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Equalities, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)
From creating a basic awareness of equality issues within specific target groups to mainstreaming equality and diversity across the organisation, Equality Works has helped organisations recognise the importance of EDI and the impact it has on their performance.
For many clients, our role has been to de-mystify the legislation and help them understand their legal responsibilities. We are often approached by clients asking “How can we be sure we are compliant with all the relevant legislation?” and “How can we make sure we get it right, when the risks and costs of getting it wrong are so high?”
Our starting point is to understand each organisation, their specific needs and their unique culture and to tailor our response to ensure a practical and positive result for them.
As well as the case studies below, read more about how one of our clients approaches this area:
Read an interview with Marsha John from East Thames Group
Case studies:
London Underground: Managing Diversity Competence Programme
The Equality and Inclusion agenda is paramount to London Underground’s (LU) mission “to be a world class tube for a world class city”. It sits well with its strategic objectives for customer service, people and stakeholders. In order to meet LU’s mission, a number of projects were put in place to improve service delivery and people management. The Managing Diversity Competency Programme (MDCP) was one of these projects. Its aim was to transform the organisational culture and equip managers with the skills to implement the necessary changes.
Tower Hamlets College: Equalities and Diversity Training
Equality Works has over 15 years experience of producing case studies and other training and facilitation based material for a range of audiences across a number of sector based agencies. In 2008 Equality Works developed a series of case studies as part of a corporate mainstreaming equalities programme for Tower Hamlets College. We presented these case studies to programme managers over a two-day equality training programme. The training programme was attended by over 40 managers.
Cumbria County Council: Equality and Diversity
Cumbria County Council engaged Equality Works to undertake an extensive Equality and Diversity programme which provided training across all levels, from Members to front line staff; encompassed issues from bullying and harassment to Equality Impact Assessment and corporate strategy; assisted in the progression from Level 1 to Level 3 of the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG) and successfully challenged perceptions of Equality and Diversity in an area where they had not traditionally been high on the agenda.
Serco: Equality and Diversity Questionnaire
We were commissioned by Serco Docklands to work on the design and analysis of a questionnaire.
Firstly, we designed a questionnaire for all managers and supervisors in Serco Docklands to assess current levels of their knowledge and understanding of equality and diversity issues. The goal was to design the questionnaire in ways that would enable Serco Docklands to track progress in the future and to use in other parts of the business.
Lake District National Park Authority: Training for Volunteers
Equality Works was initially commissioned to provide a one-day pilot programme entitled, ‘Our National Park – A place for everyone to enjoy’. The aim of the training was to assist volunteers in dealing with the equality issues involved in welcoming visitors from a diverse range of backgrounds to the national park.
Improvement and Development Agency: Core Training
Over the past two years Equality Works has built a strong relationship with the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and delivered three core training programmes across their organisation. These courses are: equalities and diversity for staff, equalities and diversity for managers and Equality Impact Assessment training.
Westminster City Council: Equalities and Diversity Training
Equality Works was commissioned by Westminster City Council to develop and conduct equalities and diversity training for 2 separate groups of staff:
- Team Leaders, Supervisors and Professional Practitioners; and
- Operational Managers, Senior Technical/Specialist Roles and Divisional Heads.
The overall aims of both training programmes were:
Medway Council: Carousel Training Days
Our work with Medway has had several strands and has been continuing since 1998. The Equalities and Diversity project has had three phases. With the aim of mainstreaming equalities into all Council activities and to ensure that managers and staff integrate equalities into their key functions, Equality works were commissioned to carry out ‘Carousel training days.’
Medway Council: Black Workers’ Forum
We are proud of our long standing relationship with Medway Black Workers’ Forum (BWF), one of the most long lived and successful staff forums in the UK. We have facilitated sessions for them regularly since 2001.
London Borough of Tower Hamlets: Sexuality Awareness Training
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets recently changed their training provider and approached us on the basis that we have been working with them on a number of projects over the last two years and have received excellent feedback on all the interventions. They commissioned us to run two sessions as a pilot and will then review and evaluate the work for rollout across the Council.
They were thorough and professional, always keen to provide tailored solutions rather than off-the-shelf. This paid dividends, with all staff in the organisation trained in a manner that was responsive to their individual roles and levels.
Tony Americano, Head of Central Services, University of London Deanery
