive and Aggie Mutuma, CEO of Mahogany Partners

Video 7: Emotional Intelligence: Conflict Avoidance and Why Diversity and Inclusion Keeps Failing: courtesy of Eyes Up Training Limited

Week 5

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Personal skills and behaviours: fizkes; Getty Images

1.1: Emotional intelligence: IvelinRadkov; Getty Images

1.2: Communication: BrAt_PiKaChU; Getty Images

1.3: Resilience: bazilfoto; Getty Images

2: Professional tools: EtiAmmos; Getty Images

2.1: Strategy setting tools: designer491; Getty Images

2.1: Diversity and inclusion maturity model PWC: ‘Where are you on the D & I maturity curve?’; John Karren and Carolyn Lee; https://www.pwc.com/ us/ en/ industries/ industrial-products/ library/ diversity-inclusion-maturity-curve.html

2.2: Metrics and data collection: _human; Getty Images

3: Writing the strategy: olm26250; Getty Images

Audio/Visual

Video 6: Resilience in the Workplace: courtesy of Hemsley Fraser Group

Week 6

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Your brand: OfirPeretz; Getty Images

1.1: Is your brand inclusive?: designer491; Getty Images

1.2: Where do you promote your brand?: VictorHuang; Getty Images

2: Diversity and inclusion in the recruitment process: fizkes; Getty Images

2.1: Applications, interviews and assessments: Jovanmandic; Getty Images

3: Onboarding: FTiare; Getty Images

4.1: Imposter syndrome: ajr_images; Getty Images

Audio/Visual

Video 6: How to get inclusive recruitment and selection right: courtesy of Marshall E-Learning Consultancy

Week 7

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

2: Inclusion networks: iLexx; Getty Images

4: Maintaining the momentum: Rawpixel; Getty Images

4: 6 Pillars of inclusion: Inclusive Employers

Audio/Visual

Video 7: scarlettabbott A World of Difference: courtesy of scarlettabbott; https://scarlettabbott.co.uk/

Week 8

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

1: Making a difference as an individual: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

2: Setting SMART goals: IvelinRadkov; Getty Images

3: Making a difference as an organisation: gguy44; Getty Images

3.1: Your role in achieving organisational goals: npstockphoto; Getty Images

4: Keeping up to date: Sensay; Getty Images

4.1: Maintaining the dialogue: fizkes; Getty Images

5: Diversity themes for the future: smshoot; Getty Images

Video 2: Tips for being an ally: courtesy of Franchesca Ramsey

Video 6: Berkley Lab’s Chief Diversity Officer talks about psychological safety: Berkeley Lab; A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Managed by the University of California

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

Course image: Prostock-Studio; Getty Images

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

Don’t miss out

If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University – www.open.edu/ openlearn/ free-courses.