Securing long-term leadership commitment

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good afternoon everybody i'm gonna get started with kind of welcomes and housekeeping i can see
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we've got more people uh coming into the session but i'll get started so we can get onto the discussion and uh start and
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importantly also finish on time so it's great to have you all joining us today
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and we at the copd are also happy to be back with our new series of webinars after a
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summer break and i hope that everybody that's tuning in or watching this on demand also managed to get a bit of rest over
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the summer although i'm sure that like for all of us it seems like it was a really long time ago now my name is katie jacobs from cipd
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and i'm really pleased to welcome you to this webinar series that we hope will help you as people
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professionals in continuing to tackle racism in the workplace so i
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expect that some of you watched our previous series racism and the challenge for hr and if
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you didn't i would strongly encourage you to go back and take a look at that because it was really really
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fantastic and we had absolutely brilliant feedback and you'll find that on the cipd website
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this follow-up series aims to help you keep anti-racism on the business agenda
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in this opening session we're going to be exploring how hr can go about obtaining long-term leadership
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commitment to anti-racism work how do we move beyond tokenistic or
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short-term gestures and embed genuine cultural change joining me to discuss this topic i'm
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thrilled that we have a really really fantastic panel of experts we're joined by sharon
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amaysu a leadership and inclusion strategist who also holds a number of non-executive
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directorships we've got peter cheese ceo of the cipd lorraine martins who's director of
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diversity and inclusion at network rail and jeffrey williams an inclusion and diversity expert
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and founder of jeffrey o williams limited thank you all for joining us today
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as ever i'm just going to run through some really really quick housekeeping this session's being recorded you will
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be able to access it afterwards uh two submit questions and please do
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because uh these work really well when we have lots of lots of questions and engagement could i ask you to use the q a tab you
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should be able to see that at the bottom of your screen so use the q a tab to submit questions to the panel
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but please do use the chat function to connect with and speak to each other the last
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sessions we did on this topic we had some really really active chat and participation going on in that
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function um it was really really brilliant to see and i know the participants got a lot out of it so
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please do introduce yourselves to each other and share opinions experiences on there even
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if they're not direct questions the cipd has developed a new hub
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on our website dedicated to tackling racism in the workplace and we are adding resources to that all
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the time so do check that out and finally i want to flag our
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well-being helpline members in the uk and ireland with award-winning workplace well-being
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provider health assured we are now providing cipd members with free help and support
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via sessions with qualified therapists online or over the phone we know the last few months have been
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really really challenging and emotional for many people professionals so please do use the helpline
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if you need it so that's enough housekeeping i'm gonna move us on to the topic
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the black lives matter movement has challenged and reminded us how deep-rooted racism is within society
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and by extension in our workplaces too i don't know who saw that there was a
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recent survey by business in the community which found that a third of black employees
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feel their ethnicity will be a barrier to their next career move which shows just how far we still have
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to go in achieving race equality in the workplace the people profession has a fundamental
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role to play in building anti-racist workplaces changing cultures behaviors policies and
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practices but true culture change needs to come from the top so how can people professionals get
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anti-racism onto the board and leadership agenda and crucially
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how do we keep it there that's what we're going to be discussing today so please do as i said earlier get those
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questions in i'm going to kick off by asking each of our panelists to introduce themselves in
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a little bit more detail and give a brief opening statement on the topic at hand so can i come to you first
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sharon because you are the first person i can see in my screen uh hello and uh good afternoon it's a
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pleasure to be here to be speaking to the members and attendees of this event
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my name is sharon amasu and i am the co-founder of sa consulting
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i was formerly a barrister for 16 years and throughout my professional career have been incredibly passionate
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about justice and equality up until recently i was chair of the greater
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manchester branch of the institute of directors which of course has a focus of working
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with directors and it was very much a part of the conversation that i sought to drive within the organization
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of the prioritization of this agenda at board level and beyond and so i'm delighted to be
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involved in this conversation today and contributing alongside these other incredible panelists
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thank you sharon uh jeffrey good afternoon everybody my name is jeffrey
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williams um as casey said i am the founder of geoffrey williams limited a consultancy that is supporting
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organizations to think about how they approach diversity and inclusion in their culture in their communications in
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their strategy i'm also the co-founder of rooking your teens a social enterprise that works with young people to get them
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to think about their career journeys but also to look at their mental well-being and how they approach the mapping of their next steps
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in life i think for me this you know conversation is truly important because i think a lot of time as you build out
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a strong and and relevant dna strategy you need to think about all the people that work within your organization
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and at times because a lot of this work is done in silos this conversation is something that's overlooked so i think getting this on the board
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getting your leadership to understand how they shape this conversation and how they personally own it is an imperative
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and something that we need to really build on and lean forward so again like sharon i'm really excited to
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be here to share my thoughts and opinion and obviously engage with everybody thank you jeffrey at lorraine uh good
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afternoon everybody and thank you for uh inviting me to join you on the panel um
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i am the director of diversity and inclusion at network rail i've been there for coming up to eight years and before that
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i uh headed up diversity inclusion and employment and skills in the construction of the olympic park
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um this is an incredibly important time and it's a moment in time that we're
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going to look back on and and and kind of wonder how we got here but also i hope be able to say we've made a
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significant impact because never before have we had a kind of global interest on race in
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in the volume and with the proximity that we have had so for me this is this this conversation
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is incredibly important and is i think hopefully to help us
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keep the momentum going because i wouldn't want the gains that we are making just to be
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a moment but for us to really sustain the changes that we want to see thank you and finally peter yeah thank
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you good afternoon everybody real pleasure to be with you peter cheese chief executive of the cipd
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these subjects and themes have long for me been a really really important subject i've talked in many
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platforms and forums over many years on the subjects of diversity and inclusion and of course
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as all the panelists have already commented i think now above all times is a time when we really
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really have to make a difference there's absolutely no doubt that a lot of the debate about particularly
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ethnicity and ethnic inclusion triggered by the events uh the very sad events and the death of george floyd
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have called us all out to say now we must take action it's no longer just about talking
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it's about action and i feel that very strongly i feel it strongly for us as an organization i feel it's strongly for us
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as a professional hr professional we have such an important role to play in all of this and i also feel it as a ceo as a leader
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myself and and that i have to be able to stand up and share you know what i believe with other ceos
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and leaders and indeed i absolutely believe that i can't preach what we don't practice so
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what we do within the cipd what we do to support the membership and the community has already touched on a little bit and
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what we do to help raise the subject of race and ethnicity in the workplace everywhere
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and keep it front and center i see is a very profound responsibility so it's a great opportunity again to share the
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platform with some fabulous speakers and talk about this with all of you thank you so much and
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i'll echo what i said at the beginning which was so thrilled to have such an um experienced panel talking
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about this today um so the first thing i wanted to to ask is i said in my introduction that change
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does tend to come from the top is that something that you agree with as a panel do you think that
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this is very much a leadership agenda um and if so
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what advice do you have at get to hr professionals in getting it onto that agenda if it
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isn't there already um jeffrey i can see you're slightly nodding so i'm going to come to you first
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so i i do think it's a leadership agenda i also think it's an everyone agenda within your organizations so a
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lot of time you know this work is led by those on the ground within hr and also those employees are
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truly passionate about this work they they engage and and and take actions i think for the leadership is getting them
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to understand how their voice needs to be a part of the conversation
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how they define their position and also the things that they may need to do to educate themselves around dni around
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anti-racism around the point of the employees that they have in their organization and i think over the last few months and
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weeks what i've seen is that where organizations haven't had leadership with the capabilities to
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discuss this subject authentically there's been a lot of backlash and a lot of i guess issues for the black employees
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working within those organizations and for the firms that were able to discuss this and and for their leaders
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to say i don't know what i don't know but i'm willing to learn and i'm willing to educate myself
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and i'm willing to walk into spaces and be the only person that looks like me there but i'm willing to listen there's been a
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shift and i think for anyone that's doing this work it's that piece of kind of understanding
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how you personally connect to this conversation what is the things that you need to learn and where are you going to make changes
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that are going to actually impact your organization from a culture standpoint from a people's standpoint but in the long term
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you know from your brand and reputation standpoint as well thank you um sharon do you want to build on that perhaps some of your experiences
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working with executives and non-execs yes certainly i concur with jeffrey that actually it has to be
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ground up as well as top down upstream as well as downstream
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uh in relation specifically to leaders though leaders are standard bearers
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leaders are the ones who set the tone they are the culture shapers aren't they they are the ones
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who signal the way leaders are the ones who set the pace leaders are the ones who set the vision
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and so what you often have and what i've certainly seen is where you have from the ground up laudably
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there is this will for change there is an appetite for change there is a participative edge as far as ground up
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is concerned where you have um senior managers and below looking up at your
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leadership board level team senior leadership team and seeing apathy and disinterest if not
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unto the agenda then what happens is that passion wanes and people become frustrated people
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become annoyed disappointed um disenfranchised and sometimes people
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just leave so the need for leaders to be driving this agenda
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is of primacy right now leaders need to have a leading voice into this they
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they are required to um to really help people to see how important it is within their
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organizations now the reason why i feel that um it's so important for us to keep the
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conversation going casey is there there is a sense somewhat i feel that
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um all because there is we now have lingua franca haven't we lots of people have been talking about
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um equality we've been we've been having webinars upon webinars upon webinars
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don't we all know that we all know that this is important we're actually that's not necessarily
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the case and just today i was speaking with a colleague who was explaining that he thought a significant period of time
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has been heading diversity and inclusion in his organization and still hasn't
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secured buy-in from the board because they don't understand
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why it's important like sort of your baseline conversations are still taking place so this this
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push this acknowledgement this persuasion needs to continue on and leaders are paramount to the success
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of this this agenda thank you i'm just going to read a comment that came in the the chat which i think is a really nice
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way of putting it which is that somebody's saying they think change comes from the top in a healthy way if it comes from the
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bottom it means that something is is really wrong um lorraine can i ask you as a director within a within an organization
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have you noticed an increasing appetite from the if not the executive committee then also up into the board
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in taking this topic seriously and what advice can you offer on keep a getting it onto the agenda and
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b keeping it there um there has been an absolute um um
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i think increased commitment so i think network rails has always been
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committed to diversity and inclusion we have a five-year strategy we set out some work that we want to do
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around race so i think we were fairly well positioned in a sense to
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respond appropriately to the death of um george floyd and we hadn't
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anticipate anticipate doing it remotely i think that that has been the i think that's been a good thing in a
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sense because it's enabled us to reach far more people than we would have if we were working in our
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traditional ways in terms of both the executive team and the board we've had some really
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very frank very searching and very progressive conversations about our
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organization about not being where we want to be despite setting out our commitments and
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our visions and having very clear targets for what we want to achieve
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so i think what what it has done has really reinvigorated that commitment and made
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us a bit more explicit and a lot more um energetic i think
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about wanting to be successful in the changes that we want to see in our organization
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and i think that we have done that because we had done some of the homework which was to align the work
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to that of the business so it's not uh a standalone insofar as um it's that
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thing that's done over the side it's actually understanding the benefits from being an anti-racist organization
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from having um a diverse workforce and from those employees um being their best and having
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an environment that can enable them to support the delivery of your your performance and i think that's some of the work that
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we need to do more of which is align it to the day-to-day business this is about the people and if our
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people are being discriminated against uh not allowed to be themselves
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they're not going to perform we're not going to deliver the business and once we understand that
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then this isn't about keeping anti-racism on the agenda this is about how do we make sure our people
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are equipped and able to do what they they can do and as leaders are we making sure that
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environment is is absolutely spot on to make sure that that happens thank you and then peter how does this
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resonate with you both i guess as a with your cipd had a profession hat on but
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perhaps more pertinently with your kind of ceo at on yeah and in lots of ways i think
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if we're really honest and as you highlighted john many business leaders have really struggled with this i mean
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i've heard a lot of reactions like so i know this is important but what am i what do i what am i supposed to do or or other
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reactions like well i thought we got this largely under control so now what is it and when we use words like racism
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anti-racism within the workplace business leaders saying hold on a second does that mean i have a racist
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organization what are you saying and so it has if we're really on it's been a very very challenging conversation for
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many many ceos but i think it's as we've already touched on the context of this is so important and jeffrey made a very
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important point i have long talked about diversity and inclusion in all its forms as being a business
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agenda it is about organizations that reflect the customers that they serve
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that reflect the societies and communities of which they're part of and therefore it's absolutely fundamental to the ideas of responsible
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business and but it's also of course about attracting all and retaining all the talent you need so a lot of good
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business context things here which we need to reinforce in part to help keep us on the agenda as well but also as jeffrey
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wright has said this has become a reputational thing now and nobody can stand by and and not reflect on this and not say
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what are we doing that's different and i would say that's true for the cipd as well as as katie said as
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i said you know i i see my responsibilities as the co here very very importantly and that whilst i thought that we were
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doing a pretty good job we have a very good diverse board for example we have pretty good diversity and we report those stats
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in the organization but as we've dug deeper we recognize a coaster of things for us to address and to fix and then we
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need to improve so i think it does as we've all acknowledged it has to start with that
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tone from the top that recognition and that commitment from the top that we're going to do something that
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helps to change your organizations for the better that is open and honest about the issues it reflects our own personal
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understanding because i like so many white business leaders i remember a session i was doing on diversity four
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or five years ago and i said part of the problem that i've heard for us as leaders is our ability to talk about race openly
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at work and this black guy who's responsible for dna i think in large organizations said and he
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immediately interrupted and pointed me and said no you do because you're white this to me
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is my lived experience and i'm sure we'll touch on this idea much more but the idea of us all understanding and
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respecting things like lived experience is a very very important part of this dialogue as well and therefore
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racism are all its forms all these microaggressions all these in quotes misunderstandings they're all
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part of the debate as well and it is vital that as business leaders we understand these things
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at that kind of level so we can create the safe environments that allow people bottom up to engage in the conversation
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as well to help help to make long-term sustainable change which we all know now
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is so so important so peter mentioned um that some some leaders that he's
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engaged with have been getting perhaps slightly defensive and i think the context
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is so crucial now especially because a lot of leaders have been dealing with keeping their organizations
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afloat during a global pandemic um so how do you deal any advice um
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sharon lorraine or jeffrey on dealing with that kind of that kind of pushback so whether it is a
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kind of defensiveness or a kind of point-blank refusal to engage or somebody who just as peter kind of
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just doesn't see that it's a problem for their organization um sharon can i come to you with that first
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so i i feel if i can just use my own personal experience in the approach
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that i've taken to these conversations that i've been having and one of the things that i feel is
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really important in brokering these conversations and building these relationships
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is saying for as my opening gambit what i genuinely believe is that this is not about approaching
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this with an accusatory tone this isn't about pointing the finger and saying
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wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong but actually it's about recognizing the status quo
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where we are right now what the gap is and what we need together to do to bridge that gap and i often
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reference the fact that when i think about the apartheid movement i grew up during the 1970s and 80s and i remember
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very clearly the apartheid movement and the ultimate liberation of nelson mandela
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and as a child growing up i'd watch the various news items and i'd see involved in those marches
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many white people alongside black people i was amazed by i continue to be
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um even now i'm in the process of um founding an organization that's going to be supporting black
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female leaders and accelerating their their professional careers i have already a master wealth of
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of a fleet of white leaders who want to come alongside and support and champion
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and so i feel what's really important in this is is the way in which people of um
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who are ethnic minorities approach this conversation i feel that's really important um that
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we see this as bridge building and recognize that um we
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we can create enemies in the way in which we approach and that's not about watering down it's not about dilution
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it's not about compromise of the core message but it's about recognizing that there are people
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who don't look like us who want to help and want to come alongside so how do we
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build effective allyship it's the heart in which we come to it as those who are wanting to
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champion the force on the on the side of those of ethnic minorities but also
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on the side of those who are your your white leaders in who are heading up
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organizations and so on coming with a learning listening heart and encouraging that
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together as a partnership thank you um lorraine same question to you but i'm just going to throw in somebody's ass
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specifically to you in the q a um that having worked a number of years in your role would you be able to share any of the
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roadblocks that you've encountered that might have prevented your organization from making as much progress on dni
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as you've intended so any information you can share or stories about overcoming any
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resistance okay so um i wanted to to build on what sharon was saying
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really which is is it's kind of seizing the moment we we have a as i said in my own
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introduction an opportunity to enable people to have some conversations which will
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will not necessarily be comfortable but which are very very important and i think um for leaders
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it's it's it's opening up that vulnerability about what you don't know what your discomfort
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is and acknowledging that you know that things need to be better and without that then it makes the it makes
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the conversation much more difficult and progress um will be inhibited so i
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think leaders have to open themselves up to the conversation in network rail we've uh got a program
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of reverse mentoring for all of our exec executive leadership team um
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we're also introducing diversity and inclusion objectives and they've got a suite from which they
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can choose but it enables them to identify something a specific activity
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that they can undertake which reinforces their commitment um
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we're asking different parts of the organization to include diversity in inclusion as part of their scorecard so again it's
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about how you integrate it into the to the fabric of the business in terms
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of the the the blockages um that they are perennial and ethereal
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so at times you can think you're making really great progress
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and then something happens in an organization of the complexity of of network rail which spans uh the uk
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it's got something like 42 000 employees there will always always be something that pops up that you were
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you put your hand in your head is this oh this has been recorded so i can't even do chatham house rules this is great
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you know you put your hand in your head and you say well how you know how how did that happen and i guess it's it's to be ready for
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that it's to be ready for those things that you think you've you've weeded out of your organization
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that will pop up and remind you of the serious challenge to create a more diverse and inclusive
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organization so there are people who will be resistant um who will be passive in their
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resistance so they will know that the environment is not right for them to articulate it in in
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any particular vocal way but their behaviors will will definitely signify
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a resistance and i think you you have to one makes that environment
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increasingly uncomfortable and people will make decisions about whether or not that environment is the right
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place for them to be and i think you do that by creating an environment that is truly
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inclusive that is challenging in the most positive way but also creating i guess a momentum for
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people and a direction for people to know that this is where we're going and we're resilient and committed
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and and we're going to get there um and i think you also have to engage with people to try and understand what the
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resistance is about is it about that fear i that you're going to bring lots of them in and take my job
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a palpable fear um is it that oh i have to actually change and do something
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different you know is that some of the fear um but being able to have that discussion i
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think is as important um as the kind of changes itself um because some people do feel that they
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lose out as a consequence of of of having a more diverse conversation you can only watch the
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the conversations around the changes in sky television and bbc television to hear what people are
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saying about there's just too much of this stuff going on and so
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the resilience that you need for all of those blockages which may be passive aggressive they may be
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unconscious they may be direct it's your resilience to which stan does
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and to make sure that you've got the right infrastructure that can help you make the incremental steps that are
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necessary um over time that i think are really important thank you
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and i've got some good questions coming through on the on the q a so i'm going to bring a few
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of those in as well as um checking some of mine in as well um this question here i'm working with forming a dni group focused
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on supporting organizations groups and individuals within sport law and the media i'm
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picking up huge concern about how to capitalize on this moment we're having in a way that elicits focused and immediate action
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that produces quick results the frustration about progress and resistance to the idea that
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culture change always has to take a long time so what are our views on what can be
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achieved at pace because we all know that culture can be a bit of an oil tanker
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to shift so peter any advice on getting things done quickly yeah i saw the question it's a really
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important one and i think a lot of people have expressed that you know concern that we've been talking about this for a very long time
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and a real demand and expectation for action and visible change in the short term and i think
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there are so many things that we can do that aren't just about long term longer term cultural shifts when opening up the dialogue within our
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organizations being honest about where we are asking our people from all different ethnic minorities but what is their
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lived experience in our organization looking at our recruitment practices and policies opening up
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networks and forums where not just those communities are talking within their communities which is important
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in terms of support but talking with everybody else and we've done a lot of those things within the cipd
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which i think has shown people first and foremost that we are serious even though as i said i didn't think we're all
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that bad a place that we know we've got to improve and showing people that we are doing that we're taking action we're
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trying to understand more those are all things that can be done right now and it was encouraging to hear from i think from all the panel members
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saying that for the most part we are seeing this as a here and now moment at our board levels and we've all talked
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about the importance of leadership remaining committed to that but leaders will want our help as well and say okay i get it but what am i
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supposed to do and as i said i think there are a lot of these sorts of things now the dialogue the conversations the networks
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reviews of our practices and policies serving our people understanding how they feel about their own lived experience will
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give us a lot of very actionable insights that can help to move the dial and therefore i think whatever sector
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we're in that we can start to show real progress thank you and sharon what do you think about that does culture change always need to
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take a long time are there any quick wins so i i i don't think there's much more that i
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can add to what peter has said that there is low hanging fruit that we can immediately
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tap into i feel that what we also need is the setting of ambitious goals
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because what tends to happen is there's an acquiescence there is do you know this is a big thing
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it's going to take time and therefore we just then lean into our seats in the expectation
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that it's going to be the next generation that's going to have to change this whereas i feel those who
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actually become ambitious and they refuse to accept things as they are they become
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passionate about change in driving change now look at for example young greta thornberg
31:14
and she said she's telling the world look we're on fire and therefore we need to take
31:20
action now and she's bringing the primacy of the agenda up front and center
31:26
and as a result she's mobilized young people young people who would have otherwise
31:31
children who'd have been stuck in front of a whiteboard in their classroom learning about
31:36
um tom and jane i'm giving my age but in fact what she did is she managed
31:41
to just galvanize them and give them engendering them a sense of urgency
31:47
and so i feel if we keep having this conversation helping businesses to understand that
31:52
actually it's it this thing yes it is gargantuan yes it is big
31:57
but there are steps that every single one has agency in in order to move the dial
32:03
forward every single one can do something each day each day i can think about myself
32:09
being an inclusive leader am i engaging people in conversations am i listening am i learning am i
32:15
developing myself those are quick wins that every single person each day can do
32:21
from today also in relation to metrics i feel again that this acquiescence of it's going to
32:27
take 108 years or it's going to take 202 years in order for us to receive equality and parity on
32:33
the economic front et cetera et cetera actually i feel that if we start to contextualize in our organizations and
32:40
say well what do we want to look like by when and rather than just having yielding to
32:46
this overall context and saying well it's all of us and this is the challenge for everyone
32:52
what about in my organization today what ambition is as lorraine was saying
32:57
we've got five year goals we've set them out and this is these the steps we are going to take
33:03
to move toward them and i feel that's how we'll start seeing a tsunami of movement toward change
33:11
thank you and on the metrics point just um to ask you lorraine somebody's asked in the in the chat can you give any information
33:17
a bit more information about um the targets and metrics that you tied to your leaders objectives and
33:23
what those look like so we haven't tied the objectives particularly to our leaders although our
33:28
chief exec and the group hr director have taken on two broad elements of gender diversity and race
33:35
equality as specific objectives for them to do so the targets that we have are uh
33:42
by the end of 2024 we want to have 26 of our business to be female
33:50
and we want 13 to be um black asian humanity ethnic uh
33:58
background and similarly for our leadership cohorts to reflect that um we want to double the
34:06
amount of people who are sharing their disability and sharing their sexual orientation we
34:12
want all of that to be increased so that we better understand the composition of our workforce
34:18
so we've set those we set those out in terms of these specific objectives they range from
34:24
things like um undertaking um being part of being a diversity
34:30
inclusion champion which has an induction and requires you to do certain activities
34:35
um driving what we have a process called diversity impact assessment so making sure there's done in your
34:41
function which is working out the effects of what you do on different people in different communities um
34:48
leading diversity in inclusion sessions being a reverse mentor so things that are tangible that people can do
34:55
we've set them out quite explicitly for people to use and and and therefore by delivering that
35:01
you'll be contributing to the success of our strategy does that make sense it makes sense i can see somebody saying
35:07
uh it's great to see all those kind of targets and objectives linked to the anti-racism agenda um
35:12
jeffrey welcome back i feel jeffrey's back in an office for the first time so i feel were you just told to move rooms
35:18
i was that would never happen if we were doing this in person no
35:25
um jeffrey a specific question that some directed at you at times organizations will expect that
35:30
the hr or equality or dna lead will resolve all issues of equality without leadership actively making
35:37
action plans to resolve these issues how do you propose this is challenged
35:44
so actually funnily enough i have always kind of said to everybody that i've worked with that i'm only one
35:50
individual or my team and i are you know 10 individuals working on this work we're not going to change the world and
35:56
that they do need to lean into this so it's a lot of conversations around getting them to understand how they have ownership of the
36:03
conversation so whether that's in you know you're going to go to market to hire certain individuals
36:08
how are you going to make sure that you're hiring those that are diverse that don't look like you that didn't go to
36:13
the same university as you and giving them those moments to really kind of understand how
36:18
they need to lean in from an emotional intelligence standpoint but also from an action standpoint so
36:24
going back to lorett to what lorraine was speaking about when i worked at thompson reuters and i was their global head we looked at how
36:31
we were going to get our leaders to actually own the processes and the decisions that
36:36
they were making and making sure that in doing that work they were then going to make changes
36:41
so there was targets that we'd set so we were looking at being 30 40 uh women in leadership by the end
36:47
of 2020 so they're still on track for doing that but then also looking at how we could diversify and represent the societies
36:54
that we worked within and i think you know that the main point is really getting them to understand
37:00
that they own this and that it's not just a dni team that now is responsible for diversity inclusion that's not going
37:06
to change anything diversity is a part of your culture it's a part of your identity and they
37:12
own that um and and are the barometer of what that culture means and making sure that they actually
37:19
can understand and articulate that for themselves so yeah okay i'm building on that and
37:24
weaving in another question um i'll come to peter with this um so in our organization the focus has
37:31
started with exec and board which is vital but for longevity and impact how to ensure it reaches middle management so as
37:37
jeffrey's saying kind of weaving it into making it part of everybody's job so given that middle managers are often
37:43
the ones that are interacting supporting and developing individuals the most peter what advice do you have on making
37:48
sure that once you have got it onto the top agenda it filters down effectively yeah i mean
37:55
the first thing i'd say is that um i think good organizations roll down objectives through the organization you just have one set of
38:01
objectives to lead us in something different for everybody else and as everybody's commented on the panel it diversity inclusion is
38:07
everybody's issue from the top absolutely but certainly through our management layers as the
38:13
questions touched on and i think several a couple of thoughts not only roll down the objectives but of course we've got to do more to train and
38:20
educate our managers i mean the reality of what we talk about in terms of psychological safety and i can see a number of
38:26
questions and points coming up about us i feel safe to express my concerns i feel safe to say to my boss and my
38:33
boss's boss but what you just said there is inappropriate and you and we need to understand that questions like that and and we have to
38:40
train and support our managers in that just as much as giving them measurable objectives and then you know
38:46
i think within all of that it's it's also these metrics which is a really really important question and uh yeah we've done a lot on ethnic pay
38:53
gap reporting and so forth how we understand that but but the first thing i think is that we're all
38:58
using this time i hope and believe to really understand the nature of our organizations and the demographics of our organizations
39:05
and and you know again if i use the cipd example what we found and probably should have understood better before
39:11
was that we have a not untypical shape for many organizations now you might find more focus has happened on say gender
39:18
and ethnic diversity the top of organization so you can say actually boards are beginning to show some of that progress
39:24
maybe even executive teams and then the lower ranks of organizations you know partly through demography and other things we
39:31
might have actually done a better job of attracting more diverse people into the lower level of the organizations but the progression becomes a real
39:37
challenge finding those role models at senior to top levels is a real challenge because we have not
39:42
done enough to sustain and support people from different backgrounds facing past different challenges in our organizations
39:48
to be successful and we've got to understand all those different dimensions and then we're looking at their ideas and saying
39:54
well okay as a team member as a team lead do i understand the demographics of my team what have i got to do to support
40:00
others how do i create as i said a safe culture how do i build in things like mentoring which we've all got a responsibility to
40:07
do mentors aren't just things that sit at tops of organizations and those are the things that i think we can embed and
40:13
to make sure this really is rolling right down to the organization and building this idea which we've all
40:18
touched on which is this has got to be something everybody understands to in order to build truly diverse and
40:24
supportive cultures thanks peter i'd like to build on that point um and we've in a another question that's coming
40:30
that's about um progression and career development and i'll put this to you lorraine i'm just going to read out the point
40:35
um so somebody's said that their organization recently revealed their equality gap data there were no fame um people at
40:43
senior level but more concerningly there were high number who were attending development and
40:48
leadership programs internally but were not progressing how can we assure that organizations are developing game leadership internally
40:54
and supporting those coming to the organization and are welcomed by an organization that might be a bit hostile to change
41:00
any advice on career progression specifically i i think it's really important that any
41:07
organization uses that data as the basis of their conversation so you start to interrogate it what is happening in terms of tracking
41:14
those those people who have been on the on the development programs what opportunities have they um
41:20
been presented with have we thought of giving them further um second opportunities to build this
41:27
their skills are they getting feedback so i think you utilize that data as the basis of a further exploration
41:34
as to what's happening and are there behaviors that still happen that they're still facing um
41:41
which are meaning that they're not going to even though we've invested in their their um progression we're not actually
41:47
creating any opportunities for them to progress and so i think that's that's a really good sign
41:53
for some in in interrogation and exploration and and challenging yourself
41:58
so why haven't why haven't we appointed them why haven't we given those people those opportunities
42:04
and face into those those conversations because uh a lot of a lot of the time it it's
42:10
about um i describe as a bit of a fear so even though you've invested in people you still you still want to go to
42:16
your go-to people who don't look like them and so you you've made a a kind of
42:21
semblance of of change but you're not really actually giving people an opportunity
42:26
and a chance and i think if you face into that then things can change you can unlock some of the behaviors
42:32
that mean people encounter those barriers thank you great great advice sir i've
42:37
had a couple of questions about um what to do if you're working in a medium or a small organization where nobody kind
42:45
of has that responsibility for equality or diversity and inclusion um so somebody said the small amount of
42:51
work that gets done feels like it's ticking boxes but there's no drive from senior leadership somebody else is saying staff are trying
42:56
to bring about discussion and change with a manager and they're being met with lack of interest or understanding so sharon any thoughts on
43:03
if you're in a organization with perhaps um less infrastructure just being a bit smaller so
43:11
of course where you have larger organizations that have dedicated heads are or dedicated leads
43:18
on dni then there is uh there isn't someone who is sort of the the lighthouse as it were
43:25
for guiding the agenda it is more challenging in smaller organizations
43:30
in a sense but also they because of their size they've got greater agility
43:36
they are able to be more responsive compared with larger organizations so if if this conversation is if the
43:44
the source of this question is from someone who is ground up in the conversation and then
43:51
you are your your proximity to decision makers is closer and i would urge you to say look um
43:59
here bring i'm a a barrister by profession and so bringing the evidence is always
44:06
the compelling piece for me so bring the evidence and bring the persuasive argument as to why this needs
44:12
to be front and center for this organization reminding informing raising awareness of
44:20
what the the next generation of employees will be expecting i think there's some really
44:25
interesting research on what millennials are looking for in their organizations
44:31
what they're expecting is a minimum what they want to see on websites and i feel the more we we
44:36
build up our knowledge base those who are advocates and the cheerleaders and the champions
44:42
build up your knowledge base get support from other organizations find other cheerleaders share
44:48
information and then continue to bring the argument as to why this is important
44:53
to your direct line up share why it's important and bring the connection as close as you
45:00
can bringing proximity as far as raising awareness is concerned because your lines of communication
45:06
are actually tighter than in your corporate sort of oil oil rigs oil rigs don't
45:12
change those things those ship liners those that that move okay thank you
45:20
um jeffrey um a question here on any advice on supporting kind of sustainability of
45:27
this agenda um because with the best will in the world holding up the edi agenda over a period of time
45:33
can be challenging um how do we continue to keep it front and center year on year and i'll just add a
45:39
question of mine to that um when we're talking about kind of the anti-racism particular which is kind of
45:44
very emotionally charged how do you keep yourselves from burning out um so how do you work on
45:51
this agenda sustainably i think it's a bit of a well-being issue
45:57
so i think how do you keep this conversation front and center you i think i said this before you align
46:02
your objectives to the business so i think you know if the organization has a growth strategy
46:08
you align the work that you're doing around diversity inclusion to that growth strategy to looking at how you going to recruit
46:13
people how are you going to promote and retain them what relationships do you need to build externally to attract that talent into
46:19
the organization but also how do you maintain education for the employees already within the business
46:25
so you know a few years ago we wouldn't have been having that many conversations about our trans colleagues however now
46:31
we sit very much fundamentally in the conversation of what it means to have a trans identity and how that shows up at work
46:37
so i think you know this conversation is something that's an evolution that continues to evolve and i think if you're doing a dni role
46:44
it's about you being able to bring that to the forefront but also to kind of do it in a way that's building empathy that's building
46:51
eq that's building a a collection of people that now understand how they can shape and known
46:56
this i think around managing your well-being and your health around talking about anti-racism i think
47:02
it's creating those moments to have those moments to stop so you know i think again speaking to my
47:08
friends and colleagues that work in this space especially during the last few months it's been hard because they haven't had
47:14
that space to be able to really step back especially when they're doing global roles because they were switching on to speak to those
47:19
in america to speak to those here in the uk and in other parts of europe and i think it's been able to say
47:25
actually on the weekend i'm actually not going to do anything i'm going to spend time with family and friends i'm going to watch a film i'm
47:31
going to read a book i'm actually going to do something that brings me joy i don't want to be like merry condo but it's that moment of you
47:37
know literally finding those bits of joy and and leaning into that and saying you know something
47:42
it's okay to not worry about this today and i think because everyone's kind of saying we
47:48
want solutions now we want to change now and if we're all being honest with ourselves this is a conversation that's
47:53
been going on for a number of years you know my parents were born here uh you know of caribbean immigrants and
47:59
they were having this conversation within their their career time so this is not something that we're going to solve tomorrow
48:05
this is something that we're going to be gradually moving towards and making sure that you know you understand
48:10
that as an individual working in this space is definitely an imperative thank you and sharon you wanted to come in on the
48:15
wellbeing piece yes i think it's really important as well to um not be over taxed
48:23
on this so yes it may well be the case that we are we start out as the premier
48:30
crusading voice in our organization but if you are finding that over a period of time you are being
48:38
stonewalled and ignored and no one is taking on board what you're saying there is no movement
48:44
there is no shift there is no appetite and you are facing burnout as you continue to perpetually knock on
48:51
a door that will not be opened then there has to be a choice that has to be made and actually
48:57
feeling that you are the savior for that organization can in fact wear and tear at your mental
49:04
health so i feel it's really important for us to weigh in the balance one wanting to drive change and that's
49:11
important it's to to i feel that when we have that on our heart that that's a call for us
49:16
to do something but that has to be weighed against knowing or sensing when this resistance will not relent and
49:24
if this resistance remains in place and you continue to be knocking your head against a brick wall
49:30
then your mental health can become um challenged and taxed and i feel that
49:36
sometimes it's just about knowing when to walk away that's a really great point and something that came up a lot
49:42
in our previous sessions as well um and the question that i had on my original list that came off
49:48
a few times in previous sessions that we we had was if you are a more junior member
49:53
of staff do you have any and specifically a kind of people professional or an hr professional
49:58
um lorraine do you have any advice on influencing upwards um i think identify those people that
50:05
you may have heard that have made noises that are positive and and aligned with your thinking
50:11
and and build that ally ship from the from the bottom up so if you've heard others in your
50:17
organization which i'm crossing my fingers you're not a lone ranger then i think align yourself with
50:22
them have a conversation with them and work out how between you you can get that person to begin to articulate
50:28
some of the the challenges and some of the solutions or better still give yourself an opportunity and
50:35
an inroad into to articulating them yourself i think an element of boldness and and
50:41
bravery is required as in stepping up and stepping in um and and try not to be afraid of the
50:48
hierarchy but more that you are adding value to the business by helping the business
50:53
recognize the need for for change um and and that will help to create a a positive environment and i
51:01
don't say that lightly i know i know it is challenging and i know that it is it is not straightforward
51:06
but if we don't do it actually then then then we're sort of complicit in in the problem
51:12
thank you i've got about 10 minutes left and i'm going to try and get for as many questions as possible but there are a lot
51:18
um peter any thoughts on on i think this is an interesting point in terms of criticality of leaders in
51:23
this space do you think public statements and declarations are helpful or do more damage
51:28
that's very timely i think we look back a few months ago at uh what was happening on social media yeah
51:35
of course public status are helpful if you backed it up with some reality and context and real action i
51:40
think where people rightly got very concerned about public statements is where they're not coming from a place
51:47
which seems to understand where you really are as an organization what i'm actually taking so this idea of
51:53
what's become known as virtue signaling i just want to be out there with public statements showing in some way or
51:58
some shape or form i support these agendas but as i say without the backing and substance behind it and that's what i really understand
52:05
people got very very frustrated on in the early days of uh particularly when you know the george
52:11
floyd killing accelerated this debate so much so we have to be really really careful i mean
52:16
i do want and i've strongly believed for a long time that businesses must be more transparent
52:22
they must be more transparent about where they are and all these issues of inclusion what metrics which we've already
52:28
discussed they're using and talk about openly what they are doing to change it what's their narrative
52:33
so i very very strongly believe in that but as i said we can't we we have to guard against
52:39
just throwing you know bland statements out there which after all people have got very very fed up with for a long time and i
52:46
think so much the anger that came out following the death of george floyd was because they
52:51
heard these things before and yet we hadn't seen action in real change so i think again it's a stark reminder
52:57
that if we're going to put statements out there we'd better be able to back them up and we'd better be able to show what we're doing but as i said
53:03
with all of that said i i really do believe and strongly encourage more and more transparency on these
53:10
issues so after all we can all be held to account it's not just what we do internally to hold ourselves to account
53:15
it's what everybody else is doing whether we're a private sector company and all this so-called esg environmental
53:21
social and governance questions being asked more and more by ambassador communities our reputation which we talked about
53:26
before and therefore all stakeholders uh engaging in those conversations with us and and if we really want to keep the
53:33
stuff on the agenda as we've been saying for leaders then more transparency so all stakeholders can see what we're
53:38
doing and encouraging us to keep it on the agenda i think is a big part of this debate as well and very quickly somebody's just
53:45
asked um could you share any of the tangible actions that copd is taking internally yeah absolutely so first of all yeah but
53:52
we did take our time to be clear on the statements we're making that we could back them up what we were doing internally as well as externally
53:59
so the internal things and this is a very important point of course looking at some of the hr things we're doing we're bringing in others so they can
54:05
have an objective view and give people an objective voice about what their lived experience is uh
54:11
working within the cipd and looking at all our hr practices and policies so we're obviously doing that but we're doing
54:16
more than that because we recognize inclusion in this way is more than just what you do with your people
54:22
it's about all the things that you represent in particular an organization like us all of the events that we run that we know that we
54:28
can be sure that we are sending the right signals with the people on our platforms with the content that we're producing
54:34
with how we work with our suppliers and partners and all those things are coming together and overall what we see is a
54:40
a really significant shift as an organization and seeing this much more strategically
54:46
and not as i said therefore just an hr issue no matter how in central that is it's actually an
54:51
organization-wide issue and and we will publish all the things that we're doing and so we made very
54:57
open commitments about this and talking about it very openly but i really stress this it's more than just what we do through hr
55:04
it's how we turn up how we show up how we represent our organizations how we partner how we communicate how we
55:10
share learning content and everything else thank you and we've got a few questions about creating
55:15
safe spaces and somebody's asked about kind of assuming positive intent so people might be expressing themselves
55:21
a bit clumsily um but is there a role for assuming positive intent in these kind of
55:26
discussions um jeffrey can i ask that view yeah sure um so positive of course
55:33
assume positive intent assume that you know you've gone to work in these organizations where people are open to learning and i
55:41
think for me i've always found when someone said something that i've found either discriminatory or
55:47
felt that they needed to learn something i've given them the story i've explained to them why so i don't know if whoever follows me on
55:54
linkedin you might have seen i had a conversation with a colleague of mine who told me that he didn't see color
56:00
and so i basically sat him down and i said to him do you know something do you know how detrimental that statement is in the effect of not seeing my id the
56:08
whole of my identity so it's okay for you to call me a black man or for you to say
56:13
jeffrey's the black man that sits over there on the right hand side of the floor that's perfectly fine because that's who
56:19
i am what you don't what you're not allowed to do is x y and z and i think those moments of actually
56:24
quantifying and explaining to people the parts of language they can use or should use and the parts of language
56:31
that might get them into trouble it's those moments where you're going to build that allyship i think it's also at
56:36
the moment people are talking about all the books that people different people should read i think you know for me i'm creating
56:41
opportunities for my network to then come and speak to me about those books and for us to have a dialogue of what
56:46
did they learn what did they find uncomfortable so i think allyship is the only way that we will see that shift
56:52
i think sharon said earlier on when we're talking about nelson mandela and the fact that people protesting were all
56:57
of all different shades and colors i think that is how this world will move forward if you think about the
57:03
conversation of lgbt equality that has been fought by everybody and that's why we're seeing the advancements
57:08
so when we speak about race i think it is that we do need to make sure that we have those allies and i think it's also that piece of
57:15
thinking about the relationships that you do have outside of your organization so a lot of the time you know someone everyone knows
57:21
a woman most people know someone that might identify as lgbt or living with disability not everybody has a close personal
57:27
relationship with someone of color and i think that then hinders how we have the conversations within our
57:32
organizations so i think it's also thinking about how do you build those authentic and connected partnerships with people
57:38
that you don't work with to them understand the people that you do work with thank you and you gave a really lovely example there it's a
57:45
question that somebody did ask about can anybody share any of the actual language they use when being bridge builders with defensive or
57:51
cynical people and kind of sharing any of your lived experience so you've gave a really lovely example there geoffrey um lorraine if you've got any
57:57
examples you can quickly share um so i i start from a place of
58:02
positive intent and then then i was reflecting on the question from frank devine which i think
58:07
is really important because sometimes otherwise you know we wouldn't have been here we would be having this
58:13
conversation perennially um sometimes the positive intent is not enough
58:20
so there's a required action that that that people with the positive intent need to
58:25
manifest in order for us to make that progress so i i think you in my experience
58:31
i'm incredibly open to different opinions different ways of being and i like a good robust
58:37
exchange and i think that that's really important and i'm and i'm open that but that's not for everybody
58:43
um for some people they want to find somebody else who can work in a slightly different way and that is diversity so i think it's
58:50
locking into the kind of mechanisms that help you to help the changes that we need to see and and
58:58
and some of it will be discomforting just as i might find some opinions discomforting so
59:03
the conversation about not seeing color i might handle slightly differently to jeffrey so you know it's it's that's
59:10
how we are and i think we just need to be and i don't mean just in a reductive
59:15
sense we need to be much more positively curious about each other but also willing to have an exchange so
59:22
that we are open to learning and i think that that's what we're frightened of you know british people are frightened of saying
59:28
black for a whole host of reasons find it difficult to describe black people um why is that we've we've
59:35
already given you permission to use the word and yet still we're having the conversation so
59:40
some of our exasperation frank and others is based on the fact that we have always
59:46
had the positive intent and and accepted that you wanted to do things differently and better
59:52
but actually sometimes that's wearing because we're not seeing the progress at
59:57
the pace and to the degree that one would have hoped hundreds and hundreds of years
1:00:03
hence so so let's have the conversation let's not give up let's be resilient let's be bold lean in
1:00:09
step in do all of those things and know that it is an iterative process
1:00:15
of of change that we're embarked upon thank you and i'm just going to ask sharon for any closing thoughts from you
1:00:21
sharon well i mean uh what i celebrate is the fact
1:00:28
that there are so many people on this call and if as we continue to have these
1:00:34
conversations and drive the agenda we will see change and it's so important
1:00:39
that we hold hope in these situations because if we enter in to the perennial cynicism
1:00:48
that's the way in which we'll approach the world and i remember i'm a mum of three raising
1:00:54
three children three black youngsters in the uk and i remind them
1:01:00
of a quote that i came across um by albert einstein and he said is
1:01:05
this world a friendly place the response to that question is how we
1:01:10
will walk on the earth and i really believe that that actually i believe that
1:01:15
most people have good intention most people want the world to be a better
1:01:20
place for everyone and if we align ourselves and we aid and facilitate relationships
1:01:26
with those people then we'll start to see the change that we want to see thank you i'm afraid that's all we've
1:01:32
got time for this afternoon i'm sorry that i didn't get to all the questions i can see some people are a bit annoyed that i didn't get to the
1:01:38
questions that we did have um quite a lot of them uh so i did get for as many as could and feel free to send
1:01:43
them directly to us at the cipd if it's something you'd like to see us addressed um thank you so much to our absolutely
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fantastic panel um really brilliant thought-provoking contributions from absolutely everybody
1:01:55
thank you to the audience and thanks for being engaged on the chat and on the q a this is the first in a series of free
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webinars on the topic of keeping anti-racism on the agenda next monday at the same time we're going to be looking at ethnicity pay gap
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reporting and other policy leaders and we'll be joined by ruby mcgregor smith and the monday after that we're going to
1:02:13
be exploring the role of employee networks so please do join us for both of those this webinar is going to be available on
1:02:19
demand from this afternoon if you want to watch it again or share it with any of your colleagues uh but that is it from us
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thank you so much for watching and uh i hope you all have a really good afternoon bye for now
1:02:35
you
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