The Power Of Data - Work Better Together

This week's newsletter is all about the importance of data, what data you need, and where to get it from! The data you can produce can help you to prioritise the actions for your inclusion journey, which we talked about in last week's newsletter....

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

?? How data will kickstart your inclusion journey

?? The value of data

?? Top tips for gathering the appropriate data

?? Inclusion insights - learnings from the latest news

Our new Inclusion Journey Location Finder tool

Our new Inclusion Journey Location Finder tool, developed with funding from the UK government and Brighton & Hove City Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, allows you to pinpoint exactly where your business is on your inclusion journey.

Are you really as inclusive as you thought?

How do you measure up to your competitors?

What issues are holding you back, and what successes can you shout about?

If you're looking to understand the metrics that indicate inclusion success, this is the ideal place to start.

When we have your answers, we will give you a detailed report so you can start prioritising the actions that will take you forwards.

https://tinyurl.com/mrx7ezwx

How data will kickstart your inclusion journey

Most organisations want to be inclusive, but, without any clear data to guide them, they're likely to get lost in the woods. There are some key questions you need to ask before you embark on your inclusion journey:

• How inclusive is your organisation already?
• Where are our gaps when it comes to inclusion?
• What do our staff and stakeholders most care about?
• How will we know if we've made progress?

The only way to answer these questions is with data. You need a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data to give you truly robust answers, and you need to be prepared to listen to what your findings tell you - even if that feels uncomfortable.

The value of data

Data might not seem all that exciting to most people, but what if I told you that it can save you money and make you money?

Seems a bit more exciting now, right?

So many organisations come to us ready to spend money on work that we can see won't make much impact on their inclusion journey. If they'd gone to another provider, they might well have just taken that money and the business would have been none the wiser. Maybe a little while down the line, they'd have wondered why they weren't seeing any benefits from their inclusion work, but they wouldn't have known why.

When you collect and analyse the right data, you can find out what work is actually going to yield results - which means you're investing your budget, time and resources in the right place. So you'll actually get a return on your investment.

Not only that, but you can design goals for your inclusion journey that align with your overall business objectives. Meaning that the work you're doing in this area will contribute towards big picture successes, helping take the business forward and make you more successful.

So really, it's got to be worth it!

Top tips for gathering the appropriate data

This data gathering business isn't completely straightforward, though. Unfortunately, nothing worthwhile ever is. Here are a few tips for making the process go more smoothly:

1. Explain to people why you're collecting data - people can be reluctant to share information with you, especially if it's highly personal, if they don't understand why you want it and what you're going to do with it. If you reassure them anything they share is confidential and explain how it will contribute to progress on your inclusion journey, they'll likely feel more comfortable opening up. But some people might need to see you taking some steps forward on the inclusion journey first, so they know you're serious - you might find that engagement with elements like surveys and focus groups increases as you show you're walking your talk.
2. Collect quantitative data using HR software, which makes it confidential and secure (you can ask us for recommendations!).
3. For qualitative data (and for quantitative data, if you don't have the budget for fancy software), use a third party organisation to collect it. Your staff will be much more likely to open up to, and be honest with, someone who doesn't have the power to fire them and who they don't have to work with every day. P.S. We are a third party organisation who can help you with this. Just saying.
4. Be prepared for this to spark some challenging conversations. The data can reveal issues that have been hidden under the surface for some time, or raise something that's never been considered before. People can have some strong reactions to these discoveries, and it could prompt your team to open up about experiences and concerns. This can be a good thing, if you handle it right. Luckily, we have a training course that will not only help you manage these conversations, but will also enable you to set the foundation for future discussions that enable your staff to disagree productively and share different viewpoints in a way that allows everyone to feel heard and valued while finding positive ways forward. You'll find the details of our Challenging Conversations training below.??
5. Don't just focus on the negatives once you've got your data - share the success metrics too. It's important for morale, and for your reputation, to celebrate what's going well and recognise the people who have made it happen. Even though you acknowledge there's still a long way to go.

Visit our LinkedIn page and watch one of our Co-Creators, Allegra Chapman, give you a video run down of our location finder tool, as well as why you need demographic data and where you can get it from. https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7246840023361232898

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 .

Schuh steps up disability inclusion with single-shoe purchases

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2024/08/schuh-single-shoe-purchases/

Footwear chain Schuh has stepped up its commitment to disability equality by rolling out single-shoe purchases for shoppers with a disability or limb difference. Shoppers will be able to buy a single shoe from 30 August across all of the brand's stores, by phone, or via its online customer experience team. The single shoes, which will be taken from a new pair, will also have a 50% discount applied.

What can you do differently?

To be an inclusive organisation, you need to make sure your workplace is accessible for those who are disabled. It often seems like an obvious one, but you might not be noticing the little things or actually doing anything about it. One way you can find out what's important for your disabled employees (or customers, members, etc.) is to ask them! You could create a survey, which can be anonymous, and use the responses to make some changes. Notice how this is data... it's useful in each and every aspect of your organisation!

Remember that physical access to your workplace is just one element to consider. Your systems, processes, tech, policies and more need to be looked at. And, if you're not disabled yourself, there's likely to be things you've not even thought of because you've never had to deal with those particular challenges. Which is where asking people with lived experience of disability becomes so valuable.

The key learnings to take from this story are:

• Be the organisation to take a step forward so that you can encourage others to do the same and improve your reputation
• Gather data to find out what works and what doesn't for disabled employees (and staff from other systemically excluded identities)
• Research and understand what makes an inclusive and accessible workplace

Majority of Black people think racism played role in failure to test for prostate cancer

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/sep/26/majority-of-black-people-think-racism-played-role-in-failure-to-test-prostate-cancer

Nearly two-thirds (62%) of Black people in the UK believe racial discrimination has prevented them or a loved one from accessing a prostate cancer test, a survey has found, despite Black men having twice the risk of developing the disease than the overall adult male population. When they were asked why they were not able to access the test, 32% said it was because their GP either refused or said it was not necessary.

What can you do differently?

This is a prime example of what we mean by "institutional racism" - it's quite possible that most of the medical staff involved did not intend to be racist in their views or actions, but a lack of adequate education on the risks for Black people and research into the needs of Black patients, as well as societal conditioning that dismisses the health of Black people, have led to markedly worse outcomes for the Black population.

You and your team probably don't consider yourselves to be racist - I'm sure you'd be horrified at the idea - but you'd be surprised by how easily the policies, processes and norms of our workplaces can lead to racist outcomes. You need to be willing to confront the fact that your organisation might be allowing and even enabling racism - whether you meant to or not - if you are going to be able to tackle the issue.

Taking a look at our unconscious biases can be hard for all of us, but it's vital if we're going to be able to work together to reduce the impact they have on recruitment, development and progression, meetings, company culture, and so on.

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:

• Racism can be masked with excuses
• Unconscious bias can mean racism is happening without you even realising
• Create an anononymous staff survey to find out how your Black, Asian, and ethnic minority employees really feel
• Do not tolerate any form of racism in the workplace. This may seem obvious, but walk your talk and take some action!
• Educate yourself on how you can be proactively anti-racist

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

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.

"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'll use our inclusion journey location finder tool and start gathering some data!