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Building an inclusive culture

Beyond policies and practices to recruit and retain a diverse workforce, cultivating a truly inclusive culture at work is an essential part of improving equality and diversity. Diversity in Tech found that unfair treatment in the workplace was the biggest cause of staff turnover in the tech industry, costing employers up to £4 billion per year. An inclusive culture is one in which employees feel valued, respected and that they belong in their organisation.

 

This section of the toolkit offers practical steps and strategies to cultivate an inclusive working environment, from keeping up to date with and discussing EDI best practice to supporting staff networks.

Review your employee policies annually to ensure they reflect EDI best practice

Embedding EDI practice within an organisation can be achieved through improvements in corporate processes, including performance management, training and development, and organisational and people management processes. As a minimum, employers should review discrimination, parental, recruitment, and other employee-related policies. Policies and procedures should be reviewed annually to ensure that they remain relevant.

 

Here are some practical steps you can take to ensure that your policies are inclusive:

  1. To maintain accountability, state who is responsible for policy reviews at the top of each policy document, and how frequently the policy is to be reviewed and updated. Be sure to include these dates in internal calendars.
  2. Have a system of ongoing policy tracking. To analyse if any group is being disproportionately affected by a policy or process, collect anonymous demographic data. This is crucial in evaluating trends in the use and application of policies.
  3. Create a robust Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) process - an approach designed to assess the impact of policies on different demographics. Conducting EqIAs will help to ensure all new policies and procedures are designed with inclusion at the core, and that any potential adverse effects can be noted and mitigated against. Guidance can be found here.
  4. Each policy should exist in an accessible format, including making sure they are accessible to screen readers. It is important that all parties can access the information.
  5. Use resources, like those published by CIPD, to follow EDI best practice.
  6. Create a clear discrimination and harassment policy that is included in onboarding and systematically reviewed. Take a look at the guidance here.
  7. Consider how your organisation supports expectant and working parents, and those returning from parental leave.

Ensure your employees have access to HR

A trusted and independent HR function, clearly identified to employees, gives staff confidence that issues they raise will be handled fairly and confidentially. They also provide better analytics and reporting, and improve regulatory compliance.

Most micro-enterprises and small organisations do not have a HR team. Outsourcing this role protects your business and your employees. More details on the pros and cons of outsourcing HR are available here.

The digital and tech sector’s reputation for fast-paced work and long hours can pose a barrier, particularly for those with caring responsibilities. Where you can, enhancing benefits such as parental leave and flexible/hybrid working policies can greatly increase the chances of retaining staff, including working parents.

Monzo’s 2022 Diversity and Inclusion report sets out a range of policy and procedural amendments to foster a more inclusive culture. Examples include:

 

  • Expanding the caregiver leave policy from three to six months full pay for primary caregivers and from six weeks to three months full pay for secondary caregivers.
  • Providing access to fertility and family-forming support from Fertifa, a UK reproductive benefits provider, which includes access to advisors for menopause and perimenopause.
  • Enhancing support for gender transition, including counselling access and consultations with hormone specialists.

 

Synthace, a small - medium sized biotech research company with a digital experiment platform, advertise ‘great healthcare, equity/share options, hybrid working, flexible hours, extra time off to detach from work, and more’ on their careers page and have won various awards, such as being named one of the UK’s Best Workplaces for Wellbeing (2023) by Great Place to Work and being a finalist at the Women in Tech 2022 Employer Awards in the Best Employer for Benefits category.

UP3, co-founded in 2016, has been recognised as a Great Place to Work and advertises a range of benefits including flexible working and a progressive parental leave policy.

''family-friendly policies, giving people some time off for caring and also the work-life balance, you know, working from home as opposed to seeing that as people having time off. I mean, I did work with someone a while ago who felt that if you worked from home you weren’t delivering anything. I mean, out of all the sectors, tech sector is one where you can very easily monitor what has been achieved and how many hours has been spent and what progress has been made. So, you know, changing that mindset within our community''
Bangladeshi woman working in the sector, Ipsos interview

Discuss EDI and upskill your organisation on EDI best practice

Collaborate with independent EDI consultants on employee training. Topics may include: how to engage in inclusive recruitment, how to deal with microaggressions, how to develop conscious inclusion strategies, and other EDI training, including positive action schemes. EDI should form part of hiring managers’ performance reviews for accountability against your organisation’s inclusion goals.

In 2022, BT rolled out mandatory Let’s Talk about Race training to all colleagues with more than 250 virtual workshops having been delivered and more than 81,000 accessing the digital learning option.

Advanced are highlighted in the techUK 2020 Delivering Diversity best practice report for running ‘management fundamentals’ training, providing managers with tools and support (including awareness of bias) to help them make appropriate decisions.

Fujitsu shares career inspiration from diverse colleagues in the business via a Role Model series. Staff can also share lived experiences via a DEI and Wellbeing curriculum and People Library.

Ensure your team and social events are inclusive

Always organise events with accessibility and inclusion in mind, so that team social events are welcoming for everyone. Unlimited has produced a useful and comprehensive guide on running accessible events.

Here are some ways to get started and support religious holidays and promote interfaith inclusion in your workplace:

  • Identify an EDI calendar which incorporates religious holidays or identity-based observances (e.g. Black History Month) throughout the year. Send out a survey to better understand how employees want to be supported or  want to celebrate different holidays and/or identity-based observances (e.g. offer flexible working during Ramadan);
  • To raise awareness and promote inclusion, identify internal and external speakers to talk about the meaning of different religious holidays and identity-based observances;
  • Recognise the practical elements of religious holidays - for example, does your office have a quiet and private space for prayer and meditation in the office?  In 2023, the CIPD produced a helpful guide to help employers consider the ways in which they can best support employees during Ramadan.

Support your employees to set up an Employee Resource Group (ERG) and report findings/suggestions to senior leaders and managers

 

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), sometimes called Affinity Groups or Staff Networks, are employee-led groups that aim to promote an inclusive workplace. They typically unite employees who share a particular characteristic, such as ethnicity or faith. ERGs help marginalised groups and remote workers connect through a common cause or interest, making the physical and psychological work environment safer and more inclusive for everyone.

 

Facilitate the creation of an EDI committee that will assume responsibility for guiding the development of initiatives that help to build a culture of inclusion. To have a truly representative committee, it is crucial that the voices of diverse colleagues have equitable agency.

FDM’s LEAD (Leading, Educating and Aspiring Diversity) Network is referenced in the Delivering Diversity 2020 techUK best practice report as providing opportunities with their minority ethnic communities to voice their experiences, in particular organising a virtual webinar covering the significance of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Monday.com notes in their 2022 ESG Report that they have seven ERG community groups for underrepresented communities across their global offices and that funding available to their ERGs from 2022 for 2023 is now doubled.

Squarespace has six global ERGs that they cite as ‘strategic partners to maximise business impact’, recognising the value that such groups can bring for building a more inclusive workplace. They have ERGs for Black employees, LGBTQIA+ employees, Hispanic/Latinx employees, Asian, Asian-American and Pacific Islander employees, women, and those with caring responsibilities. Each of these ERGs are also open to those who identify themselves as allies.