All Aboard The Inclusion Journey! - Work Better Together

All Aboard The Inclusion Journey! - Work Better Together

In order to move forward with inclusion, you need buy-in and contributions from across the organisation. So you need to make everyone aware of what you’re doing, why it’s important, what progress is being made, and how they can get involved.?

In this week's newsletter we'll be taking a look at:

?? Who needs to know?

?? Inclusive Leadership

??Top tips for getting everyone on board

?? Inclusion insights - learnings from the latest news

Who needs to know?

It's likely that you'll have a range of different audiences who need different levels of information at different times. Some of your audiences might include:

  • Inclusion working group
  • Leadership team
  • Staff
  • Customers
  • Partner organisations
  • Potential job applicants
  • General public
  • Media

In The Inclusion Journey , you can find a breakdown of your potential audiences, what they need to know, and how often to keep them updated.?

All of these audiences have a role to play in your journey, and they will only be engaged if they are clear on why this work is important and, crucially, why it matters to them.


Inclusive leadership

If you want to communicate effectively with a wide range of people, engage and motivate a diverse team, and mobilise a variety of people to move this journey and your whole business forward, you need to understand how to lead inclusively.?

Our interactive training helps you understand different working and communication styles, connect with different personality types, and build a vision everyone can get behind! We have our very own workshop called 'Inclusive Leadership', which you can find out more about in the link below!

Fill in the form here , or email [email protected] to find out more.

Top tips for getting everyone on board

Here are some tips from us on how to make sure you're including everyone in your inclusion journey and the best ways to do it. There will be a lot of things you might not have thought of, so we're here to help!

  1. Consider different communication styles - everyone's brains work completely differently, so it's important that you get creative and tailor your communication to make sure everyone understands.
  2. Be honest and transparent - You need to fill people in with what's really going on, otherwise there's not much point telling them in the first place!
  3. Recognise that people have different views, experiences and levels of knowledge when it comes to inclusion
  4. Think about external reputation as well as your internal reputation
  5. Encourage regular feedback - the way you do this, whether it's anonymous surveys or in person meetings, will differ from organisation to organisation. This is a chance to get creative!
  6. Make sure you listen to that feedback and take action - as a leader, you must take all feedback on board. Any negative feedback should not be dismissed, but use it to your advantage and take it as an opportunity to create change...

Book a free workshop

If you're ready to get to grips with the basics when it comes to inclusion, and put solid foundations in place for your strategy, then book a FREE Inclusion Insights workshop with our team. In this 30-minute session, we'll explore your needs and aims for inclusion, how these relate to your overall business goals and your core values, and what the next steps are that will drive meaningful impact.

Email [email protected] to book.

Inclusion Insights

In each LinkedIn newsletter, we pick out a few of the top diversity and inclusion stories to have made the news recently, and assess what learnings can be taken from them.

If you'd like a shorter round-up of a wider variety of news headlines, you can subscribe to our email newsletter .

Labour's employment rights bill and the implications of hybrid working

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasroulet/2024/10/05/labours-employment-rights-bill-and-the-implications-of-hybrid-working/

Labour’s Employment Rights Bill seeks to make hybrid working a right for employees. Employers will now need to allow requests for flexible working unless it is "not reasonably practicable" to accommodate. While no legal restrictions will be put in place, businesses will also be encouraged to establish clear boundaries for employee contact outside of working hours, to enable a “right to disconnect” from work.

What can you do differently?

This new bill means means you need to get your policies and plans in order. One of the big things we like to emphasise to people is that flexible working will improve productivity, staff engagement and retention... and therefore profit. As soon as this bill is released this Thursday, the 17th October, you need to be ready! Make sure you're not one of those leaders who fall behind everyone else... you need to be the one who shows everyone that you're prepared and are taking inclusivity seriously. It will do wonders for your reputation, not only externally but also internally. Your staff will feel more comfortable if they not only know you're following legal encouragements, but also if they are being allowed more flexibility.

The key learnings to take from this story are:

  • Flexible working actually improves productivity, staff engagement and retention
  • Working remotely is not just moving working in the office to a different location - you need a tailored approach
  • If this is set to be an automatic right for employees, you need to be ready now
  • Working with staff on this instead of fighting them will lead to better outcomes for everyone

Heinz apologises after ad featuring black family sparks anger online

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/06/heinz-apologises-after-ad-featuring-black-family-sparks-anger-online?utm_source=instagramthreads&utm_campaign=heinz

Heinz has been accused, and have now apologised, of stereotyping in an advert spotted at Vauxhall and Manor House tube stations in London. The advertisement depicts a bride, a black woman, enjoying a forkful of pasta seated next to a white man who is presumably the groom. The billboard appears to show the groom’s white parents and an older black woman, seemingly the bride’s mother. Some social media users criticised the advert for “erasing” black fathers.

What can you do differently?

In the workplace, you might do something as a leader that you think will show your good intentions and the effort you're wanting to put in to your inclusion journey. However, you might make mistakes here and there, and offend people on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, disability etc. However, don't dismiss the mistake because you were trying to do the right thing... apologise and reassure people that you won't make the same mistake in the future. This can happen with unconscious bias, which is massively common in many workplaces. The way many of our brains have been wired means that many leaders discriminate towards some employees without realising, often due to stereotypes. When you're trying to communicate things internally or externally, having a diverse team check what you're putting out there can help you see things you might not have realised yourself. Don't assume you're always doing the right thing, even when your intentions are commendable.

P.S - It's Black History Month. This is a great time to let your Black employees know that you recognise how widespread and engrained in our culture and ways of working racism is. But racism doesn't end when October does - as our Engagement Lead Kaia explained on our blog, she is a Black woman all year round.

https://www.watchthisspace.uk/i-am-black-all-year-round-reflections-on-black-history-month/

If you want to make sure you're marking all key awareness days and festivals, members of our community have access to a free Religious, Cultural and Awareness Days calendar that highlights key dates to mark throughout 2024 and 2025!

The key learnings to take from this story are:

  • It’s not enough to have good intentions - your messaging can still cause distress even if you didn’t see any negative connotations
  • You need to be aware of sensitivities and stereotypes that you might be unwittingly straying into?
  • Having a diverse team looking at your messaging will help you identify possible issues
  • When you inadvertently upset people, apologise unequivocally and communicate what you will put in place to do better in future

For more Inclusion Insights, sign up to our email newsletter where we share more stories about what we have seen in the news.

Sign up here

If you want a clear map for your Inclusion Journey that you can share with your audiences, our Location Finder tool will help you get started!?https://tinyurl.com/mrx7ezwx ?

The Inclusion Journey is out now!

Your practical guide to developing, implementing and measuring a workplace inclusion strategy that drives meaningful results and increases employee engagement.

Thanks to everyone who has joined us on The Inclusion Journey book tour.

Mo & Allegra with The Inclusion Journey book

"a game-changing book" - Tony Robinson

"jam-packed with practical tools and advice" - Nadia Finer

"I love how practical and easy to read this book is." - Matt Phelan

"a masterclass in transforming inclusion from an abstract ideal into actionable, quantifiable progress." - Dan Sodergren

Buy The Inclusion Journey

If you buy 5 copies of the book, we are happy to run our interactive workshop for FREE. Email [email protected]

That's it from us for now! If you have any questions on your inclusion journey, you can always reach out to us at [email protected].

Alternatively, you can head to our website https://www.watchthisspace.uk for information on information on everything we have to offer!

After reading this week's newsletter, we hope you can start getting the people around you on board and get your inclusion journey moving!


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