News

Lauren (Global Action Plan HR Manager) and Natasha (Head of Comms and EDI panel member) talk about where we are in the current phase of our push to improve our organisational impact around equity, diversity and inclusivity.

"We Share Freely". The change we want to see in the world is bigger than we are. So, we're sharing our knowledge, resources and ideas to help more people and organisations take steps forward towards our vision of a green and thriving planet, where everyone can enjoy happy and healthy lives within the Earth's limits.

 

As part of this, we've launched our "5 Minute GAP" series, a collection of five minute conversations that will share how we work and what we're working on. We'll talk about what we're trying to achieve and why, how we function as an organisation, and the thinking behind our plans and strategy.

 

We'll be regularly sharing these conversations, which will feature different members of our team and trustee board, as well as external experts.

 

We hope you enjoy listening in to our chats, getting to know our team and finding out what makes us who we are. 

 

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If you prefer to read rather than watch, the transcription is here:

Lauren: I was really interested to note that they all staff consultation on EDI that sort of kicked off this part of, or this phase of, our kind of EDI journey happened in May last year. And in some sense, it feels like that wasn't very long ago and this is all still very new. But then when I've been putting together this kind of timeline of the journey so far, you realise that we have done a lot and in organisational terms, I suppose, what is that? Sort of three months shy of a year, isn't that long and actually we have achieved a lot in that time.

We've, you know, we've got the EDI panel, we've started to engage with the board about the conversation and we're now starting our work with Do It Now Now on our action plan and things.

Natasha: It's quite nice to have that sense check. I think, because I think everyone who's involved in the EDI panel at GAP and I think who's involved in EDI work more generally or is passionate about these issues, you want change. So you want things to move and change quickly, but then you do also need the reality check of these things take time. So actually, as you say, looking back at May and thinking it hasn't been that long, it's good to reflect on what we've achieved.

And I think one of the things that's really happened is we've developed a real clarity about what we want to achieve actually, not just sort of the kind of scattergun and sort of setting hares running in lots of different places. Because the other thing that strikes me just thinking about that is that we are a small organisation. You know, we're not we're not many people and we haven't got tons of money, but we are... so it feels like the most important factor is just the commitment to make the change.

Lauren: Yeah, and we were quite lucky to sort of have that confirmed to us with the Inclusive Boards staff survey, which kind of showed us that the interest was there, the staff were really on board, the staff wanted this change and so that's kind of helped us realise, I suppose, that what we need is, is the systems around, that we need the systems and the processes that are going to support us in doing this in a really sort of focused way, as you say, rather than it being a bit more scattergun.

Yeah, and I think as you say, the EDI panel, we've put all that groundwork in place now, and it might be that... I don't know the extent to which the wider staff at GAP are aware of all the work and all the planning that's gone in to date. But I suppose it's going to be fairly soon when these things are going to start to emerge in the more obvious way, like rolling out the training plans which has happened this week so people can now get on the system and start getting some training, start feeling the benefit of this work, because they'll get to learn and it can be part of their development. So I feel like it's only now that the work is creeping into the day to day activity.

Natasha: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah.

Lauren: For us it has been going on for quite a long time, sort of planning and discussing and thinking about where we want to focus. Yes, so it it's nice to see the fruits of that now starting to emerge. And it is very early days, I don't want to get too excited but yeah, it's nice to see it starting to come together.

Natasha: I think you're right that yeah, it will start to feel real for lots of other people in the organisation from this point onwards. They're going to be having lots more of these conversations that we've already been engaged in. They're going to be thinking about it and then there'll be practical steps in terms of embedding things into the organisation. I can't help but think it comes back to this point around being quite... taking the time to think about and be quite deliberate and intentional in terms of what you are, what you're trying to achieve.

We've chosen, for example, to focus initially on race as the kind of, and socioeconomic status set as a kind of secondary point. But we have chosen to kind of focus on two aspects of disadvantage, if you will, to begin with vrather than perhaps trying to tackle lots more. And that's not, it's not necessarily I think that an approach is wrong or right. I think it's about understanding your organisational context, the resources that are available to you, what the priorities are, whether that's internal or external. You know, there's lots of different reasons why, but I think being quite deliberate about some of the choices that you're going to make and some of the things that you're going to try and influence to begin with, I think helps because I think it's going to feel, and I mean this positively, it's going to feel much more real for colleagues soon because it's quite...it is quite deliberate in terms of the areas that we're choosing to specify and focus attention on. People will be receiving training. It will look at recruitment, at onboarding, it will look at culture change and that's going to feel tangible.

And I think that's right rather than perhaps kind of skirting at the edges, we've spoken about how I think there can be an over focus on demographics or demographic, not that demographics aren't important, but an over focus on demographic makeup or data relating to kind of employees and how, you know, that signifier representation is important, but it's not the only thing. And yeah, I think there's a lot of thinking that's gone into it. And I think that thinking is important in terms of achieving tangible outcomes.

Lauren: Yeah, and I think that's playing to our particular strengths at GAP as well. You know, with a lot of the projects we work on, we pride ourselves on that evaluation and measurement and how we're able to deliver on those things. So it's just applying that same thing internally, like let's not focus on the some of the more obvious and straightforward diversity demographic data of, you know, our organisation is made up of X collection of individuals and instead thinking about, well, what do we need to measure to really understand if these people are representative of the organisations or the audiences that we work with, and does everyone in the organisation feel included? Have we got an organisation that provides psychological safety regardless of age, gender, race, socioeconomic background? It's kind of how do we measure those things? And I don't think we've nailed that just yet. We're starting those conversations of saying, well, what does good looks like? Where do we want to get to? And how do we measure that? And I suppose that's one of the next challenges that we're going to be looking at.

And we've obviously got the help of Do It Now Now. So we will have that external input on what we're doing well and all of their expertise, which is just going to be fantastic because they are the specialist and they already are bringing a wealth of kind of tools and resources onto the table for us, which is great.

Natasha: Yeah, I mean, on that point about resources, I was talking just now actually with a colleague, just reflecting on how, you know, again, for a small organisation like us, I think the support that they're giving us just just some of the practical elements of having the training program put together and it being sort of easily available, that's such just incredible support I think, to have. I was trying to imagine what it would be like if you or even a few members of the EDI panel was pull... were tasked with pulling together that kind of training program. It would be incredibly difficult, let alone any sense of like quality assurance or... and that brings us onto the second thing that they're giving us is that that critical friend, the critical lens. Constructive, but an external perspective that doesn't just kind of... that challenges us in a really good way.