With a 1% increase in gender diversity correlating to a 3% gain in revenue or 35% LGB employees in the UK reporting an upswing in productivity after coming out, inclusion of staff members from many diverse groups in any organisation can help it to become a better place to work, with engaged employees who ultimately contribute to the bottom line.
First speaker was David Pearson from global accountancy firm KPMG. He shared his perspective on LGBT and inclusion and the challenges of successfully implementing policies within a large international organisation. Conversely, Julie Inns, a training and consultancy provider, presented a different view about how to communicate diversity initiatives to employees of, and suppliers to a a wide range of organisations. The afternoon culminated in the inaugural meeting of an LGBT business network under the auspices of Mills & Reeve and Hundred Houses .
As Trustee of LGBT mental health and wellbeing charity ELOP, an alumnus of the Stonewall Leadership Programme and the Radius Business Network Leaders' programme, David had plenty of tips to share, looking at how LBGT rights vary dramatically worldwide and the challenges HR Managers may have in adapting policies to suit different countries. He left the audience with several practical measures that any organisation could put in place to help employees feel safer and more comfortable at work.
Julie Inns has been working with front line practitioners in Police, Probation, Health, Education, and the voluntary sector on topics such as hate crime, safeguarding and radicalisation, bullying, discrimination, equality and diversity induction, respect at work, unconscious bias, and more. Julie provided a robust counter approach about how to deal with various situations encountered in different sectors. She cited the rise of hate crime in communities following last year’s Referendum, and the importance of recognising ‘covering’ in staff members. While they may be comfortable and safe at work, they may be facing hate crime in the streets on the way home and want to hide or ‘cover’ this at work or edit what they may tell their colleagues.
The afternoon concluded with some useful tips – including how to help organisation leaders and HR practitioners to address some of these issues in their organisations and to start to have the ‘difficult conversations’.
Cambridge Network is now planning the second in this Diversity event series, with a view to developing an Inclusion and Diversity networking group to share ideas and resources between organisations. If you’d like to hear more or to suggest a topic please email louise.rushworth@cambridgenetwork.co.uk
If you would be interested in having details about the LGBT Network Group, please also get in touch.
Cambridge Network would like to thank David and Julie for presenting, Sean Kent from Hundred Houses for co-organising and introducing our speakers, and Richard Noble from Mills & Reeve for hosting this session.
Image: (L-R) David Pearson (KPMG), Sean Kent (Hundred Houses), Julie Inns (Diversity Consultant), Richard Noble (Mills & Reeve).