We convened this forum of experts and the EDI curious at Bath & North East Somerset Business Show to explore current trends in the EDI space, particularly digital inclusion and to learn from each other.
Question 1
Which areas of EDI are receiving a higher attention this year and which is receiving less attention?
The consensus was that neurodiversity is receiving more attention in 2023 than in previous years but the three areas on the bottom of the inclusion list are racism, ageism, digital inclusion.
Interestingly it was commented that some well-known physical disabilities are misunderstood and still have barriers to employment, people with epilepsy having of a particularly low employment rate. There was anecdotal evidence that people may fear ‘getting it wrong’, which leads to an absence of involvement in conversations. One story was of a white lady with an Irish first name and a Nigerian surname, she had only ever been asked about her surname by nurses who are from ethnic minorities. One view could be that her name makes no difference to her medical treatment, but another view could be that white nursing staff fear getting it wrong or being seen to be racist for asking her, when in fact she could have a Nigerian genetic heritage and Sickle Cell could be an issue.
Culture change is needed
It was acknowledged that many businesses try to be an inclusive employer, they include it in their recruitment, put it on their website etc. but when asked what they mean they don’t really know. A lot more education is needed in this area and promotion of inclusivity benchmarking such as Disability Confident Employer which looks at your culture and going through the process allows you to educate your teams and to change your approach. Embedding a change in company beliefs was considered important if we are to make real headway in making change. Rather than just focusing on a few areas of inclusion the ideal response is a culture change where people look to include in all areas because it’s ‘what we do here’.
It was noted that holding people to account is important but it also takes a lot of energy. Having a culture where we hold each other to account is easier for people to step forward when there has been an issue. Also understanding that this is an iterative thing and it’s not a ‘one policy and you are sorted out’ area of work. It will need to adapt and change overtime. The important thing is to start somewhere and accept that you will need to tweak what you do over time and not to be afraid of that.
Engagement of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and the rise of the heart-led business
It is acknowledged that the majority of people in the UK are employed by SMEs and that in the current climate they are likely to be firefighting, so this may not be on their list of priorities. Furthermore, the nature of owner-managed SMEs is that they can be highly innovative, but they tend to be led by a couple of strong personalities who have their own ideas, which is why they went in to business in the first place. They may be less inclined to change their processes unless explicitly mandated to do so, although generationally this may be changing with more heart-led businesses being created.
The heart-led businesses which are clients of this forum as less likely to see inclusivity as a tick box exercise and more likely to embrace it and put it at the centre of their business.
Bias in recruitment
The forum discussed an issue which seems to be found in businesses of all sizes – bias in recruitment. The tendency to ‘stick with what we know’ and what we are comfortable with is another barrier to a wider spread adoption of fully inclusive ideals.
One solution which was suggested was to ask more questions at interview around socio economic background such as, “Are you the first generation in your family go to college?” and “What was your parents income when you were 16?”. On the basis of these answers to have a second short list of people from low income and low socio economic groups who may not 100% fit the profile and to interview some people from this group as well. This form of levelling the playing field can also allow for a wider diversity in the workforce and also allow people’s personalities and experience to shine through where it may not be apparent on their CV.
Another comment around this approach is that people may ‘work the system’ and may not be completely honest in order to get shortlisted.
Looking at ageism, a sign that someone is older and could play in to ageism tendencies is the use of two spaces after a full stop. And we also discussed how you can often roughly gauge someone’s age by their type of qualifications. So even the removal of dates of birth from CV’s may not be enough to ensure inclusion.
We are what we wear…
The forum felt that times had changed particularly since Covid when it comes to formal wear at work, although getting this ‘wrong’ in the workplace can still lead to bias against you when it comes to progression. We discussed the rise of comfortable workwear and how some people may perform better, or at least act more naturally if we interview them less formally and ask people to wear what they are comfortable in.
Question 2
How aware are organisations of the need for digital inclusion and what approaches have been made to understand inclusion gaps and bridge those gaps. What are the missed opportunities for businesses that ignore this area?
A clear message from the forum was that digital has its place but a variety of solutions need to be available to be inclusive. Examples of people unhappy to drive in to town as they can’t use the online only parking or being put off by going to certain places as you have to download another app. Some of the forum shared examples of people they know who get confused by the extensive digitisation and it’s not only the older generation, it is also people with neurodiversities and people who are manual workers and not natural digital natives.
Spotlight on Digital Inclusion
Interesting statistics shared around digital inclusion, compiled by Gill Smith of Business Kitchen.
According to Sitemorse, website accessibility is a missing opportunity for businesses as there are now 14.1 million disabled people in the UK, including 19% of working age adults and 44% of pension age adults. These people may face barriers when accessing websites that are not designed or coded with accessibility in mind. Sitemorse shared the following stats on their page (based on 2021 data)
The WebAIM Million report analyses the accessibility of the top one million home pages on the web (global). The latest report (March 2023) found 96.8% of home pages had detectable WCAG 2 failures. WCAG 2 is a set of guidelines for web accessibility.
The report showed the top 10 things that make websites inaccessible (globally) are:
- Low contrast text 83.6%
- Missing alternative text for images 58.2%
- Empty links 50.1%
- Missing form input labels 45.9%
- Empty buttons 27.5%
- Missing document language 18.6%
(Source: WebAIM Million report)
Examples of accessible websites include the BBC, paralympics.org and gov.uk.
Digital exclusion can also be unintentional, due to lack of broadband coverage or a lack of 4G, making two-part authentication impossible and this can be further exacerbated by financial constraints. This can certainly be the case with migrant workers who may not have a smart phone or access to a laptop. With more working from home, employers need to properly assess the staff members’ environment and the support they need to do their best work from home.
Getting help to become more digital is also not wide spread across the region.
When comparing digital to non-digital engagement one forum member described their experience as:
“We do pulse surveys, and we have versions for non-digital users and online versions for our digital users. And actually, we found that a number of users weren’t filling into paper versions. So, we’ve added QR codes in multiple different languages and we found an uplift around people accessing the pulse survey and people having a voice went up significantly.”
One consideration of why digital worked better was around being anonymous and feeling more able to be honest in the survey. So, they are looking to see how they can include non-digital natives in the digital process. Part of this process was to turn it on its head and look at all of the services which are offered, “How could someone be excluded from using this when we use this format or method?”
Other nations
Our digital position was compared by several forum members to some parts of Africa where 4G was better than the UK and they were more digital in terms of their communication. So assumptions around the needs or abilities of migrant workers may not be accurate and it makes us consider what assumptions we make when recruiting and when it comes to roles reliant on digital interaction.
Question 3
How can our policies and procedures (EDI, Conduct, Bullying & Harassment etc.) encourage employees to challenge unhealthy behaviours, which ultimately form toxic cultures?
This question brought in some practical processes from forum members.
“I think the interesting thing with policies is, to think of having a code of conduct in place that’s aligned to a company’s values or behaviours, and that’s embedded as part of the recruitment process and as part of the onboarding process”
“I think if you look at the policies within businesses, they tend to come from legislation, therefore, they tend to be quite directive, they tend to be don’t do this, don’t do that, go do this. So, they’re not necessarily inclusive, often by the nature of the way that they’re written, because they’re written to be able to articulate legislation or be able to direct people in terms of how they should behave. And actually, I think sometimes we need to take a step back. One of the things that we’re looking to do at present is review all of our policies around how do we make sure it’s using inclusive language. How do we make sure that they’re reflective of our values, and that they are more principles rather than ‘make sure you do this’. So, you’re actually creating an environment that is safe to be able to talk and not quite so prescriptive in terms of the law states this that we must behave in this particular way”
Who writes the policy?
A question was raised about who writes the policy. Should it be HR, the business owner or the team? This gave rise to an interesting debate on the balance between keeping it legal but also having the right language and cultural basis that the team can support the policy but also recognise it and can live it.
Thank you to our forum members
Annie Singleton – University of West of England
Naomi Stone – St Monica’s Trust
Jessica Vallentine – Business West
Andrew Carter – Risk Reward Management Ltd
Lucie Allott – University of Bath
Lynsey McKinstry – Weston College
Rose Sellman-Leava – Inclusive Futures
Charlotte Hopley – Skills Connect, WECA
Kirsty Howard – Skills Council
Other Forums
Take a look at our blog from our previous forum at The Gloucestershire Business Show here
The next in person forum is The South Gloucestershire Business Show on 8th and 9th November 2023. Book your place here
Additional reference materials provided by Gill Smith
Sitemorse | 18 key statistics about web acce https://sitemorse.com/blog-article/10016/18-key-statistics-about-web-accessibility-for-2021/
SCOPE: https://business.scope.org.uk/article/why-accessibility-overlays-and-widgets-do-not-improve-your-website-accessibility
WebAIM Million Report 2023: https://webaim.org/projects/million/#intro
There are lots of different sources that offer website accessibility checklist including:
WebsiteSetup www.websitesetup.org (downloadable guides). They suggests using descriptive link text, adding captions and transcripts for audio and video content, and avoiding flashing or moving elements that can cause seizures or distractions.
Bureau of Internet Accessibility www.boia.org (which has a free url tester) explains some of the UK laws and standards that apply to website content, such as the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2)
Accessibility Regulations 2018, and the British Standard BS 8878:2010.
Disability confident. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign
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