Diversity and inclusion through COVID-19

you well good afternoon everyone and welcome to our webinar looking at diversity and
inclusion through Kovac 19 my name is Clare McCartney and I'm senior policy
advisor for resourcing and inclusion at the CRPD and it's a real pleasure to be
chairing today's session we're joined by a great panel of experts today including
dr. Jill Miller the CIO his own senior policy advisor for diversity and
inclusion and he'll be we'll be hearing from first we'll also be hearing from
Charlotte Billington who's senior associate at the equality and Human Rights Commission and we'll also be
hearing from a seat Siddiq and the global heads of diversity and inclusion at adidas Andrew Willis head of advisory
and legal at HR inform won't be presenting today but is also on hand to answer any legal questions that may
arise so before we get into the content of the webinar I'd like to share a few
housekeeping notes with you if I may so this session is being recorded and will
be available on demand via the webinar section of the CID website you can also access recordings of our previous
webinars there and sign up for future sessions in just a couple of sessions to flag with you Friday the 5th of June
we'll be looking at the impact of Co vid 19 on the labor market Wednesday the
17th of June we'll be looking at using evidence in HR decision-making ten
lessons from the co bid 19 crisis so if you would like to submit questions
during the webinar today please do use the Q&A rather than the chat box attendees are muted so any questions
will need to be submitted they are typing and you can type questions throughout the webinar and we've to save
some time at the end to answer as many of these as we can for legal advice
samberly members can call our HR inform helpline it's available 24/7 and you'll
get an individual response to this also to let you know that we are updating the
frequently asked question and was on our website all the time as new information becomes available so do
heads to the coronavirus hub page for more information on any of this finally
I would like to flag our new well-being half and helpline for our members in the UK and Ireland together with
award-winning workplace well-being providing a health assured we are now producing or providing COPD members with
three help and support 24/7 and 365 days Ian in via telephone or online
consultations with qualified therapists and I'll say a little bit more about that at the end of the session so let's
kick off the webinar with a bit of context setting from me we need to ensure that diversity and inclusion
issues remain the front and center in our workforce decision-making and plans during and coming out of this pandemic
encouraging me our research at the CIPD suggests that diversity and inclusion are still very much on employers radars
however it looks like in the short term employers are causing on some of the bigger programs of work and placing in a
stronger focus on workplace inclusion and well-being overall and also seeking
encouragingly a greater understanding of employees individual and personal circumstances so these are all things
that are really important given the challenging circumstances that we are all experiencing at a societal level we
know that the virus itself is sadly impacting on certain groups more heavily than others in relation to age to gender
to ethnicity where there are currently NHS and labour reviews currently taking
place also with regards to the socio-economic background and those that have a disability or pre-existing health
condition the serious attention needs to be paid to this when it comes to the safety of key workers and enabling other
people to safely return to the physical workspace both now and also in the
longer term and with many of us working from home and juggling caring responsibilities and our day jobs
inclusion remains key for people profession some people managers and when it comes
to returning to the physical workspace CIT we've been urging organisations to
ensure that they can meet the three cat three key tests of is it essential that people return to the physical workspace
is it safe which is obviously paramount and is it mutually agreed between the
employer and employees we also know that certain groups of workers are likely to
be more disadvantaged by our worsening labor market we've researched by the
resolution foundation for instance suggesting that young people are more likely to have lost work or seen their
income drop because of code mid-nineteen and also the fear that perhaps more older workers will be impacted by
involuntary redundancies we've also seen today new research from the Institute
Fiscal Studies and UCL highlighting some of the challenges to gender equality in
the workplace as well so we need to ensure that we are applying non
discriminatory practices in our decision-making process there are processes around things like following
redundancies short term working and I know that this is something that Charlotte will focus in on from the EHR
si lie managers are also pivotal in terms of understanding the personal
circumstances and needs of their team members and also in building inclusive work cultures
and I know that this is something that Jill will be discussing in further detail and it's also great to have a
safe with us to share his practitioner knowledge and experience of diversity and inclusion at this time and what he's
seeing in the space at the moment so I'd like to now hand over to our first
speaker the CIP DS Joe Miller he's going to talk about how a focus on workforce
inclusion is essential both as people work in different ways but also in
implementing effective returns to work and so over to you Joe all right thank
you very much Claire and so yes I'm in a section of the webinar I'm going to talk about how a focus on workplace inclusion
is definitely essential both of course as we're working in different ways and
we have done for a few months now but also as we're planning and implementing returns to work and so really inclusion
week we can't neglect it however I think that as Claire mentioned the trend that
we're seeing is that the way in which employers are focusing on inclusion is slightly different at the moment so
rather than the big programs and initiatives that we would have been pursuing before March I think although
some of that is is helpfully continuing and what we're seeing employers doing is
focusing on some of the real core principles of DNI and looking at their
culture looking at management behaviors and I think that's really really important as we're making some really
big workforce decisions I know we've we've bee talked a lot about furloughing redundancies managing
remote workers and of course as we're mentioning and returning to work and and
looking at these core principles I think for some organizations will require a significant cultural shift and a
behavioral shift and whereas I think others will be building on their prior investment in diversity and inclusion
you have the next slide please Danielle all right so so just them very briefly I
wanted to just really sort of put front of mine for us the government guidelines on on becoming covert secure I won't go
into too much detail here but what I wanted to flag and was that each of the
eight guides that look at the different workplace settings and and how you work
safely during a pandemic each of those contains a section on who to go to work and and that really reminds us of the
steps that will likely need to be taken to comply with the Equality Act 2010 and
the quote you can see on the slide is taken from that guidance I think this is just quite a helpful helpful reminder
and of course it's really useful to keep up to date I think we all should be keeping up to date with the constant
changes and updates to this government guidance as well because that sort of frames or it
frames our response I've also noted on the bottom of the slide the new guidance
from a HRC which as Claire mentioned they've they've published this to help
employers and really remind us of the need to make non-discriminatory
workforce decisions I know we've needed to and not just make
these these big big decisions about our workforce in our workplace but also adapting our our usual people management
practices such as recruitment and we need to be doing that in a in a non-discriminatory way so of course
we've got sort of as a front and foremost in our minds these guidelines and and the legal obligations the next
slide please then yeah okay so what I thought I'd move on to talk about now is
what our employers actually doing and with respect to diversity inclusion during these very unprecedented times
and as I said it looks very much like employers are on the whole going back to
first principles and behind it by that I mean really trying to understand
individual needs and individual circumstances and focusing on general inclusion principles overall and the
reason I say this is this seems to be the trend that was uncovered in our latest employer survey and we surveyed
just over 1,100 employers about how they're responding to the pandemic and
we included some diversity inclusion questions in there and we wanted to see if and how employers focus had changed
and it's useful to say the timings of this survey of course cuz everything changes so quickly and so it was
conducted about one month after lockdown so between the 17th and 23rd of April and I'd like to go on to it to show you
some of the key findings from that survey because I think they tell quite an interesting story and but I thought
before we do that it will be great to hear from you to start with and I see we've got the poll up on there coming up
on the screen and at the moment so I'd love to ask you this same question that we asked in the survey
and it's asking your extent of agreed to disagree so the statement we asked you
to consider is whether prior investment in workforce divest in inclusion will
help us respond effectively in a crisis to employee needs and if you could just
indicate your the extent of your either agreement or disagreement with that statement and that would be great and
then I think we have will have as soon as we've had a lot of people responding I think the results will automatically
come up for us so we'll just give you a moment to complete the poll
okay thank you very much so we can see that the poll results now and if we
group together they strongly agree and agree and I've got to do some very quick maths here 90% so overwhelmingly there
is agreement among you our audience that this prior investment in DNI is going to
help the business respond to employee needs and so thank you very much for it for giving us your views there and this
is actually much higher than that in our poll we're just two fifth so I think it was around and 43% said I said the same
and we also asked them to respect how how prior investment helps them respond
to customer needs and it's a similar percentage saying that and I think sort
of what you've just told us is is very encouraging and makes perfect sense because I think a diverse workforce that
does feel included can contribute to more innovative solutions and of course we want more sort of innovation and
problem-solving at the moment where it's it's times that we've never encountered before and of course a diverse workforce
can give us a better understanding of customer needs and needs of our our communities as well that we serve now
I'm going to move on to the next two points on this slide and I'm going to look at them together because I think
together they tell story so we asked them employers to tell us the top three
HR priorities and we were asking this of course one month interlock down and we
compared that with HR priorities before the corona virus pandemic so just 5% of
employers put DNI in their top three HR priorities and currently compared to 14%
previously and I think looking at this figure alone can be quite worrying and
but we need to look at it in the context of the wider survey data to really see the whole story of what's happening and
so as you can see by the last point on the slide even though it's it it's like D&I slipping down those
priority lists and I think I have to sort of just reiterate it's those top three priorities we were we were asking
about um still two fifths disagreed with the statement on that DNI has to go on
the back burner for now so I think that's that's quite encouraging that only 26% sir only a quarter said it
didn't have to to that sorry said that it did have to go on there the back burner so this suggests that being
inclusive is still a priority factor for many employers and we hope that a significant number are still recognizing
that I'm going to ask you and for a second time to give us your views if
that's okay and we've got the poll question number two coming up now again it's an agree and it's the extent
to which you agree or disagree with the statement and and the poll question
we'll just wait till that till that pops up so you can see it on your screen at the same time here we go Thank You
Danielle that's great and our organization has explicitly considered the needs and concerns of different
employee groups so to what extent do you think this roof this statement reflects
what's happening in your own organization and I'll just give you a minute to digest and and respond if
that's okay
you okay great and instantaneously we get
those results and so we've got 59 percent and of those that told us about
and what's happening in their organization saying they are considering the needs and likely concerns of
different employee groups so I mean this is this is reassuring and ties very
strongly with our survey results however we can see that as well 18 percent said
they disagree whether they're not considering the needs of a different employee group so I think we have to
look at those two together and I think
on the whole and employers are looking to understand individual needs more than
they've ever done before our survey is you can see by the top figure on this slide says 65 percent said they've done
this and and I think like with sort of adapting to flexible working and remote
working same kind of trend that this situation has forced many employers to be thinking differently and and if there
are any positives to come out of this really difficult situation and I hope
that increased focus on flexible working and thinking more inclusively will be
will be two of those and then looking at the next data point on the slide
reassuringly our survey findings suggest that a large proportion of employers who
understand the current worries of employees are actually responding to those which is good news and and I think
really importantly is that the two fifths of HR teams have stepped up their support for line managers which i think
is critical at the moment and I'll say a bit more about that as as we go through this session and but I hope for now that
that very brief snapshot was useful to share with you just to give you a flavor
of what other employers are doing and but what I wanted to move on to now if we can go to the next slide please
danielle great is the inclusion principles that we've drawn out from our
wider work as well as from the survey findings and what we've tried to draw out here is some general principles
for HR to support effective returns to work and organizational activity going
forward related specifically to inclusion I'm not going to talk through
them all and because of time but I'm just gonna highlight a few of these which I think are perhaps most relevant
at the moment and I think pretty obvious is for us is that there's no one-size-fits-all approach and
consulting I think with the workforce and providing really clear communication and is really important here as well as
to be factoring some empathy into decision making trying to accommodate people and balance that with with
business needs but of course we do need to be building on the government
guidelines and to be working out those those details working them through the
second point here about maintaining a clear focus on employee health safety and well-being as Claire said safety has
to be a paramount importance at the moment and I thought it's useful here to flag some that reasonable adjustments
are something that we do need to still think very seriously about and we've got
to appreciate everyone's experience is different and provide the appropriate support with flexibility and being very
key and as I mentioned before skilling up lye managers for the new way of
working is is so important because they need to feel confident and capable to manage in this completely different way
in a completely different new environment where they themselves are facing different circumstances in and
out of work but also their team are as well and it's how can they be as inclusive and flexible as possible
keeping those lines of communication open and but also the need for them to
have a point of contact in HR where they can get that guidance and support that
they need when they're encountering some some really tricky situations but also to ensure they've got the capacity
required to prioritize people management at this time
and I'm going quite quickly through this slide but I'm happy to expand on any of these points during that the questions
as well and the next one is about providing genuine mechanisms for employee voice
and I think as we go through here we'll be talking about there and in this webinar we'll be talking about employers
needing to feel able to voice their concerns to discuss issues that are important to them but also that enables
the business to understand the challenges that their workforce are actually facing and the potential risks
to the business and then employers can have the arms with that information to them and respond accordingly I'm not
going to say anything more about there the next point which is to critically review your current people approaches to ensure they're inclusive because
Charlotte from the ER EHR city is going to be talking a lot about ensuring that practices are a non-discriminatory but
the final point I want to dimension and I've put this on the slide because I think it is really important is that creating opportunities for people for
people to socialize and I think often in organizations that this can be seen as a nice-to-have whereas actually I think it
is it is really important with employee well-being and inclusion lenses on because even when we return to the
physical workplace we can't be sitting around having tea breaks and lunches together and we can't be gathering
around the coffee machine like we would normally and but many employers are thinking differently around virtual
socializing and actually letting people know it's okay to use work time to do
that and to connect with your team and with your colleagues I think that that's very important not only to keep abreast
of what's happening but just to have that that social connection so in
summary and to my section today and I think at this time when people are feeling really anxious about many
different aspects of the situation that we're in especially about returning to work and we were uncertain about what
the next day the week or the month is going to bring and juggling difficult circumstances and I think inclusive
people management is really really important and we've covered some of the main points in ensuring people feel
included but of course this is not exhaustive and we've done a bit whistle-stop tour so if there's any
questions that you want to pose please do and we're ending here on the slide which Flags there coronavirus hub again
that Claire mention at the beginning which has a huge wealth of resources and is regularly updated and please do have
a look at that for a lot of our upcoming research as well we're going to be producing practical guides on
bereavement support domestic abuse suicide prevention supporting working
carers LGBT working lives and preventing managing drugs and alcohol misuse at
work which is just a flavor of what we'll be coming over the next few months because I think these issues are of
paramount importance to effectively manage our workforce so I'm going to
pass back to you now Claire thank you brilliant well thank you so much - you're really helpful first session I
think with lots of practical takeaways of things we really need to be considering as we're continuing to make
very difficult decisions about our workforce and workplace itself really interesting to hear more about those
research findings as well and the interactive poll and as joe said if you've got any questions for her then
please do post them up and we'll hopefully get to those but next start without further ado I'm going to we're
going to hear from Charlotte Billington from the EHR see around equality issues relating to employment and kovat 19 and
so charlotte over to you thank you really want to clear thank you for
inviting me along to speak as well I really appreciate coming and being involved and taking part in my first
virtual poll at the same level and amazing so thank you and so hi everyone
my name is Charlotte billington I'm the Compliance Manager at the equality and Human Rights Commission and for those of
you that don't know who we are we are the UK's national equality body so we're responsible for regulating the Equality
Act and you might be most familiar with us as those that forced the gender pay gap regulations but specifically my role
is sort of supporting line managers and employers to understand their obligations under the Equality Act and
that's why I made to talk to you today I'm here to sort of flag against you the importance of the
equality items and not discriminating in some of these really fast-paced difficult decisions that you all are
having to make and so I'll be giving a brief overview of some of the concerns we've been hearing about and then
running you through the guidance that Claire and Jill have really kindly introduced already giving you some
really practical tips and sort of examples of where you can look at making sure that the decisions you're making a
non-discriminatory and at the end I know we've been talking ready a fair bit
about return to work so I'll be flagging a few areas that we know are coming on the horizon and we're constantly hoping
to update so I'll be putting up and asked you all as well to give me some feedback to you on what you might need
Daniel cookies are the next slide thank you so as I said coming from the HRC I'd
be quite remiss if I didn't remind you of your obligations and the Equality Act and I appreciate that people managers
and HR professionals have really been at the brunt of this crisis making really
first decisions of guidance that's changing feels like almost daily so it's
just a reminder really that any of these decisions you're making and you need to make sure they're not discriminating or
victimizing people because of their groups such as if they have a disability or if they are from a specific ethnic
minority I hope that guys that say if I didn't say I'd feel a bit silly
Danyelle next slide please so hopefully
you'll all understand the risks that come if you are discriminating so you'll know that you can leave yourself
vulnerable to employment tribunal claims and costly legal fees and not only that
I think in the public narrative and the sort of media attention that we're having around this there's been a lot of
focus on employers who aren't necessarily considering diversity inclusion or aren't looking after the
needs of their employees as much as they could so I think now more than ever it's really important that diversity
inclusion is right and that has been thought of because I think there's increased scrutiny on employers as well
and as Jill's poll sort of pointed and some of the amazing statistics we pulled up there having a focus on
diversity inclusion and making sure you're not discriminating not only builds the commitment and retention of
your employees but also those employers that we've been speaking to that already had embedded a diversity and inclusion
have told us how resilient that's made them in their response to the corona virus pandemic so already having those
inclusive practices in place and understanding individual needs has really built the resilience of employers
so I just wanted to reinforce what Jill said a bit early I think that's the really important point to note and next
slide please Danielle thank you so like I said I know that there's been a lots and lots of decision decisions
that having to be made real place and I know that many of you have been working in the best interest of your employees
and it's also quite early days to understand the impact of growing us to coronavirus affiliate on different
groups but we have been hearing concerns from individuals and employers about specific practices that are lawful and
worrying so things like that include disabled staff being put on sick pay or
being made redundant because employers aren't thinking about reasonable adjustments that it can be put in place
so new creative thinking or solutions are sort of slapdash approach to putting
people on leave unnecessarily also we've heard of pregnant workers being put on
unpaid sick leave or unpaid leave all together or being asked to go maternity leave without considerations around
furlough or how you can sort keep them at work all that women in the workplace and we've also heard concerns about bias
decisions around working structures this sort of lazy assumptions that women shouldn't be allowed to work from home
because they might be caring etc so really what we wanted to do was make it
as easy as possible for you to understand what your obligations are in the Equality Act and that's why we
publish a really quick guidance just as reminders thanks Danielle you're way ahead of me
yes they really we just wanted to publish guidance to make it really clear that you can still meet your equality
obligations and that actually is really helpful to do say so there are a few really important points that are useful
for you to consider the first is the most obvious just making sure the decisions you're making like who's
getting extra hours or who you're making redundant or putting on furlough aren't discriminatory so for example don't
automatically give extra hours or specific shifts to males because you're assuming that they don't have caring
commitments in the same way that your female staff may I think Jill's touched
know we just spoke about it already but involving employees in that decision-making process is just so
important and it sounds like it's something that you're all really conscious of and doing already so I'm
really pleased to see that but having that two-way conversation and understanding those individual needs of
those specific groups of your employees is really really important and I would
add an extra point there I guess to say think about how you are communicating with different groups so if you've got
workers who i maternity leave for maybe not accessing their staff emails how are
you sort of pushing out and speaking to them and understanding what their needs are and I'll go a bit more into that
later and then finally set up your working options and ways that don't disadvantage
specific groups of workers so things like I know we're all thinking about the
return to work now especially in retail with a sudden announced the know it's all going to be open again but really
think about if you're putting in place policies don't just automatically assume they'll work the same way for everyone
it's a staff that may be returning may have mental health issues that have been exacerbated by the current crisis
instead of just assuming everyone's going to be comfortable coming back into work reach out and understand if there
are any reasonable adjustments that can be put in place to support them and I'll talk more about reasonable adjustments a
bit later as well I know that somebody asks for a link to all the guidance so it is through all these presentations as
well Thank You Danielle and I'm sure as people professionals
you're more than aware that pregnant women and those on maternity leave have specific and protections under the
Equality Act so you're obligated to time to take a risk assessment for pregnant workers and
they're protected from unfair treatment and also from being made automatically redundant so some of it I've got the
full list of do's and don'ts on the website that I'd link there but just for time I've pulled out two of the most important points that I think are useful
to know so I think the first is if you undertake a risk assessment if you're
thinking about return to work and you think that the risk is too great for your pregnant employees or those that
have come back from maternity leave then you must find another suitable job or suspend her on full pay if you think the
risks are great and you can't put anything in to mitigate that and the second is that if you are thinking about
redundancies at the end of the furlough scheme or continuing to roll out part-time furlough and make sure that
how you're selecting staff doesn't automatically disadvantage women so don't automatically think someone's on
maternity leave or their apart from maternity leave so they're the best people to put actually this can really
disadvantaged women who may not want to go on furlough leave so please do be mindful and consider it
an exciting case Danielle thank you again I'm sure I'm sucking eggs here but
you'll also know that there are obligations to make sure you're making reason adjustments for your disabled
workers and this is really really essential because and disabled workers can face barriers or disadvantages that
non-disabled workers don't so your obligations to provide reasonable adjustments are there to really level
the playing field and make sure that people are able to access work and that's important I think because the
what may have been working before has sort of changed and tweaked now so a few
examples I give about possible reasons adjustments that might be useful I'm really aware there are lots of you in
this webinar so I'm very aware that some of these might not work but hope that you can draw parallels and from them but
some some sort of examples of reasonable judgments that we've heard of our organizations offering extra check
Kym's for line managers for staff who are feeling specifically anxious or how really depressed and we've heard of
employers who are tweaking hours that people can come in or specific roles so moving employees you may have health
conditions away from customer facing roles things like that which don't have
any costs and sort of associated with them but also things that do have costs associated like providing budgets or
software floor work disabled workers to be able to access their software working
from home and also it's worth noting I think that software that's already out there like zoom and many of those
platforms have amazing accessibility features that can be used quite quite easily and quickly as well so it's being
creative and again as I've said before is that sort of open communication and
speaking really sort of openly with the individual with your employee to understand what their needs are and how
far you can make and a reasonable adjustment and obviously reasonable is
what is this limit in it needs to be practical it needs to be effective if it needs to work for both of you
so those open conversations are really important and if there are costs incurred do you remember that you've got
the government's access to work scheme that should be able to help you put in place these adjustments if they are and
expensive so just before we go into the next slide I think it's all the sort of
examples I've highlighted here through making these adjustments to being really open and communicating with your staff
and pregnant workers or works of maternity leave all those things all
those focuses on includes on inclusive practices and equality it's not only
essential for you as employers to maintain that commitment and also your reputation but as so essential to sort
of make sure that those employees aren't being pushed out of the labor market we know already that certain groups are
already at a disadvantage in terms of accessing work or being able to stay in work and some of the things have
highlighted has really shown that actually the pandemic can have you've exacerbate those issues even more
so I would urge you as those people that have that front line sort of
decision-making power always to be able to think inclusively and think about
equality so it will really help us make sure that people aren't slipping even further out of the employment market so
it's really really important Thank You Danielle oh yeah and just finally if you can't
make Risa the testament consider if it be reasonable to put employee on paid disability leave or if not think about
if you confirm them and let's say for them to return to work but just that same point again consulting and being
really open and having those discussions will not only sort of protect you in terms of showing that you demonstrated
you're taking reasonable steps but also builds that commitment and we just will be create a much healthier culture as
well thanks Danielle perfect so this is our nearly finished I promise
going on I said we are the guidance is out there now and I've put links throughout the presentation but also
really well at this sort of external environment and the guidance is changing really quickly so we're hoping to look
at what other clarifications we can add what sort of concerns or questions you guys are having that we can take ways
that we can provide that further support because I know these decisions harder do you want to make sure that you've got it
right and we want it to make it as easy as possible for you to do that so certain concerns we've heard already
from employers are worries about how to implement flexible working how to
support and people coming back to work when maybe they had childcare lined up that is now no longer available and
we've had questions around what sort of what sort of things you can ask during the recruitment stage if you're trying
to keep certain groups a little star safe and we're also hearing lots of concerns about how do we keep staff safe
and make sure that we're making decisions that don't discriminate but balance out that needs safety so these
all areas are taking away and we're looking at and we want to provide more support around but I'd be really really
keen to hear from you all through the Q and or at the end if you've got any concerns that I can take away and pick up on as
well so just finally I feel like a harpy going on and on about again but just
want to reiterate that looking at diversity inclusion and making sure that you're not discriminating and these
really important decisions that you're having to make now will be so essential in sort of making sure that we don't
lose those really important gains we've made on equality in the workplace in recent years and I really hope that you
all read the guidance and tell me what else you need so I can go away and do that as well thank your hand I feel like
there thank you very much well thank you so much Charlotte for a really useful
reminder I think of our obligations relating to the Equality Act and really
good to hear you talking about the importance of consultation and open who is a safe city can be a global head of
diversity and inclusion at and gas and eceived is going to share his practitioner knowledge and experience of
diversity and inclusion at this time and say what he's seeing in the space at the moment and so over to you see thank you
very much and it's great to be joining this session and sharing my views and
experiences and things I've seen in the industry so not just from from from from our perspective or organization but just
more broadly what I see and I guess the first question is this whole concept of you know working remotely and how that's
impacted diversity and inclusion and what it's meant for us I think it's really really interesting because
diversity and inclusion before this was very much focused on you know all those
key programs talking the great talk which a lot of us do do in the DNI space
but what Cove it actually did was push us to that point or actually really now
implementing what we've been saying and really living up to it and what's been really interesting is how we've all of a
sudden especially that they're sort of working from home of the remote working conversation how we've managed to adapt
very quickly to everyone being able to work from home and I've heard of organizations that you know said we
couldn't can't do it not possible or any certain people in certain departments good so that's a positive I think you
know that's really shown that actually if we if we have two we are able to make their advances within the DNI space
what's really interesting is during that process and you know things like the
needs of staff and what people need to work from home started becoming quite
quite crucial and quite important and so the accessibility side of it and you know what people what accessibility
needs people have when they want to work from home what's what's been interesting on this journey as we work from home for
the I've stopped counting but you know busy up to three months now we're coming to has been other diversity needs and
whether we're considering them because what we have a tendency to do as organizations is go back and revert back
to the what I like to call the tick box diversity where we've done the piece that we need to do and then we don't
need to worry about it anymore so what do I mean by that so if you look at the virtual world you know people are
creating meetings there's this perception that everyone's free right so you can put a meeting in whenever and
I'll be taking into consideration and Oscar considering whether they have chocolate responsibilities whether they
have to feed their children at same time whether they have any other other cultural needs we had Ramadan last last
month you know how did that impact people were fasting and you know all these things are hugely important but we
forget and then also there was conversations around inclusive environments are we taking that time to
create those inclusive environments in the current format how many conversations were calls do we have
where we allow five minutes beforehand just to find out how how everyone's doing or five minutes at the end have we
introduced those what I call they're in a water machine moments that we have in the office are those they're now in this
virtual world and have we included them and all these things are things we need to start thinking about when we're
thinking about diversity and again the impact the psychological impact that you know the all the different things people
are facing and what does that mean for people are we allowing for that space so what do I mean by that is the answer is
and I've seen a lot of companies doing this is that you know here is a helpline or we've got their support you can go there but a lot of people just want
those conversations to take place that we're not having and so all these things really really crucial and I think there
are some positive learnings that we've gathered from this from this time but
then it comes into this question of you know what what's the world going to look like when we get back into work and what
does diversity mean and that post coded space and globally you know it's so
interesting seeing some of the changes and some of the things that are being implemented by various different organizations and I think there's a few
things as I just wanted to touch on as part of that I think it has been spoken about about policies and things like
that I can't although I don't usually speak about policies but I think it is utmost importance to make sure your
policies are right for this post over there because a lot of things just don't make sense in this environment so it's really
important to get those up to scratch to understand what they mean to reflect on them and so on but we must consider that
our workplaces are a reflection of the society we live in and what do I mean by that and basically what we see happening
around us will translate into into the future of work and I want to give you a few examples for then into context and
as shop started opening up in China recently there was M there was an
instant which took place in one of the big chains and you probably all know where chain is but I won't mention it
just just so I don't get sued at some point but there's a big chain of fast-food restaurants they started
opening this was one of the employees decided to put a sign up in this shop
window that said no black people welcome and it's a very big chain it's one of the biggest field will change the fast
food fast food chain now what was the reason for that it wasn't the organization but people's emotions
people's understanding when we go into this sort of mode of you know where
we're under threat people then all sorts of elements of discrimination and other
things start coming into play and that was a huge huge sort of wake-up call for
a lot of organizations to see that happening and of course the organization apologized and everything else but again
it's tensions similarly I've heard of incidents in other regions where you know people
are more wary of people from certain parts of the world because the perception is they might be carrying it
in the UK we know that there's evidence to show that actually people from vme or
black minority ethnic communities have been having a high rate of high death
rate and you know more people have been affected by it now that will translate
into work I am pretty sure what will end up happening is and and you know when we look at how society operates will this
then translate into work that when we get back into it people we're not going to sit next to someone who's ruining your community because they're scared will it mean that
those people will be a disadvantage due to due to numerous other factors and these are the kind of things we have to
start thinking about this is where the inclusion piece comes in and it's not that great program that will introduce
when we get back to say we're all into Civ it's how do we understand how different people are being impacted
affected and what that means for them similarly a lot of companies will have
plans around bringing people back slowly so I'm pretty sure when when we know when we are allowed to go back to work
there won't be 100% of your staff will turn up to work the next day it will be in smaller groups that people would come
back with smaller percentages the question I ask is who gets those opportunities then so who comes back is
it a choice is it those people are most critical to business which will probably be what a lot of organizations will do
or is there a consideration on on those people who need to come back and this is
the flip side there's people who need to come back to work as well people who are living in shared accommodation with a
number of other people they found this all working from home really difficult is that being considered and then
furthermore the people who have to work from home how do we continue this journey of inclusion because as humans
will revert back to forgetting very quickly how it was when we were working from home and then there'll be this
large group of people who are unfortunately well probably people will have a diversity element will be left
working from home how do we ensure that the future of work is still inclusive of them and these are the questions that we
need to start asking ourselves in this post Corbett world that what does it mean
also this whole concept of that diversity will stop where diversity will not be important I think is it's very
false diversity should be weaved into everything that we do going forward and you'll hear excuses like well we're not
recruiting so you know how do we focus on diversity with we're just not recruiting the numbers actually it's a
great opportunity so you've got X amount of recruitment people working for your organization and now you're recruiting a
tenth of what you are recruiting before focus on making those those people diverse that's your opportunity reach
out do more work all these things that you wanted to do before that you didn't have the opportunity to do now is that
opportunity what are we doing around you know retention and this is another big thing there was a report I read the
other day around what companies do now and the diversity inclusion space will
determine how long people stay with those organizations yes of course no one wants to lose their job right now or in
an uber company but in the long run if we don't take action as organizations to
really click create that inclusive environment people will leave when opportunity arises they will not stay
around because this is the true test of how diverse and inclusive an organization organization is and I also
think it's important that we start we start exploring diversity beyond the diversity characteristics of course I
understand why they're there and I think they're important but intersectionality means were impacted by a lot of things a
lot of different things and we need to explore that we need to understand that we need to understand that roles are
changing you know it's it's hugely important I mean I've always had people talking to me about things like race
right and and of course I'm from a vme background but it's not my biggest challenge in life you know it's it's not
been for a long time I've got a young family that's my biggest biggest challenge now I'm George of the
organization's will view me from the be me angle but never the the family angle and for me
going back to work the worry is how my kids and I'm going to manage that if they're at home what does that mean for us so and you will not discover that if
we still go by what we have on on paper and don't start reaching out staff to really understand what the true needs
are and what really matters to them I think that's usually important also I
must I must highlight again just on that point that we talk a lot about diversity and what's defined for us in diversity
and I ask again that do we need to have a diverse do I need to have a diversity badge to not want to necessarily come
back to work straight away can I just be feeling a bit of anxiety or can I just not want to come can I have a reason and
I think that's a question we must ask ourselves because you don't need to just have a diversity reason this this this
whole situation has then so many things for people it's created so many different experiences and we should we
should value that you know it shouldn't be that you must have your diversity certificate as I call them to be able to
get access to some of the resources or the opportunities that diversity presents because the biggest danger of
that is we revert back to the challenges we had before corvid which was that
diversity was seen as food for certain groups not for everyone and that we need to make sure it doesn't happen in the
post-cold world because we don't agree eight divides we want to make sure that everyone feels the diversity and inclusion conversation is about them as
well so there's some some key things and some key points that we must we must consider but we must I think the key
thing is that we must be we must acknowledge that it's going to be a very different world a world that's going to
challenge us in numerous ways in the diversity and inclusion space but the answer won't be the answers we had before so it's not the programs it's not
the you know let's do a diversity event or let's celebrate particularly and I'm
not discrediting any of those things by the way I think they are important but now it's about that great so that that
real sort of drive around that the human interactions going back to the basics the things we stopped doing in the
diversity space because of fear the questions we stopped asking because we were worried it's how do we create that
inclusion and actually a sense of belonging for people in this and in this new world where people can bring their
authentic self to work and and where people feel where people feel that they
can they can truly truly belong stop there because I guess we've got
some time for questions and okay brilliant
thank you so much see if I think really really interesting and thought-provoking
presentation they're really about the future of work I liked what you said
about workplace being a reflection of society in which we're living at the moment and really thinking through those
issues and you know the importance of going back to basics and that emphasis on belonging so brilliant thank you very
much without further ado because we want to get through as many of your questions as
we can I'm going to open the session up now to your questions so I'm going to
ask the panelists to unmute themselves if that's ok we'll get through as many of your questions as we can so first of
all let's go with a legal question which I'm going to put you Andrew and we've had a few kind
of similar questions relating to this so some employees will understandably be worried about returning to work if they
think that they might be at greater risk in relation to the virus and if employees aren't in that clinical
vulnerable or extremely vulnerable group but feel at greater risk because of their gender or their ethnicity or age
for instance what would you advise the Andrew from from a legal perspective for employers and employees well the first
reference point still has to be government guidance as it stands and it's worth remembering first and
foremost that we're all being still being told to work from home from cam so if regard to return to work yes is
what it's encouraged and it's necessary in some cases but if we can work from home who should be the guidance then
distinguishes between those at moderate risk who knows it's high risk those who are clinically extremely vulnerable and
you know older people and pregnant women are in that middle group as regards
people from a BMI background obviously it's a great concern what the figure suggests is that is the risk factors
around that but the review into that is still ongoing as the public health England review is
still ongoing and we await the results on the back of those results guidance may change in the meantime of course it
is absolutely understandable that anybody from that background may be may be anxious as much somebody who's
sharing accommodation with a vulnerable person it may themselves not be in a
high-risk group but it may be showing accommodation if somebody who is I think
the key to dealing with anxiety is around clarity and consistency really so
I think it's important to consult with people about the workplace returning
about the rules that will be in place after people do return and also to apply
those rules consistently persistently want once they're agreed so that everyone feels safe and secure in what's
happening I understand what's happening and the thing to think about for anybody
who's feeling particularly anxious for whatever reason is alternatives can
employ concerns be addressed by different start times different rotors particular workplace alterations so
think about those can the employer continue to work from home take on these
as you've said about that but you know it may be sensible in the short term if
someone's particular about coming back to leave them working at home if that's possible can be replaced or it may on
furlough and where there's an announcement later on that scheme and how it will continue post August the
first so I think the key messages are for me number one clarity and
consistency in the way that you manage the workplace but number two consider
alternatives for individuals individuals particularly affected that's always been good advice it's always been something
that reasonable employers want to do but I think in the current circumstances even more so thank you very much Andrew
I know we had a question through in terms of support that we can provide to
employees experiencing mental health conditions and I just flag on our website we have a really helpful lie
manager guide around supporting police with mental health conditions and we've partnered with mind and doing so
sort of like that to you as well okay a couple of a couple of questions for Jill
there's a question specifically about the research Jill how many employers
agreed with the statement that diversity and inclusion has to go on the back burner do you have that 26% so a quarter
really agreed that it did have to go on the back burner for now which which I
think is it's not an ideal situation because I think as all our panelists have talked about sort of the key facets
of good line management and supporting people through really difficult times is
having inclusive workplaces is having flexibility is is really those key
principles of do people feel they're able to have meaningful voice in the organization to have those conversations about their concerns as Andrew was
talking about do they feel they belong do they feel valued and I think those
are things that we have to keep keep going and as well as all the things that
are sort of halfway between inclusion and well-being really which which I think can't be forgotten which is about
empathy compassion and understanding and really inviting people to tell you and
making them feel safe to do so about the concerns that are on their mind at the moment because that's how you can factor
them into decision-making and and that's how we can even put them in up those
kind of things address them in our formal communications as well because I think sort of when we go out with
silence and that's not helpful to anybody we can say we don't know some things but it's really important to be
actively listening and which is a good part of inclusion thanks to and I think
you've actually ants the second question and they're already which is fantastic around the methods organizations can use
to gather employee feedback around people how people are feeling at the moment so I think if I think you
probably answered that one so I mean I suppose there's there's two things I quickly add in there which is around him so having those regular
conversations with line managers and if you feel you can't talk to the line managers do you have a way into HR and
who do you contact do employees know that that's possible and but for line
managers themselves to be asking some open-ended questions to employees to give them the opportunity to share if
they want to and and to be having those very regular catch-up because of course as we know as we're
watching the news every night things change so quickly and our concerns will change with that and so I think it is
that that two-way communication that's really important perfect thank you very much Jill I'm gonna head over to a thief
now we have a question around what is the biggest DNI challenge you're facing right now you are muted let's see I
think you're still muted sorry there you go sorry my apologies oh yeah so I think
the this conversation I think that that's what Artie is the biggest challenge we we tend to go into safe
mode as organizations we tend to look at how we can best you know get the right
information out and you know make sure everything's right and spot-on and give every process in place and so on and we
just missed within that it's the human element that people are really asking for so how do I humanize conversations I
think is the big thing and what I mean by that is even even if you look at leadership within any organization now it's so important to talk about the
challenges challenges that DNI is presenting or the situations without having the answers because people just
want to feel that you listening you know you understand and I think that's hard
because as organizations this is very much for a lot of organizations it's been one of those situations where it's
it's it's organizations have gone in to protect mode I know hey child departments when this all sort of kicked
off started thinking about how can they protect themselves and how can they protect an organization was the first
first real thing that they thought about but I do think you know that that's one of the biggest challenges we'll have
just not focusing on to protect but really going into the humanized speak understand and and and be willing to
listen listening is one of the biggest elements brilliant thank you so much see right so
we are running out of time but we have got time for another question I'm going
to put to Charlotte we're having quite a lot of different questions around how we can maintain your focus on gender gender
equality it's really important you know we're seeing that working mothers for instance are essentially being
negatively impacted and by the current experience so I just wanted to get your
views there about how we can maintain that focus on gender in gender equality and how important that is thank you
that's a really interesting question because gender is one of the ones like you pointed out we think they're the IFS
study about I think for every one our woman is able to work three our men three hours men are able to work as well
and how do you return to work I guess and you've got childcare considerations that aren't there and I think even being
mindful of that so the gender pay gap reporting has been postponed for this year but that shouldn't necessarily stop
you continuing to collect data and understanding what's happening with women and being really mindful about the
different experiences that working mothers are having in your workplace I think what I spoke about in terms of
making lazy assumptions about women not being able to participate will be really important to keep thinking about that as
you're making decisions and I think just reiterate the point again constantly having conversations and seeing what's
manageable for both you as an organization and for women who are going to have specific concerns about caring
responsibilities or return from maternity leave so we're hoping to add a bit more guidance and pushing around
flex for working and good practice and that as part of our updated guidance as well so hopefully we'll be able to sign
in post there but it's like I said I think as you said as well if you already got diversity inclusion that's already
in place and that's that's already put you in a really good stead so I'm an already start thinking about thanks for
working and just some of the good practices that we've all been speaking about as well and being really really
mindful the power this is gonna impact groups going forward into the future of work as well brilliant thank you so much and
I think we are I'm afraid out of time for any further questions but I just
like to say a really huge thank you to our excellent speakers and contributors today so thank you so much to do -
Charlotte - ass Ethan - Andrew I don't still like to say really big thank you to everyone let's watch this webinar and
thanks for your great questions and just some final points from me before we
close just to remind you again that the webinar will be available on demand later as will the slides do keep an eye
out for future webinars and a reminder of these again Friday the 5th of June the impact of code 19 on the labor
market Wednesday the 17th of June using evidence and HR decision-making I'd also
like to remind you again about our member benefits resources and the well-being helpline which you will see
on your screen shortly the details of that and the number you can find on our
website so please do make as much use of these as you can and finally just like
so please do carry on all the great work that you're doing to help your organizations and employees throughout
and beyond this challenging period and if you'd like to share any of the things that you're doing with us then you can
do this via Twitter through the hashtag stronger together so thank you so much
for your contribution and goodbye