Independent report

Annex A: Inclusion Confident Scheme user research findings by workshop

Published 20 March 2024

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Background

Four 90 minute workshops were held in November 2022 and involved organisations selected using previous stakeholder engagement from Equality Hub and other recommended organisations. We framed these sessions as part of the discovery phase of our user research, exploring the problem space and testing ideas. 

In particular we focussed on understanding and awareness of inclusion issues, participation in existing diversity and inclusion schemes, motivations for joining schemes, accreditation and assessment. Workshop attendees were grouped with those from similar size organisations. Workshop attendees had a leading role in their organisation’s diversity and inclusion plan or responsibility for employees, for example head of HR. 

This annex summarises the key insights gained from these workshops, grouped by themes, questions, and participant groups.

Participant groups

Large, private-sector enterprises: 8 organisations

SMEs and micro businesses: 7 organisations

Public sector organisations: 14 organisation

Employer membership bodies: 5 organisations

Questions

1. How do you define diversity and inclusion in your organisation?

Large organisations

Inclusion first strategy. This is an issue for everybody, not just for underrepresented or minority groups. Inclusion is about creating the cultural conditions for our people to thrive. Looking at values, cultures and behaviours and our systems and processes. We use data for this, we measure diversity by looking at our workforce at every level and looking at performance against our diversity targets.

See inclusion as at the centre of what we do. Part of our organisational values and part of belonging. We measure engagement levels among different populations to make sure the experience is equitable for all as well as looking at representation numbers. 

Diversity and inclusion is part of how we become a purpose-driven business. To do this we need to build it into our principles and values. We think about our role in how we help shape society. Creating a workplace where people feel supported to be themselves.

Terminology, diversity, equity and inclusion are important. What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done so we use data. Tied to the performance of leaders to diversity. Capture qualitative and quantitative data across the organisation using survey software.

Belong, act and thrive. Education and adopting a growth mindset, working with senior leadership team.

Education, along with data collection, is the key driver. Inclusion and diversity strategy – inclusion comes first creating the environment where people can belong authentically. Creates a space where a diverse range of people want to be. Build it into every aspect of the employee lifecycle including recruitment – consistent messaging helps to embed the principles. It’s everyone’s responsibility.

SME/Microbusiness

Creating a safe environment at work where people can bring their whole self to work and the employer supports them, for example support with protected characteristics and other resources. Bringing your best self to work. Is more about inclusion first – that will then attract a diverse range of people.

Creating the environment where people can be who they want to be. Making changes to the physical environment is part of it.

If people don’t feel welcome in your organisation any other work falls down.

People feeling supported, valued and not disadvantaged. Be themselves openly without judgement, not having to hide anything. Feel like there are other people like them and role models in the organisation.

Public sector

Key concept/word in our strategy is ‘belonging’.

Diversity and inclusion are two sides of the same coin. Representation at every level. Experience that different groups have at different levels of organisation. Education and improving  is a pillar to help everyone be their best in the organisation.

Membership organisations

Different understanding across different organisations. Two main elements are ‘belonging’ and ‘bringing your whole self to work’.

Across smaller organisations there is more volatility and difference in understanding of what inclusion is.

Lack of resource and internal HR means there is a lack of understanding across small organisations - although there is more sharing of best practice at local level now than there has been.

2. What are you trying to achieve with your inclusion strategies?

Perception and reputation

Larger employers indicated that they have moved past the need to produce the business case for D&I - the challenge is ensuring it underpins business and talent strategies.

Larger organisations considered the impact on credibility and reputation while SMEs considered the impact on recruitment and retention.

The concept of public perception and reputation came up - especially in the public sector workshop. 

Recruitment, development and retention

Large employers and public sector organisations have goals to improve recruitment, development and retention, and are trying to do this through creating a more representative workforce.

Culture, values and mission

Their inclusion strategies are aimed at influencing company culture, values and mission. This is done through increasing awareness and engaging leadership.

Trust and opportunity for all

Big focus on the working environment and ensuring respect, trust, equity of experience and opportunity for all.

Membership bodies

Membership bodies are not really leading their members. They will be learning as much as the employer orgs.

Membership bodies can be important stakeholders for help with dissemination and onboarding.

3. What do you need to help you meet those goals?

Time

Employers in every workshop mentioned time as an important factor, however this had different meanings for different groups.

Large employers mentioned the need for commitment to a long time frame to progress inclusion strategies. SMEs spoke about the need to create time in managers’ workloads to contribute to inclusion strategies.

Culture and leadership

Employers need leadership engagement and commitment that leads to effective governance and accountability at all levels. Need to have an open, safe culture with clear, stable direction.

Organisations want to provide training and support for line managers to build skills and capability around inclusion

Metrics and data

It is essential to have aspirational targets and measurable metrics to track them.

Employers in every workshop stated the importance of quantitative data on the workforce and wider society or areas for comparison.

Qualitative data was also important to know what your staff are thinking and highlight groups who need more support.

Larger employers (and public sector) spoke more about this, as they have more resources to allocate to data collection and analysis.

Ethnicity pay gap reporting was mentioned in the public sector employers workshop but there’s uncertainty over what should be done, and by who.

Resources

Schemes should help them communicate to their wider workforce and help them access inclusion resources and education.

Flexibility – resources need to be sector-specific as much as possible.

Formats: Toolkits made up of clear, bite-sized resources and evidence of what works. This was especially important for SMEs, as those involved in inclusion are unlikely to be expert practitioners and working on it as an additional role.

4. What barriers do you encounter?

Capability

Awareness: Challenges to raising awareness of inclusion schemes within the organisation, or understanding of whose responsibility it is.

SMEs and smaller employers do not seem to differentiate between diversity and inclusion.

Comprehension: Less understanding of the importance of DEI, leading to lack of recognition or systemic change.

Not enough consistency across all resources or existing schemes.

Less knowledge amongst an organisation creates expectations for quick results, which aren’t realistic.

Lack of understanding how hard the job is.

Wider cultural context and politicisation leads to additional work.

Opportunity

Time: Lack of time allocated to teams to develop plans, or managers and employees to engage with them.

Socialising new ideas and developing expertise takes time.

Finance: Getting financial commitment and budget allocated for resources

Evidence: Little or no data or evidence to work with, and persuading organisation to provide resources to capture and analyse data.

Motivation

Self-confidence and dealing with managers’ fear of doing the wrong thing. Creating confidence in management to engage with schemes.

Trust: Internal pressure and misunderstanding of initiatives can create reluctance or even a backlash.

Enthusiasm: In large employers, teams and practitioners often experience burn-out from lack of resources and pressure to deliver.

Work is needed to create enthusiasm in leadership.

5. Is accreditation important to employers?

Large organisations

Yes - 78%, No -  22%

Internal comms: Good for addressing attrition – something to point to when communicating with staff.

Recruitment: D&I is one of the most common things mentioned by candidates in interview process, can point to accreditation. Public show of commitment to D&I draws people in as it shows it is a safe space.

Business advantages: When bidding for work potential customers ask if the organisation is accredited in D&I when doing due diligence. Becoming more and more important for customers.

Meaningful accreditation: The accrediting partner must be reputable. Government. not necessarily leaders in this area.

SME/Micro businesses

Yes - 83%, Unsure - 17%

Resourcing: Larger organisations can provide support and training decks to their staff which are helpful. Some orgs have only one HR person, with no dedicated person or resource for getting accreditation. Some orgs have to bring in consultancy firms to help out when it’s too complicated. Good thing about the Tech Talent Charter is that it is easy to understand – providing data annually. Sometimes government schemes can be difficult. Low bureaucracy is important.

Public sector

Yes - 60%, Unsure 30%, No - 10%

Meaningful accreditation: Needs to be something that helps achieve aims in organisation. Only useful if it has some teeth or meaning.  Some online questions you answer for a badge is not useful. The body accrediting needs to be reputable and respected in the area by members of the public.

Membership organisations

Yes - 100%

Recruitment: Dynamic badging is good to position employers as employers of choice – can signpost them as someone that has put in effort and commitment.

Resource issues: In education they all want accreditation, but in business more seeing a preference for ‘pledges’ – for example, Race at Work Charter from BITC. Some nervousness about accreditation, pledges more flexible for orgs to roll out what is appropriate for them.

Cost: There is usually a cost associated with accreditation – affects small business in particular. Better if achieved through action rather than who has the most funds.

Single accreditation scheme: There are lots of pledges, bit of a ‘wild west’ of pledges. Would be good to have influence from government that can bring these together so everyone can access the resources and best practice that comes with these pledges/schemes. Would be good if accreditations didn’t all compete with each other. 

6. Is a tiered model with progression through the tiers the best approach?

Large organisations

Yes - 78%, No -  22%

Reflecting best practice: Schemes have had to go to this as what was previously leading practice is no longer leading. There has been progress in thinking and best practice.

SME/Micro businesses

Yes - 57%, No - 43%

Demonstrate Progression: Does demonstrate commitment then progression. We don’t want to scare organisations off, but it is also important to give people tiers to aim for - but not too complicated. Good thing but have to be careful that there are not too many. Obsession with tiers can get in the way of making real progress.

Resourcing: Increased administrative burden when going through the tiers. Can have a simpler scheme where you are inclusive or you are not. For example, one organisation didn’t bother going through the tiers even though they felt they were ahead of what was going on.

Public sector

Yes - 62.5%, No -  37.5%

Flexibility for size and sector: Needs to be proportionate to the organisation – orgs that don’t have the machinery will not be able to put in the same resource into meeting the tier requirements.Can help show progress but can ‘dis-enable’ some employers as well – for example, smaller employers or those happy to remain at their level.

Need to incentivise progress: Potentially bosses could be satisfied with a badge or a certain level, which would dissuade progression to higher tiers. 

Membership organisations

Yes - 50%, Unsure - 50%

Flexibility for size and sector: Very hard to apply across all sectors. Tiers must not disadvantage different businesses – need to consider measuring outcomes and processes. Small businesses may have good outcomes but not following the processes for the tiers as it’s not appropriate. 

Resourcing: Needs to take account of budget.

Need to Incentivise progress: Need to be careful as it creates ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ – will dissuade people from engaging if they can’t get to the top tier. For a more general ‘inclusion’  scheme it is much harder to message why people are not progressing through tiers – could put people off getting involved if they are stuck at ‘bronze’ without it being clear to others why they are not progressing. 

7. Should progression through tiers be based on assessment?

Larger organisations

Yes - 78%, No -  22%

What is being assessed? Are you measuring against performance indicators or against processes to move forward? 

Resourcing: Goes back to question of resource, need to be thoughtful of organisations that will not have a lot of resource for this. 

SME/Micro businesses

Yes - 57%, No - 43%

Meaningful change: Needs to measure outcomes not just outputs – for example, number of people on a training course is not actual change. Need to reward effort as well as results, some organisations will follow the right process but won’t see results for a long time if at all. 

Flexible for size and sector: Need to look at the sector as well as size of org. harder for business like construction compared to tech to get these things going. Attracting these organisations is important. Need to take size of business into account.

Public sector

Yes - 62.5%, No -  37.5%

Meaningful change: Needs to look at outcomes – if you get a good representation score, so what? What is the actual positive impact?

Membership organisations

Yes - 50%, Unsure - 50%

Flexible for size and sector: Are you going to create opt-out situations for people who can’t provide the data or can’t meet the timescales? No real world application, not credible for a single body to assess people in all different scenarios. Different standards for different businesses.

Meaningful change: Need to make sure the system doesn’t promote tokenism.

8. Should assessment be peer-to-peer or centrally administered?

Large organisations

Yes - 78%, No -  22%

Independent assessor: Critical that it is independent of competing influences.

Continuous assessment: Should be continuous on a cycle – need to maintain the level attained and show meaningful, lasting change.

SME/Micro businesses

Yes - 57%, No - 43%

Independent assessor: Ways to fudge things – can’t be self assessment.

Incorporate employees into assessment: Can we factor employees into the assessment? 360 degree assessment is important, from every touchpoint in the organisation. Also factor in people that interact with the organisation.

Public sector

Yes - 62.5%, No -  37.5%

Independent assessor: Needs to be done independently – cannot be self assessment at all.

Credible assessor: Credible assessment is necessary.

Peer to peer: Local government framework is a good model – peer assessment is a good model. Orgs get a score where leaders rate themselves and then employees rate it as well – good to compare scores. Peer to peer for lessons learning and developing experience and skills.

Membership organisations

Yes - 50%, Unsure - 50%

Independent assessor: Ideally there would be an external standard – can’t have people marking their own work.

Credible assessor: Should be something but collecting the right data and external assessment would be huge challenge – building a beast. Almost impossible for a single assessing body to be credible across all sizes and sectors of organisations. Government being the assessor is not credible as government is often behind where industry is.