MITIE: Diversity in Bids

There have been interesting and innovative developments recently in the field of Equality and Diversity. In particular, the legislative environment has changed and this is having an effect on companies and organisations wishing to demonstrate their commitment to this new agenda and to derive business benefits from that commitment. For instance, organisations wishing to bid for government and public sector contracts are now finding that the requirements relating to Equality and Diversity have changed considerably.

As a result Equality Works were commissioned to carry out a brief audit of MITIE’s capacity to demonstrate the level of good practice relating to Equality and Diversity that is now required in public sector contract bids. The outcome was a report identifying areas of good practice and areas where MITIE might be able to strengthen its evidence, or the practice on which the evidence is based.

We initially met with key individuals in Human Resources to:

• Become familiar with the bid process used at MITIE;
• Understand the practices at MITIE which form the basis of the evidence used in bids (e.g. monitoring, recruitment); and
• Understand what policies and practices are in place at MITIE that help to make bids successful.

The aim of the meetings was to understand the bidding process and to find out about the equality and diversity information available to include in bids.

We also read and analysed literature for bid requirements and submissions supplied by MITIE and examined the evidence that is usually submitted in relation to Equality and Diversity. This involved looking in detail at documents provided by MITIE as well as documents from local authorities, central government, the Society of Procurement Officers and other sources.

The audit resulted in a report about the company’s capacity to demonstrate its practice by producing credible and easily accessible evidence.

The bid-related benefits of doing this work were:

• That MITIE will be able to develop and play up its strengths in areas where its practice is good;
• That given the audit, in some situations MITIE’s evidence relating to Equality and Diversity will provide a competitive advantage in bidding: in some parts of local government the Equality and Diversity factors will be an absolute requirement; in others it may well be the deciding factor between two very similar bids;
• That it will help MITIE to develop a business case for Equality and Diversity and to develop its brand.

However, there were other benefits of adopting good Equality and Diversity practice: the opportunity to be a leader in your field, delivering excellent performance for customers, leading to repeat business and good morale and staff satisfaction leading to higher levels of performance, creativity and innovation.

As a result of this audit MITIE commissioned a one-day training course called Diversity in Bids. It gives delegates the opportunity to:

• Practise spelling out the business case for diversity;
• Network to find out about examples of good practice in MITIE that can be used as illustrations in bids;
• Understand the requirements of the public sector in relation to Equality and Diversity; and
• Study examples of the kind of work going on in other companies and organistaions.

The course has been well received and will be delivered several times in the coming year. We are expecting MITIE to win many more public sector contracts!