Race Equality Week: Taking Action & Creating Safe Spaces At Work

02.02.2021

Race Quality Week : Taking Action 

The UK’s first ever Race Equality Week begins today and Insight HRC are excited to be taking part in this campaign.  

Did you know that 75% of employees from an ethnic background experience racism in the workplace? 

A UK-wide initiative, Race Equality Week was launched by community interest company Race Equality Matters to turn words into action; a movement spurred on by the events of 2020 which have heightened the country collective consciousness of the racism, inequality and injustice experienced by ethnic minority people.  

During the pandemic there has been an increasing focus on ‘the new normal’ and a return to the ‘Human Side of HR’. At Insight our theme has been around Making Work Better and we launched a No More 9 to 5 Event Series – supporting HR leaders to navigate the changes that the ongoing disruption has brought. Two of the key areas we are helping organisations with are improving employee wellbeing and create better, more inclusive work environments. That’s why we’re proud to be supporting race equality week. 

The message of Race Equality Week is simple:

Normal is not good enough. Let’s not go back to normal.   

Two of the key ways your organisation can support Race Equality Week are: 

• The Big Promise: a commitment to action, not words. Organisations make a public commitment to create a positive change. 
• Safe Space: which guides conversation into action. This initiative helps organisations enable a meaningful and purposeful dialogue between board members and ethnic minority employees.  

For more information and to sign up to participate, visit raceequalitymatters.com. 

Creating Safe Spaces At Work

We’ve been talking a lot around psychological safety and the impact that this can have on employees and organisations. It’s also a key metric for fighting against racism in corporate environments.  

Psychological safety can be a haven against racism – as in these environments employees feel safe and confident to express their true selves and should not feel like a minority or inferior.  

That’s just one of the ways leaders can work to make their organisations more inclusive. To create safe spaces at work focus on the following; 

• Curiosity  

Be curious about your people, your structures and your challenges. Ask the right questions and focus on asking more meaningful questions.  

• Compassion & Empathy 

Focus on compassionate leadership and working to understand what your employees may be going through. Listen with intent and respond with empathy. Many people have spoken up about racism in the past year and  

• Vulnerability 

Authenticity requires vulnerability.  Being vulnerable about your experiences and how they have shaped your views around racism and equality (or anything else) encourages others to do the same.  

• Openness 

Reinforce the message that everyone’s voice is valid and welcomed at all times. Continually ask for feedback, opinions on matters of importance and work to drop the hierarchical barriers between communications internally. Create space for less formal conversations on a regular basis. 

Our next webinar on the 12th February focuses on managing difficult conversations at work. Click here to register.  

To take further meaningful action get in touch. We’re continuing to support HR leaders and teams to navigate the new working world -with learning programmes on building resilience, transformational leadership, communication for remote teams and more.  

With the right amount of compassion, openness and action we really can make work better.