Leading for social justice & health equality

After a welcome message delivered by Sharon Senior, Executive Director of NW Employers, Ngunan Adamu, Presenter & Producer at BBC Merseyside, had us answer a few questions about ED&I to get a better idea of our existing knowledge on the topic. Following some discussion on ED&I, we watched Janet Stovall’s TED Talk on the power of being single-minded about racism, and how businesses have the ability to educate about racism, and eventually destroy it (should they implement actual grave consequences for racist language and actions in the workplace).

After this, we were given a moment to think about who exists in our “Circle of Trust”, this would include people at work who we trust and feel comfortable with, who we socialise with, and who we may have recruited/ promoted. We were then prompted to try and work on diversifying that group of people going forward.

Ngunan then led a discussion on terms that people use to describe different ethnic groups, and how some people find them to be damaging. This included terms such as “global ethnic majority” that was developed to challenge the term “ethnic minority”, as these groups constitute more that 85% of the world’s population. However, there are still issues with terms like “global majority”, as it can exclude white ethnic groups that are cultural minorities in Euro-centric society, such as Jewish people, and Roma people/ travellers.

We were then put into breakout rooms and encouraged to start a discussion on privilege, and reflect on what privileges we enjoy, and how they have helped shape our lives.

The second part of the masterclass was led by Jade Ecobichon-Gray – Founder, Mindset Matters UK. She outlined the importance of becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable when developing ED&I in an organisation, as without having the ability to have those uncomfortable conversations, progress can never be made.

She also made it clear that making organisations a safe space should always come before focusing on diversity in recruitment. As not providing a psychologically safe work environment will lead to low retention rates, thus taking the organisation back to square one. SLT, HR, and middle managers have the power to make a workplace psychologically safe, as staff need to see them having these hard conversations in order to feel comfortable speaking up themselves.

Jade then talked about the impact of working from home during the pandemic (and after), and how it negatively impacted younger people and people from lower income backgrounds, who maybe couldn’t afford to have a home office or gadgets to transform their space into an ideal working environment.

In order to create a “Culture of Change”, organisations should follow these three steps:

• Take stock: engage in a systematic review which provides an accurate and honest review of where the organisation currently stands.
• Create a strategy: co-produce an ED&I strategy with staff from all across the organisation. Employees need to feel a sense of ownership over this for it to be effective.
• Measure success and evaluate: collect qualitative data by implementing a robust evaluation process which provides an opportunity to reflect, re-assess, and inform colleagues on the progress that was made.

To finish things off, Ngunan Adamu gave a more in-depth presentation on psychological safety, and ways to implement it. She described it as being “an environment that encourages, recognises & rewards individuals for their contributions and ideas by making individuals feel safe when taking interpersonal risks”. Some of her tips for making an environment more psychologically safe included practicing giving and receiving feedback from staff, getting to know staff, collaboration and shared ownership of projects, & promoting sincere dialogue and constructive debate (while still managing conflict). Finally, she referenced Dr Timothy Clark’s four stages of psychological safety:

• Stage 1 – Inclusion safety: feeling safe to be yourself and acceptance for who you are, including your unique attributes and defining characteristics.
• Stage 2 – Learner safety: feeling safe to engage in the learning process by asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting, and making mistakes.
• Stage 3 – Contributor safety: feeling safe to use your skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution.
• Stage 4 – Challenger safety: feeling safe to speak up and challenge to status quo when you think there’s an opportunity to change and improve.

Watch the full webinar here.

 

Find out more about events – Collaborative NorthWest Masterclass Programme 2022/23