Talking about race and identity in the office is uncomfortable and imperfect, but it is the only way to collectivise our experiences so we form a better understanding of each other as human beings in the workplace – something that will become ever more important with the rise of remote working.
And then there are the official inclusion measures. Diversity reporting is rapidly coming up the regulatory agenda to supplement gender reporting in companies with more than 250 employees.
At PensionBee we have already started reporting our progress internally. Training on unconscious bias should be a part of employee onboarding – most employers are prepared to take tough action against discrimination in the workplace.
They must also provide their employees with the tools to unlearn the behaviours that tend to exclude others. Anonymised hiring and promotion processes, as recently adopted by the Financial Conduct Authority, are perhaps the new way to ensure fair hiring decisions, and an incredibly useful tool to decide what you are looking for in a candidate before you start the hiring process. Within 12 months, these human resource tools will not be novel – they will simply be hygiene.
In sharing this, I hope other leaders will take some useful tips that translate into action. Make no mistake: it is on us, and not the government, to create workplaces where everyone can thrive and to build the kind of world our customers expect to live in.
Romi Savova is founder and chief executive of PensionBee
