Holding ourselves accountable - Black History Month

It’s been a devastating year for many. But in this devastation, there have been voices raised, lessons learned and a better understanding of where we are at as a society. And the truth is this: we all need to do better. Particularly large organisations such as ours with the capability and platform to speak loudly and reach more people.

The people who make our country the special place it is are full of resilience and hope for a better future. And we hold ourselves accountable to making that vision become a reality for the communities we’re here to serve.

Change starts from the inside

We could talk about the two-year strategy we have in place to become a more equal, diverse and inclusive organisation but instead we’ll share the initial actions we’re going to take.

We need to do more. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do. This issue has real currency with the Chair and Chief Executive of our organisation, and we want everyone in our business to be comfortable talking openly about identity. So we’re rolling out Let’s Talk About Race. We’ve already held some sessions to see how useful these will be and while some people are already really vocal, others are much quieter.

It’s clear that some people do feel uncomfortable when talking about equality and diversity, while some people don’t believe there’s an issue at all. So there’s a lot of work to be done and our aim is to challenge pre-conceptions and unconscious bias and educate people along the way.

We want to really highlight the importance of being an ally too. So we’re introducing Respect Allies whose job it will be to ensure the taste for change and mutual respect remains at the forefront of the business. And if bullying or harassment occurs? They’ll be there to support the people it happens to, to stamp it out for good.

We hope this approach will be a simple but effective way of actively getting the conversation started when it comes to equality and diversity because if we can get people talking, listening and learning then they’ll be better equipped to serve our customers. Acceptable language differs from country to country so we also need to acknowledge this and be flexible in the words we use and the actions we take.

We need to reflect who we serve

Our people must be reflective of the communities we work with. So we are actively recruiting a more diverse range of talented professionals.

Our Equality, diversity and Inclusion Committee is playing a big part in reviewing our current ways of working. We meet regularly and it’s a great reflection of the different people who make our organisation the great place it is. We’re challenging the way we currently do things and finding ways to encourage diversity and promote inclusion. It can be uncomfortable, but we can’t reach real equality without first acknowledging that discomfort and why it exists.

Listening to learn

Long story short, we need to come up with new ideas and we want every single person to feel included. We’ve always believed that we’re pro-equality but this year we’ve realised that we’ve not been doing enough. For that we apologise and to get the ball rolling on rectifying the situation we’re about to launch a large-scale data collection project. This will tell us more about the people we serve and how our services can be adapted to suit their needs.

We’re also actively elevating the voices of community members, whether that’s through resident steering groups, sharing personal stories proudly shared by residents, or directly asking how our investment can help. We can only do better by listening to the people who know their community best, so that’s the approach we’re taking.

Our investment in communities is going to help, too. We’ve put together plans for at least eight areas that we know need assistance to help make them a great place to live and work. Within that we’ve highlighted community safety as a key focus, particularly the reporting and tackling of hate crime. We’re going to work with community members to learn how to put a stop to this together.

We’re also long-time partners of Black History Month South which has helped us to stay part of the local conversation. We talk regularly to the coordinators and are hoping to collaborate more often than we currently do so we can connect to more members of the local community.

We will do better because we must

Racism, gender inequality and discrimination will not go away overnight. The road towards a future without these issues is going to be a long one. Because if 2020 has taught us anything it is that we do not live in a society based on equality. But we’re here for the long haul and we’re invested in actively playing our part in changing that.

Why? Because we can’t address what we don’t talk about. And because we know it’s the right thing to do.