#BlackLivesMatter - Training is no ‘silver bullet’ to creating diverse and inclusive work places

Looking deeply at your culture, practice and outcomes, do you know what it’s really like for people with different protected characteristics to work and learn in your organisation? How will you genuinely advance inclusion? How will you respond positively to #BlackLivesMatter? How will you avoid the pitfall of over-reliance on training?

The death of George Floyd sparked global protest and confronted countries, including the UK, with uncomfortable truths. The Guardian newspaper ran an editorial reflecting on the engrained racism that persists in society. The editorial concluded with:

‘To say that black lives matter is not only to demand that they are not stolen, but to insist that they are truly valued. No one expects this to be realised overnight; but nor are they willing to wait. The breadth of the protests is testament to what has gone wrong, but also a promise that change is possible. The protests are black-led but multiracial, showing the growing breadth of support…white people are seeking to be allies. Mistakes will be made. But progress can and must be made, too.’

In recent weeks I have received an increase in enquiries for a range of different diversity workshops, particularly those relating to unconscious bias and to race equality. I have no doubt that these are genuine enquiries from providers keen to improve their diversity practice in the light of #BlackLivesMatter.

But training is only one part of your diversity road map, albeit an important one, if we are to genuinely dismantle barriers, tackle persistent inequality and advance equality. And we need a clear road map if we are to make our work and learning places truly inclusive.

So what should organisations do?

Here are just 10 initial ideas and thoughts for you to use to self-assess against your own practice:

1. Investigate your data. Challenges can include, for example:

• It is too easy to think that because your staff diversity profile matches the area you recruit from, you don’t have any particular issues. But what about your staff diversity profile in relation to your students? Staff retention? Job satisfaction? Complaints? Promotion? Managerial role? The experiences of staff in particular departments?

• What about intersectionality? For example, cross-cutting the above data to look at the experiences of men and women who are from Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority backgrounds. Or the experiences of gay, bi or lesbian people from Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority backgrounds. Or the experiences of people from Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority backgrounds who hold a faith. Intersectional perspectives recognise that understanding the experiences of, for example, disabled staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, requires an understanding of how the combination of ethnicity and disability can create specific barriers, obstacles and circumstances. This is different from understanding ethnicity and disability separately. You can find out more about intersectionality here

• Concentrating on staff but not the diversity profile of governors / trustees. What does this look like in relation to the diversity profile of students?

• What do you do with your staff diversity data? Simply report to senior leaders and governors or use to advance equality by achieving equality objectives, which contain targets against which governors can measure progress? 

2. Listen to staff. How do you create safe spaces for staff to share their experiences so you can discover:

• what it’s like for staff from Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority backgrounds to work at the organisation?
• the cultural issues and barriers that need to be addressed?

You might want to try setting up a Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority staff network which can be an excellent source of information to drive positive change. If you do, make sure that staff have the time and space to participate and to know that their feedback will lead to action. Which leads me to…

3. Use data and staff feedback to identify specific Equality Objectives. Make sure that these are specific and measurable, and progress is reported to governors and trustees. You can find out more about your legal requirements to set equality objectives here

4. Identify a senior leader champion. Senior leaders lend authority to the voice of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority staff, can ensure actions are implemented and have genuine impact, and have the ‘clout’ to get things done and achieve change. Ofsted research conducted some time ago in colleges identified that this was a critical success factor in driving forward change in diversity and inclusion. 

5. Train staff. Training is no ‘silver bullet’ to creating diverse and inclusive workplaces, but it is an important part of your road map.

Staff are often worried about saying the wrong thing, using the wrong language, inadvertently causing offence, and all of this can lead to people ‘stepping back’. Training helps staff to:

• discuss issues and concerns about organisational barriers in a ‘safe space’

• confront uncomfortable truths. For example, as a recent podcast by ACAS pointed out, people often have an issue around ‘White privilege’ because the natural reaction when people hear that is to say ‘well I haven’t had a privileged background – I have had to work hard to get to where I am’. But White privilege isn’t about this, it’s about recognising that as a society everything is geared to individuals who are White.

• understand the experiences of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority colleagues and to gain an insight into organisational barriers that they might face

• staff to appreciate that equality and diversity goes hand in hand with quality. If we want to be an outstanding provider, EDI (equality, diversity, inclusion) has to be integrated and embedded in all our practice, not a bolt-on-extra.

• understand EPIC – every person influences culture - everyone is involved in creating a more inclusive working and learning environment.

So we need regular, robust, motivating and inspiring EDI training for staff

6. Consider positive action strategies to address inequalities. The Equality and Human Rights Commission have found that positive action is significantly underutilised as a tool to address inequality, often because of a lack of confidence to implement effective measures and a fear of legal liability and straying into positive discrimination. I will write more information about positive action strategies in my next equality briefing.

7. Explicitly and fully integrate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion into quality improvement processes such as lesson observations, learning walks, self-assessment and quality improvement plans.

8. Appreciate that Diversity can be intensely challenging. If you ask people what comes into their mind when you say the word ‘diversity’, they will often reply ‘celebration’, ‘richness’, ‘everyone having a voice, being treated equally’ (and occasionally they reply ‘the street dance group’). But diversity can be intensely challenging and uncomfortable, for example identifying issues, barriers, engrained discrimination, unconscious bias, hostility to unfairness, perceived or otherwise.

9. Recognise that change takes time, persistence and patience. Putting on a training session, celebrating Black History Month or just running a quick staff consultation will not change mindsets or address engrained issues. Change takes time, patience and persistence.

10. And, of course, the above just concentrates on the staff experience and focuses particularly on race. We need to consider different aspects of identity and the experiences of our students. We need to look deeply at our culture, practice and outcomes to understand what it’s really like for people with different protected characteristics to work and learn in our organisation.

Support for your organisation

I provide training, consultancy support, EDI & British values health checks, off-site reviews and much, much more. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are interested in how I can support your organisation to advance practice. You can find out more about me and what I offer on my website:    www.christinerose.org

My contact details are below:

Email         Christine@christinerose.org

Mobile       07715 016955