6.2 Valuing diversity
In their 2013 article ‘Great leaders who make the mix work’, Boris Groysberg, an academic researcher, and Katherine Connolly, a research associate in the organisational behaviour unit at Harvard Business School, discuss the importance of diversity and inclusivity.
Groysberg and Connolly (2013) explain that diversity should be perceived as an investment in the most important assets of the organisation’s balance sheet: the people. Diversity is about investing in people. Diversity is necessary because it allows an organisation to stay competitive, to seek the best possible ideas and solutions, and continue to innovate and grow. Moreover, by harnessing diversity, employees feel valued and are therefore more willing to support the aims of the organisation, serve the ‘customers’ (students, in an HEI context) and work together.
At the same time, diversity may create dissent and challenge people’s way of thinking, leading them into deep inquiry or breakthrough.
In the video below, contributors discuss how to value diversity and create more inclusive workplaces.
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Transcript
LURRAINE JONES
Hello. My name is Lurraine Jones, and I’m the Deputy Dean for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at the Open University. COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement continues to shine a stark light on the racial inequalities that exist through all sections of UK society. Year on year, research evidences that for certain groups of students, especially Black students, the higher education playing field is not a level one. Inequalities, such as racial harassment and stark degree-awarding gaps between Black students and their white peers, cannot be ignored.
Whether one is a staff member or a student, being included, feeling a sense of belonging and relatedness to the University is important for one’s wellbeing and feeling valued. Universities UK released a report entitled "Tackling Racial Harassment in Higher Education," which revealed that almost 25% of students from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds have experienced racial harassment. The soft employability skills that are desirable for jobs, careers, and promotion, i.e. empathy, communication, leadership, and teamwork, are developed in this course.
NATASHA DAVIES
It’s really important actually that leaders, organisations are building inclusive cultures; getting the foundations right with good policies and procedures that don’t just hit the legal minimums but actually strive for best practice; building in equality and inclusion from the very, very top within organisational strategies; making sure that somebody is championing this right at the most senior levels of the organisation, whether that’s around your senior leadership table or any boards; getting the right culture in place, so they’re making sure that policies and procedures are applied consistently; that we’ve got leaders at every level within the organization who are embracing the vision and the values in relation to equality, diversity, and inclusion. And I think, with culture, it’s really important actually that that focus doesn’t slip because it’s really easy to fall into bad habits. And then that can really shift and change the culture that you’ve actually got in place within an organisation.
SAS AMOAH
So there are five key strategic areas within LDS, my unit, Learner and Discovery Services, and those five areas align of wider Open University strategies as well. So the first key area within my department, People, Culture, and Innovation, has lots of subgroups that feed into it. And one of the ones that feed into it is EDI, and I’m the lead for the EDI team. So the team has a number of volunteers from across the unit, which is kind of really useful. But in addition to having volunteers from within the unit, we have a number of volunteers from outside the unit.
So we have representation from a number of different units and people who cut across a number of different kind of categories as well and marginalised groups. But we also have an executive champion in the group, which is really useful. So when we start proposing these ideas, the executive champion can push these forward when it comes to trying to turn them into policy as well. But we also have representation from the central EDI office as well, so that’s kind of our connection centrally. So as we develop these policies and proposals, we have a direct line to the central EDI team and they can help us shape these as we push forward.
Having a number of different volunteers from across the unit is really valuable, particularly because we have a number of people from a variety of different backgrounds, different levels of seniority, from a lot of different personal experiences as well. So what I do find is having all those people together encourages really open and honest conversations, and they’re a really easy way to identify obstacles that particular groups face. So once we’ve identified an obstacle, we do try to develop a policy that would address the particular concern that was raised.
So I know, in the past, policies that are now embedded into business as usual within the units started off in the group. So for example, we now have equality objectives embedded into CDSA, Career Development Appraisals, which is really a positive step. But also, we have ring-fenced career development budgets specifically for people from marginalised groups. So our research suggested that people from marginalised groups were much less likely to take up the training. So by ring-fencing the training development budget, we can ensure that, even if they can’t take up the training early on in the year, they have opportunities later on in the year.
NATASHA DAVIES
Obviously, training and stuff like that is going to be really important as well but not just a one-off. It’s a continued investment in development so that all staff are contributing to a more equal, equitable, and inclusive work environment. And then ultimately, it’s really important that we’re measuring what we’re doing. Have we got KPIs in place that focus on equality and diversity? Are we carrying out staff engagement surveys to actually check whether the culture we think we have is the culture that we do have? Because if we don’t measure where we are, we don’t know when to celebrate successes. We don’t know where we need to learn from mistakes, and we can’t identify areas where we can change and adapt to be even better than perhaps we’re already doing or to fix any problems that we might have.
SAS AMOAH
One of the positive impacts we think we’ve achieved from kind of developing work in this way is creating a more inclusive recruitment process. So for example, a few years ago, we did an anonymised recruitment pilot and we compared the number of staff we received from a variety of backgrounds into traditional recruitment process and when we did anonymised recruitment.
And what we actually did find is that, when we removed a lot of the identifying information, groups from particularly marginalised backgrounds almost doubled in terms of representation and being hired at the Open University. And that became a really strong evidence base for central HR, what we call "People Services," to kind reconsider their inclusive recruitment process as well. So they’ve taken on elements of what we developed and have created a anonymised recruitment process of their own.
For higher education institutions, what would be a key concern to address is the degree-awarding gap between different groups of students. I think that should definitely be a primary focus. And obviously, one of the ways you can start supporting students in that way is by creating a more inclusive curriculum. For staff, I think, if we could start to address maybe the pay gap between different ethnicities and different genders as well, I think, again, that’s a very good, concrete way of addressing issues. And I think those two key concerns are really important when it comes to higher education.
NATASHA DAVIES
I do you think the stuff that we can do as employers, yes, there’s positive action that can be done within our recruitment exercises. But there are other things that can be done around recruitment, around how we’re designing job descriptions, how we’re designing jobs. It comes back to things of like ways of working. Is home-working going to be possible for everybody? No. So we’re making sure that we’re offering different ways of working that will suit different people’s circumstances.
Working with community groups, trusted leaders within different communities because trust is a big issue as well. Particularly, for example, if we’re talking about people from ethnic minority backgrounds, racism is still rife. Discrimination is still rife. There are so many stories of bad experiences within employment, particularly within areas where perhaps there is a particularly smaller population of people from an ethnic minority background, which is why we see huge numbers of young ethnic minority people leaving south Wales, for example, to move to places like Birmingham and London because there’s a sense that that’s going to be a more welcoming and inclusive and safer environment for them.
So I think that trust piece is really important, and we can do a lot with local communities. Thinking about routes in, is there more that we can do around apprenticeships, internships to give people a hands-on opportunity to come in and find their way? And bringing that positive action measure in as well I think is a really important thing because we don’t live in a meritocracy. I wish that we did, but the reality is that sometimes we need to treat people differently in order to make sure we have fair and equitable outcomes. And until we actually get to the point where we have a level playing field, that’s going to be a requirement, I think.
DAVE SNOWDEN
I remember giving a lecture at Google once and they picked it up, which said, if you really want to recruit good coders, you could look at people with Asperger’s Syndrome. And most people who are really good at coding are really good at maths, are at that end of the scale. There’s nothing right or wrong about it. I’ve written several articles for somebody who’s a synesthesiac, so she sees text as colours. And it’s not just cognitive diversity. It’s also physical and experiential diversity.
So one of the big things that we need to start to look at, at the moment, is to realise that consciousness is not co-located with the brain. This is called "post-Cartesian understanding," and that’s the mind-body dualism. The Cartesian concept has been deeply problematical. So we know actually the body makes a lot of decisions for you. The brain only fires after you’ve made your decision, to check if the automatic response was right this time or not.
We also know from Andy Clark’s book, my work, and other people that social narrative provides a form of extended scaffolding in which your consciousness sits. Yeah? And that links in with delusion concepts, for example, of assemblages and the complexity concept of strange attractors and the narrative concept of a trope. So effectively, you’re in this highly complex ecosystem. It’s not that you get data and you look at it logically and you make a decision. Yeah?
There are affordances operated by the environment you’re in. There are assemblage structures which determine what you see or don’t see. And then you’ve got these fundamental cognitive issues, the degree of agency you’ve got, the degree of understanding you’ve got. So say, if we start to look at that differently, the way we work now, is you would present a situation, for example, to the whole of your workforce. They would interpret that situation, and the human interpretation is key.
We use what’s called "semiotic signification" or "high-abstraction signification" so that nobody knows what the right answer is. That’s really important. Otherwise, you get gaming. And then from that, we draw what are called "fitness landscapes." This comes from evolutionary biology. So they show the evolutionary potential of the current state, dominant areas where the decision will be easily accepted, areas where it would be more difficult. And then critically, those outliers, those people who’ve seen a gorilla. And we can now do that so an executive can see those results within five minutes. Just punch it out, get the results, never to talk with. And that breaks that linear-type process.
MATT FINCH
I think one of the big questions that communities face in changing times is the notion of inclusion and inequality. And this applies at every level, from geography and population, right down to individuals and how they are made welcome to a space and to a community and to an institution. And there’s been some interesting foresight work that I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of through the European Commission Horizon Europe Program called "IMAJINE," which looks at the changing dynamics between Europe’s nations and regions.
And I think one of the things that’s really important to bear in mind, particularly when it comes to digital inclusion, is it’s not purely about technical skills and capacity, that it’s about changing values. It’s above all about a changing sense of identity. One of the things that we noticed was that you can’t simply run the numbers when it comes to justice because it’s about values. It’s always something which is qualitative, which is shifting, which is subject to debate and discussion. And if you think about going into a court of law and they talk about deciding something on the balance of probabilities, it’s not really about probabilities and numbers even then. It’s still competing stories seeking to persuade people.
So one of the things we need to think about is identity and about people’s values and even the power imbalance that’s implied in inclusion. To what extent is the institution or the community itself saying that we’re going to remain unchanged and we’re going to welcome you in? To what extent are we also going to change to adapt to newcomers, to the changing flux of the make-up of the different communities that we live and work in? I saw a really interesting comment recently from a doctor in New Zealand who had changed the notes he made about his patients. And he said, I used to write "patient doesn’t speak English" and now I write, "doctor doesn’t speak Arabic" or whatever the language is.
So one of the things to think about is, how does power play out in these different settings? And things like ‘Islands in the Sky’, let us look at if those dynamics shift. Traditionally, there’s been an urban-rural divide, but the poles of that divide might change over time. And we saw, with pandemic and with the vogue for remote working, the extent to which people might actually flee the cities, the idea that digital technologies might create new opportunities for people to live differently, including where they live.
But then it’s about access, not just to the infrastructure, not just to the technical skills that let you lose these tools, but it’s also about those questions of culture and values and justice. And the truth is, because these things are playing out now, it’s necessary for us to imagine different possible contexts in order to really understand what’s going on. Because those value judgments aren’t just about what we think is right and wrong now. It’s about how things are going to play out in times to come.
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Activity 13 Diversity in your workplace
Timing: Allow about 45 minutes
Watch and listen to the following videos and audios in which contributors share their experiences of diversity in the workplace.
Download this video clip.Video player: hyb_4_2022_sep108_diverse_voices_cultural_diversity_compressed.mp4
Transcript
SHAUNNA LATCHMAN
My name’s Shaunna. I’m the Comms Executive here at the OU in Wales, mostly supporting internal communications, with a real focus on mental health and wellbeing. I’ve not been here very long. I’ve actually been here since the beginning of the year. So it’s been a lot of change.
And it’s been quite cool, actually, because when I joined, we were still doing the hybrid working, more so that we were working at home. And now, we’ve shifted into home and office. And if I’m completely honest, it’s been a brilliant experience here at the OU in Wales, which I can’t really say for previous working environments.
I’ve been in higher education for like, six, seven years now, and in my previous role, obviously, we went into lockdown during 2020, and it was a bit of a culture shock for everyone. But as a Black woman, I felt that there were certain experiences that were very unique to Black and Brown communities. And that was quite an adjustment, I feel, at that time.
Just because everyone’s in the same boat, but then, because of the colour of your skin, you feel like there are certain elements that not everybody else will understand. At the time, there was a lot of coverage about the impact it would have on Black and Brown communities because of their socioeconomic backgrounds. So you already had this pandemic, and then you had this thing that was like, because of the colour of your skin, you might be even more affected.
And the headlines were really sort of scaremongery, so without doing the reading, you kind of came to assumptions on your own. And then, obviously, once you understood the reasoning for these headlines, you kind of took a breath. And then you fast forward, and then we had the horrific incident of George Floyd’s murder, and, again, you’re forced to face your background and the colour of your skin, and then you’re forced to have conversations that you don’t necessarily want to have in a professional environment.
Because, unfortunately, at that time, I was one of the only Black people within my team and within my department, and I was constantly faced with having to explain the emotion behind what was happening around the world, how it was affecting me, how it would affect my potential colleagues, because there weren’t a lot of people in my office that looked like me. And you just want to do the diligent thing of being supportive to your colleagues and answering the questions because people are now curious and they want to know, but there was a very thin line between curiosity and ignorance. So again, you’re faced with the very real fear of being in a pandemic, and then, also, the emotional turmoil of what’s happening around the world.
And I can’t explain it, but it was like my body was just drained constantly. Because you’re thinking about your family members, you’re thinking about how you look and how that impacts your experience, and that is part of your everyday experience as a Black person, but you kind of put that to one side because you’ve got a job to do, because you want to be perceived as ‘normal’. You want to be perceived as being like everybody else. You don’t want to be reminded that you are Black, because you know that, and you know your experiences are different.
But that particular time frame was incredibly stressful. And unfortunately, the organisation I was in was not supportive. And that made me feel quite depressed, quite low, quite isolated, and really disappointed, if I’m completely honest.
And then, eventually, I found the job here at the OU in Wales, and the difference in the way I am approached, the difference in the way that I’ve been treated, it’s huge. And that’s not to say that my colleagues in my previous organisation weren’t lovely people, they were. It was more so that management didn’t know how to handle the situation and didn’t know how to support me as a Black person, and that was incredibly disappointing.
But here at the OU in Wales is a completely different story. It feels very much inclusive and welcoming. And there are certain microaggressions that you experience as a Black person day-to-day that you just kind of deal with because you don’t want to have to explain things to everyone. But I never thought that I would be in an organisation where I can just be myself.
I’m not questioned about anything. I’m not made to feel uncomfortable. And when people approach me with curiosity, it’s with complete honest and open curiosity. It’s not done in a way that’s intrusive or accusatory, which has been a real refreshing experience for me.
Being in the OU has been like a palate cleanser, almost. Having worked in higher education for so long, I became so drained just with certain things that happened consistently, over and over again. And you become a bit disenchanted.
Initially, I came into this line of work to hopefully make a change, make an impact, and ideally, encourage more people that look like myself to either work in higher education or participate in higher education, especially because I don’t have any qualifications as far as higher education is concerned. The first time I realised how different the OU was when I joined in January and I was told, you’re going to be sent a bunch of equipment, and this is how you’ll use it.
And I remember receiving this package, and everything that you would need, so a large screen, your laptop, headphones, everything that you would need to have the correct setup at home was there. It was all provided for me.
In my previous role, I had to source my own screen. I had to get my own keyboard. I had to physically go into the office to collect things. It felt very clear that the OU had learnt from the last two years, being in a pandemic, and the importance of having the correct working set up.
And there was no assumption that I had the means or the correct setup at home. It was almost like, do you have everything you need? If not, that’s fine. Don’t worry. Here’s a checklist. We’re sending all of this to you.
So, I’d say that my line manager is brilliant. We have our regular catch-ups every week, and we draw our usual checklist of what’s going on, and then there’s always space and time for me to talk about anything that’s bothering me. And there’s almost like it’s your stage now, whatever you want to talk about.
And because of the way he approaches things and because of his relaxed manner with me, I’ve not had any issues saying, I’m really frustrated about this thing, or, this irritated me. Can we look at this differently? He’s very open to hearing how I feel about something. And I think that’s really important, having a line manager that allows you to say how you feel, and then, actually listens and acts upon your concerns. That makes me feel more confident in the organisation as a whole.
So there’s a lot of people in our office, but you never feel like that because we have a rotation system here. So, for example, I’d be in Monday and Thursday, and then, there’s communication with the office manager to make sure that there’s parking available, to make sure that you have everything to your comfort. And then, also, when there are opportunities for us to come in on days that we don’t normally come in on, that’s encouraged as well to allow us to mingle with colleagues that we don’t often get to see. Being at home more often has offered a better work-life balance, and it feels as if they recognise that and want to encourage that support for their staff.
So there’s definitely an element of a two-way communication channel, whether that is from the regular updates from the director and her reinforcing the safety measures that they’ve put in place and that there are open channels for communication, or through actual line management and those people making sure that they are, again, listening to their staff and giving them the opportunity to feedback. With the mental health focus and wellbeing focus, it is important that we are listening to how people feel right now because there is still a pandemic, and there is still a lot of uncertainty and people are still having to make a lot of changes around childcare and caring responsibilities and commuting. So it does feel like we’re trying to bridge that gap to ensure that people feel supported at this particular time.
Here, I genuinely look forward to coming in because I feel safe. I feel that the office space is set up for free flow, for people to have enough space, for the sanitation areas all over. So that physical safety is there.
There’s a phrase, it’s called code switching, and it’s basically whereby someone from-- I think, originally, it was created to talk about people from multicultural communities or multilingual communities, so you switch between languages. And as time has gone on, it’s become a phrase that more describes people from various backgrounds who quite literally change their behaviour or monitor their behaviour within their environment to make sure that they come across as more palatable. And you don’t think about it. And I definitely didn’t think about it until I saw the phrase code switching, and I was like, oh, what’s that?
And I actually realised that when you’re in a professional environment as a Black person, you find yourself just making yourself quieter, more easily acceptable to your colleagues. And it’s not necessarily an active decision. Sometimes, it’s something that you’re taught from quite young, like, you have to just be quieter, calmer. You don’t want to come across as the certain phrases that are used to describe Black people in a discriminatory sense.
And then, when we moved into virtual working, that kind of veil, it disappears. Because now, everyone is welcomed into your home, just as you’re welcomed into everybody else’s home. And there are pieces of your culture all over your home because it’s your home. It’s your safe space.
And you don’t think about it and you don’t question it until someone on the other side of the camera says, oh, what’s that? What does that mean? Where is that from? Oh, I’ve never seen anything like that before.
And then, you’re having to explain your cultural differences, your background, your beliefs, things that you might not choose to discuss in a working environment, but you’re now forced to have people in your home. So, you’re now having to have these conversations. And in those moments, there are elements of ignorance that come through that you find yourself being like, well, I didn’t realise that this person had those preconceived notions about my culture, and now, I’m having to educate somebody on what it is to be Black.
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Transcript
SPEAKER
So I started, I think, it was April, right at the beginning of lockdown. So everything was sent out to my home. I didn’t see the office at all for ages. I was really-- didn’t know what would happen in those initial few weeks before I started.
Fortunately, I had an amazing line manager who really reached out, and was really lovely, and reassured me. I got sent all my kits. Because everything was happening remotely, I had loads of inductions put in in my first few weeks of meeting people.
But it was really odd. I think, particularly, because it was so new. I’ve never worked in higher education before. New organisation, new people, all sitting at home in my office, or office. So it was really intense, but it felt guided.
But I think, then, I was probably one of the first people to have done that remote induction. Whereas, now we’ve recruited massively over that time, and we’re quite used to doing those remote inductions, and working out what that looks like. But everything was very scary and very uncertain for everyone at that point. So it just all felt heightened.
So yeah, it was a lot at first, constant check-ins, increased check-ins at the initial phase with my line manager. But also, there were certain things we did. There were social quizzes that went on in the weeks and learning, reaching out to encourage you to do that.
We have quite a lovely thing that we do here, in that whenever we get any new starters, they send off a little blurb and photo about the people. And it encourages people to reach out and say hi. And I did that, and I had not experienced that before. And I had loads of people reach out and say, hi, you talked about this. I’m really interested in this.
And that was a really nice initial starting thing to make me feel, I guess, more bedded into things, even though I didn’t have those connections in that organic way. So it was really positive, but it was definitely-- it required a lot more conscious thought and conscious planning than just letting things happen in that way that they would in an office space.
I come in three days a week. But I have some flexibility about what those days might be. I personally really like working in the office. I like that structure of leaving the house, walking into work, or getting the bus into work, and getting to leave my laptop here at the end of the day.
I really like that separation of space. That’s very important for me to just have that structure of things. It means I get to see people, which I don’t necessarily have at home because I live by myself. Having that dynamic and having that atmosphere around you of just walking casually around, going to the kitchen, having a chat with somebody is really important to me. But also, those contacts, and those friends that I made whilst working remotely, I then get to see in the office, and then so that’s really lovely.
But it’s super flexible. I have my scheduled days. But if I don’t want to come in those days, or I’m waiting for a parcel, or I don’t know, I’ve got washing, all those really practical, everyday things that it’s so much easier to do now you can work from home. If I want to swap those days, I’ll just come in on a different day.
And it’s very easygoing and very much about what works for me. So it’s lovely. It’s very nice. It’s a good balance to have, I think. And it’s a good thing to keep. There’s quite a lot of space to keep experimenting with-- actually, that was working for me then, but now maybe I’ll try something else. So, for me, it’s worked really well.
Everyone’s lovely, but obviously, you have your particular people you connect with more. So being able to find my people within that space, it’s really nice to know that you’ve got your go-to people, which initially took a while while starting remotely. And it took a bit more of putting myself out there a bit more. But The OU has been really receptive to that at the same time as well. So you might put yourself out there more, but actually, you get that back.
I think I get read as straight quite a lot, but I’m not. And I think if I was with a partner who was a woman, I think, perhaps, not necessarily for me, but although I am quite a private person, there is that risk if that person isn’t out, that actually, by having that insight into somebody’s home life, they then are at risk of outing themselves, if that’s not something that they’re in a place to do or they want to do for whatever reason.
So it’s quite a sudden intrusion into your life and a merging of private and work life in a way that people were more able to, I guess, control before. And that’s rightly or wrongly. But I think some people would want to keep those things separate. So I think there’s definitely more risk around that.
There’s more risk around people perhaps not wanting to put their cameras on because of whatever is going on in their backgrounds, whatever people might read into that. And so there’s definitely-- although it works for me, I could see that that would be a big concern for some people. And that’s not just around sexuality. That’s around lots of different aspects of people’s lives, caring responsibilities, disabilities, gender exploration.
So the things are getting quite blurred. And I think you have to have a lot of trust in the organisation and the people who lead the organisation to respond to you, and to respond to your community in a positive, welcoming way. And I think The OU does that. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that that might not be the case for everyone.
Depending on the type of person you are, I think, having spoken to my colleagues who have suffered through the pandemic, as we all have, they know the support’s out there, but either they don’t want to access it, perhaps, because if we’re talking about mental health, and depression, and things, the stigma around that. But also, it’s quite weird because in many ways, this is something we’ve gone through collectively.
So I know a lot of people I’ve spoken to are quite acutely aware that other people are going through things as well, and not wanting to be a burden on them. So they’re very mindful of other people’s headspaces, things on their lives, and don’t want to add to that. That’s a personality thing. But I think it’s really important to reassure people that it is OK, and they don’t have to go through things by themselves.
I think in terms of practicality things, we have a director’s update here, which is a weekly update that goes round. Louise does a great job of flagging. This is our employee assistance program. These are the wellbeing activities and events that we have going on. And that’s really important. It’s something that I do in working with students. But that stigma is still there, and that stigma will still be there. So it’s just about carrying on to break that down and normalise people asking for help, really.
I think, in some respects, we have grown massively over the pandemic. But we are still that bit smaller. And therefore, we’re able to keep that transparency. And certainly, as an individual, I do feel my input is valued. It feels like decision-making around what things look like for us as an organisation, as The OU in Wales is to a certain extent, a collective decision.
And I do have faith in our senior leadership team. And I know that I personally was really reassured by the fact that we were bringing back to the office. And I was really reassured by the fact that Louise had quite a clear stance on, actually, we weren’t going to lose the space. The space is important. Collaboration is important. Having time to connect is important. And it was really reassuring to hear her-- that she’d just articulate that, it gave me faith in the fact that things would be done right.
Because I think, for me, if I knew that I’d be at home five days a week, I’d look for a different job. I wouldn’t want to do that. That’s not what I like. That’s not the environment I want. So for her to be so vocal about the fact that we’re going to have a new office, we’re committing to the space for the employees in Wales, is really reassuring.
And I know that I can go speak to one of my colleagues who’s on one of the planning teams about what that looks like. I know that I can be involved in consultation around things. I know that I can have a chat with my line manager. So it feels very open. It does feel like you have a say in what it looks like.
It was sometimes confusing operating across four nations, not always knowing when announcements came out, if they were for England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. And because we had different legislative positions, we had different governance positions around, actually, what was happening with the pandemic, at that point. So that was quite confusing around navigating, actually, what was happening for us in Wales.
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Transcript
AMO KING
My name is Amo. I am the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Project Officer at The Open University in Wales. And that’s a role I’ve taken on recently, but I’m also the Chair of The Open University Trans Staff Network. And so, that’s what I want to talk about first and my experience as a trans member of staff during the pandemic and hybrid working.
So, obviously, working in our homes, that gave me a bit more space in terms of how I wanted to dress and maybe a little more aggressive of a haircut. And I think, speaking to members of my network, that’s been a common experience. And the people have had the space to experiment a bit more and present themselves and move in the world in a way that’s a bit more close to what feels natural to them.
But obviously, coming out of the intense lockdown and back into hybrid working models, people are then taking their self-discovery, and their comfort, and the changes that they’ve perhaps made in their lives back into the working environment. And obviously, that then potentially presents challenges in terms of access, in terms of, say, access to toilets that people feel comfortable using, also interactions with colleagues maybe that they hadn’t seen for a while.
So, for me, I’m so lucky with The Open University in Wales. We’ve got a really super friendly, close, inclusive community here. So, I’ve not had a massive problem with that personally, but I know for colleagues in other areas of the university, perhaps it’s been more of a challenge.
So, in terms of what workplaces could do to accommodate that, it’s really thinking broadly about trans inclusion; about the availability of resources and facilities like toilets and things like that; about basic training so that everyone feels comfortable interacting and using different pronouns and things like that and so that it’s not such a kind of a thing that people will worry about, well, will I be accepted? Can I go back into this space and interact with people? How to negotiate that.
So, yeah, definitely something that is really interesting to think about, and particularly in the context of the shift between working in home, and then back into the workplace, and that point of transition, if you like, back into our workplace communities.
So, I’m going to speak a bit about my experience as a trans member of staff. So, during the pandemic, I actually shifted and asked my colleagues to use he/him pronouns for me, which they were super generous and receptive to.
And also within my home environment, I was able to definitely dress 100% as I wanted to. I didn’t need to worry about how people were going to perceive me, like passing me or meeting new strangers in a workplace context. So, that gave a massive sense of freedom.
I think interacting as well, online, there’s a certain amount of control that you have an agency over, how you’re looking on that screen. And when we move back into a 3D world and interactions a bit more organically, there’s not necessarily that sense of control. I think, for me personally, my perception was more-- people maybe found it easier to adjust to the pronouns when it was just a one-to-one interaction.
And then, when you’re back in a context maybe with cis men, by which I mean men who identified as male at birth and continue to identify that way, there’s a comparison that potentially comes in. And so, I found that maybe people struggled a little bit more just to hold in their head what I’d asked for in the context of why you’re not like those guys, which is fine, and that’s beautiful, and it’s part of diversity.
But for me, that was maybe a bit of a hurdle to be like, oh well, I was in this safe bubble of where I had complete control. And I went back into this, and how am I going to negotiate that and retain my confidence in that space?
And I know speaking to other members of the trans staff network, it’s a bit of a common experience in terms of people being able to have the freedom to settle into their own comfort zone really with themselves, but then having to bring that back into a workplace community, and how to do that smoothly, and the support that they maybe needed from line managers and other colleagues to do that.
So, for me, I’m super lucky I work in the Cardiff office, and we’ve got lovely accessible toilets. I could get to a toilet on every floor if I want to. It’s delightful, but I know that other colleagues, maybe it’s a bit more difficult for them to find access to facilities that feel comfortable, where they’re not kind of thinking, oh, is somebody going to see me going in here, and they think I’m in the wrong place. So, that’s something that’s been fantastic.
And definitely thinking of employers in general, just giving a bit of thought to how people can have access to all of those facilities in the workplace, in an environment where they don’t have to second guess is somebody’s going to think I’m in the wrong place. So, if you can do gender neutral toilets, it’s a gift.
Also, just I’m really lucky. In my context, it’s quite a small workplace community within The Open University in Wales. It’s about 190 staff, so that’s plausibly enough intimacy that you can know everyone by name. And so, for me, that’s been massively beneficial because people know me, and really, there’s this community support from colleagues.
Obviously, like in a wider, bigger workplace, you may be interacting with more strangers, so that could potentially be a bit of a flash point. So, in that case, just some trans awareness training so people what-- kind of a set up for success, really, and knowing how to interact with people because, majority of the people, best will in the world, they’re trying to do their best, but it’s just having the comfort of knowing what to say. So, if workplaces can think about providing that, then that’s also fantastic.
I can think of an example of a meeting where somebody had introduced me and been through like every possible pronoun under the sun, and panicked. So it’s not something that I would take offense at at all, but in terms of meeting new people and being introduced to them, it’s not the best announcement because you’re like, this person is different.
So, that had happened to me. But I was able to speak to my line manager about it and say like, oh, it was really awkward, and they were super supportive. And I think, yeah, just having people in line management positions who’ve got a bit of awareness and empathise basically, because it’s something that happens. People will say slightly the wrong thing. And it’s not a big deal, but it’s just supporting people so they don’t feel like they’re the problem, really.
Another aspect that I would like to speak about in terms of my experience is my experience as a member of the wider LGBT community and a queer person. An aspect of my queerness, particularly, is that I practice ethical non-monogamy, which is essentially where you have the potential to have more than one romantic partner, but everybody is aware of that, and it’s a consensual arrangement.
So, I have two partners. I live with a partner, and I have a long-distance partner as well. And during the pandemic, obviously, total nightmare, unable to see each other for months at a time. And really, hybrid working has been a massive gift in terms of the potential to actually work from another location and spend quality time with that partner.
I would view it as an alternative family structure. And so that’s the level of importance for me, that that holds, and to be able to of spend time making space for that relationship. Particularly in terms of the pandemic, although the restriction aspect has now come to a close, there’s still potential for scarcity panic because plans are made, and then there’s a disruption of somebody gets COVID. And we don’t know if we’ll be able to follow through on plans.
So, actually that flexibility from an employer point of view and be able to go and work from another location is hugely valuable just in terms of giving some sense of security. And I think it speaks to also the wider mental health challenges around the pandemic, not just in terms of in the thick of it with the fear of infections or the rest of it, but now moving on from that, just how we deal with continued disruptions, and unpredictability, and a lack of control. So it ties in together with a mental health anxiety angle as well.
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Consider your current working environment (or a previous one) and list some examples of the diversity among colleagues or students (or other ‘customers’).
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Discussion
How did you find the task? There are no right or wrong answers here, but your list may have included some or all of these categories (Ahmed, 2018):
- race and ethnicity
- age and generation
- gender and gender identity
- sexual orientation
- religious and spiritual beliefs
- disability and ability
- socioeconomic status and background
- thinking style and personality
- personal life experience.
Although you might not have thought of the final two categories, the diversity that they bring to the workplace can present challenges. For example, Ahmed describes the possibility of a team with introverted personalities struggling with giving a monthly presentation. He also suggests that the life experience of someone who has seen active service in the armed forces might bring particular issues to the workplace.
Understanding this breadth of diversity should help you to identify many occasions when you have experienced some level of diversity both in and outside of work.