Founded by Inclusive Employers, National Inclusion Week (NIW) is a week dedicated to celebrating inclusion and taking action to create inclusive workplaces. This year it takes place from 23rd – 29th September.
The theme for National Inclusion Week 2024 is ‘Impact Matters’: a call-to-action to everyone in your organisation, from leaders, to inclusion professionals through to teams and individuals.
Here are some of the ways we are creating an inclusive workplace at Action Together, and some suggestions for where to start at your organisation.
Inclusivity at Action Together
At Action Together, we recognise that our strength comes from our diversity, so we are constantly working to be as inclusive as possible. Here are just some of the things we have done over the past couple of years:
- EmbRACE Diversity Group – our EmbRACE Diversity Group was created as the ‘Anti-racism Working Group’ to understand how racism might manifest at Action Together and to support our work towards becoming an anti-racist organisation. That is still its core purpose today, but we now also work towards improvements in all areas of equity and inclusion. Members meet every two months to assess progress and plan actions.
- Celebrating religious diversity through events – faith is an important part of many of our employees’ and members’ lives, and also a great way for people to connect through shared customs and traditions. We organise events throughout the calendar year to celebrate religious observances, creating opportunities for our teams to get together and connect with one another. So far this year we have held a staff iftar during Ramadan, and we are planning events for both Diwali and Christmas.
- Hybrid and flexible working – the traditional office environment and 9-5 shift pattern can make some people feel excluded from the workplace, and we know that if we worked this way we would miss out on the valuable talent and creativity of some of our employees. We offer our staff members flexibility with their working hours and the opportunity to choose their work location where possible.
- Training – we all want to ‘get it right’ when it comes to inclusive practices, and we know that appropriate training supports our employees and our members with this. We have worked with some fantastic member organisations to provide anti-racism and neurodiversity training for our staff, with more inclusion-focused training to come.
- Recruitment and induction – we have improved our recruitment processes, following best practice guidance from lived experience experts, and we’re currently doing the same with our induction processes. All candidates who interview with us now have the opportunity to give feedback on their experience to ensure that we are able to keep improving.
- Flexible bank holidays – most bank holiday dates in the UK are based on Christian holidays, so will not hold special significance for many people. Our staff members have their bank holiday allowance added to their annual leave pot, so they can choose to take those days when works best for them.
- Pronouns in email signatures – we recognise that gender is complex, and you cannot tell a person’s gender or preferred pronouns by just their name or the way they look. By including our pronouns in our email signatures, we are normalising sharing pronouns with the intention of creating a more inclusive environment for trans, non-binary and other gender non-conforming people.
- Clear reporting procedures – we have developed guidance for our staff on how to report any discrimination they may experience or witness while at work, or any changes they feel we could make to our ways of working to be more inclusive. Alongside these reporting procedures, we have also written ‘how to’ guides to support staff with managing difficult situations such as challenging discrimination, responding appropriately when challenged, and supporting an individual when they make a disclosure.
What can your organisation do?
If you want to be a more inclusive organisation but are struggling to know where to begin, these can be some useful starting points:
- Speak to your staff and volunteers – individuals in your organisation, especially those from underrepresented groups, may be able to give important insight into what you’re already doing well and where you may have room for improvement. Explain why you’re asking questions about inclusion, listen, and avoid becoming defensive if some of the feedback is challenging – remember that your staff team want your organisation to be an excellent place to work as much as you do!
- Collect and analyse data – knowing who is currently missing or underrepresented at your organisation, especially at a senior level, can help you to identify groups whose expertise and lived experience you may be missing out on. Remember that some people may not feel comfortable sharing personal information with their employer, so be clear about what you plan to do with the data and give people the option to opt out if they wish.
- Learn from experts – there are many excellent training providers with lived experience backgrounds in our local areas. They can help you to understand how to ensure that you are building a supportive and inclusive workplace. We also regularly run training sessions on a variety of topics – see our training calendar for more information.
- Speak to your development worker – our fantastic Community Development Workers can help point you in the right direction for advice and training.
- Take a look at online guides and resources – CIPD and ACAS are great places to start, but there are many organisations and individuals who share best practice based on personal experience.
Tips to feel confident talking about inclusion
Language changes all the time, and we know that this can feel intimidating, but here are some tips for being confident in conversations about inclusion.
- Use online resources to understand why some words are not used today. You can search online for ‘word + offensive’ if you’re thinking of using a particular term and you’re worried it might be outdated or harmful – there will usually be articles or web pages explaining why a particular term is no longer used and what the preferred term is.
- Mirror the language used by individuals to describe themselves. When speaking formally about their identity, people will often use the terms they prefer. However, remember that in informal settings people may use words which have been ‘reclaimed’ and should only be used within the community, so check as above if you’re unsure.
- Be honest and ask questions. If you tell somebody that you want to be respectful and use the language they’re comfortable with, most people will be happy to tell you how they would like to be described. Trust that individuals know themselves best, and if they tell you they don’t like a particular word, even if it’s used by other people in the same community, don’t use it for this person.
Key terms
Equity (and equality) – equity is giving people different resources according to their need. For example, not everybody in a hospital should be given the same treatment – they should be given the treatment that is most appropriate for them. Equality is everybody having the same outcome, so in our hospital example we would want everybody to be equally healthy after their treatment.
Diversity – diversity is a way of describing the differences in a group of people. A group with individuals from different genders, races, religions and lived experience is a diverse group. An individual cannot be ‘diverse’, because they only have one set of experiences etc. – their own.
Inclusion – inclusion is the active process of making everybody feel like they are valued and they belong.
Anti-racism – anti-racism is the active process of working to dismantle and fight against racism and racist structures.
Neurodiversity – neurodiversity is a way of describing the different ways our brains work. Within a given group, some people may be neurotypical (the world has been built to fit the way their brains work) and some people may be neurodivergent (their brains work in different ways from how society ‘expects’ them to). This may include autistic people or people with ADHD, but there are many other types of neurodivergence. An individual cannot be ‘neurodiverse’, as they only have one brain.
Gender – gender is different from sex – it doesn’t have anything to do with our bodies and instead describes the social, cultural and behavioural ideas of being a man, woman, or other gender identity.
Trans (transgender) – transgender refers to anybody whose sex doesn’t align with their gender. The opposite of transgender is cisgender, and this refers to people whose sex and gender do align (for example if you are a man who was born male, or a woman who was born female).
Non-binary – a non-binary person is somebody whose gender identity doesn’t align completely with either ‘man’ or ‘woman’. This can mean different things for different people: for some people it means their identity changes over time, for some it means they identify with multiple genders, and some people prefer not to use gender labels at all.
Gender non-conforming – somebody might describe themselves as gender non-conforming if they don’t align with the expectations of being a cisgender man or woman.