CIPD Southern Region hosted a webinar in our regions series of virtual events where participants hear from the panel of experts who shared insights and experience on how they managed EDI in their organisations as well as what they needed to know, from a legal perspective.
Panellists:
- Tricia Smyth, Head of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), Dell
- Russell Rochford, Partner, Matheson
- Jacquie Casey, Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition, McKesson
- Don Crowley, Head of Organisational & Professional Development, MTU
- Dr Deirdre O’Donovan, MA in Human Resource Management, Course Coordinator, MTU
Chaired by Andrew Mulcahy, Chair – Southern Region, CIPD Ireland
0:00
on the topic of the achievement culture of equality diversity and inclusion in a company or organization is not easy
0:07
despite the existence of long-standing equality legislation and employment policies inequality still
0:13
persists both nationally and globally in areas such as hiring and gender pay despite a greater
0:19
understanding of edna in the workplace many organizations struggle to know where to begin
0:25
our parents today will share insights and experiences of how they manage ddni in their organizations
0:30
as well as what you need to know from a legal perspective this event will be recorded and made available on the cipd website
0:38
in a few days that's tipd dot now ie pleasure to welcome our director
0:45
of ca to ireland mary carlton would very much like to say a few words and welcome to all of you talk to you
0:50
barry thanks very much andrew and lovely to be here everybody and see you all this
0:57
afternoon and i'm delighted to be supporting this ongoing partnership between cipd and the
1:02
munster technological university and and our regional series really means we bring in people from all
1:08
around the country and that's really important to us in terms of inclusivity and being able to engage with all of you and
1:14
i think today's topic is really important at this point in time we were very conscious in cipd that throughout
1:20
2020 we heard less about diversity and inclusion than we might normally do and we weren't hearing about initiatives
1:27
and interventions but when we did our hr practices survey at the end of the year we found actually that there was still a
1:33
lot of work going on in the area and our metrics were up a lot more well not we're up a little
1:39
in terms of organizations building that inclusive um culture in their organization so that
1:44
was good to see and however we found that there was a risk coming through around caring responsibilities and
1:51
things like working from home that has sort of got highlighted over covet 19
1:57
so it's one of the watch points that we're going to have to deal with going forward is how do we make sure that employees
2:03
can get that balance around caring responsibilities and working from home and returning to
2:08
work so there's some of the challenges that i know we face and in particularly we saw there was
2:13
impacting on women more than men as they were more likely to be the ones managing the care situation and taking
2:20
annual leave to deal with us so really although we're making good strides we still have emerging issues
2:25
that we're going to have to watch out for to try and get that balance right and personally i'm really looking forward to hearing our examples today i
2:32
think you've put pulled together and a great panel and thanks very much to the cipd uh committee in the south for doing
2:39
it and for their support from mtu and from speakers i'm going to hand over to don who's
2:45
going to introduce the speakers for us directly thank you mary and good afternoon
2:51
everyone it's my pleasure on behalf of monster technological university to welcome you to today's webinar i
2:58
thank you mary mary andrew and to the cipd southern region as well for the opportunity
3:04
to partner with you again this year for what has become an annual event as andrew rightly said monster
3:11
technological university or mtu was formed on the 1st of january last following the merger of kirk institute
3:17
of technology and i.t truly and we're delighted this year to be celebrating 40 years of hr education
3:24
in the region and if you're tweeting today please use the hashtag inclusivemtu together with a team of
3:32
colleagues across the school of business and mtu we are involved in the development and rollout of
3:39
edi workshops for staff and students as well as the design and development of
3:44
certificate in edi in the workplace mtu has approximately 18 000 full-time
3:51
and part-time students and approximately 1 800 staff
3:56
developing a strong edi culture and ethos in our staff and students is an essential part of what we do every
4:03
day and we're delighted with the support that we have received and also that this is an area that our
4:10
new president professor maggie cusack is also very passionate about
4:16
society is becoming increasingly diverse as part of mtu's strategic plan
4:23
2018-2023 inclusivity is specifically listed as the first of our five
4:29
core values it states that we strive to support and nurture inclusivity diversity and
4:35
equality recognizing the value they have to the future of our students
4:40
our staff and the wider community mtu is committed to ensuring an
4:47
inclusive environment for all staff students and graduates as well as the wider
4:52
community and my colleague dr deirdre donovan will expand on some of the work being undertaken by her and colleagues
5:00
in our presentation later we've engaged in a wide variety of activities and
5:05
initiatives to foster this culture both on campus and in the community
5:11
and these include initiatives and projects such as live case studies on edna with industry
5:17
partners such as dell technologies for a long number of years we've been
5:22
offering workforce diversity and diversity management electives on a number of our programs and demand
5:29
for these electives is consistently strong from both full-time and part-time students alike
5:34
and many of those part-time students are also working in industry the importance of edi is also being very
5:42
much seen in the stem area with training and demand for students before they come
5:47
into their work placement or before graduates enter the workplace as i mentioned earlier we're currently
5:53
developing a certificate in edi in the workplace which will commence in september and this is aimed at industry
6:00
practitioners and i'll have some more information on that later many of you may be interested in
6:06
this new and innovative program edi workshops for staff in both the
6:12
clark and kerry campuses have commenced last year with the support of our hr
6:17
department and the strategic alignment fund we began delivering diversity and inclusion workshops for staff and
6:23
students we have a very active lgbt plus student society
6:29
who won best society last year and they're leading the way for students and staff in this space
6:35
although the students are well ahead of us here they've taken the society to the next level and really extended the reach of
6:42
the lgbt plus society especially in their volunteering with various community groups off campus
6:50
awareness training on lgbt issues has been delivered through link active consent initiative training has
6:57
been delivered to students and is being rolled out in consultation with the students union and all of our hiring managers have also
7:04
completed unconscious bias training last year mtu's access service and
7:10
teaching and learning unit together with our hr office and athena swan delivered a very
7:15
successful edi week on campus looking at a range of issues including challenges in edi disability
7:23
traveler awareness universal design for learning and unconscious bias
7:30
mtu is also very proud to be involved in the lgbt allies at work initiative
7:35
and it's great to see staff across the campus wearing their rainbow lanyards which is just a small sign of the
7:41
inclusive culture that we want to foster in our students also currently we're undertaking an edi
7:48
survey of all mtu staff academic professional management and support staff the staff
7:54
of the carp campus have completed the survey and that survey is ongoing in the curry campus at
8:00
present at mtu engagement with industry is an essential part of what we do
8:07
i've already mentioned the authentic assessment and the form of life case studies with some of our industry
8:12
partners and we've also partnered with mckesson on a bursary program for female students
8:18
in stem we've collaborated with the likes of boston scientific and also with dell
8:24
technologies on their dell aspire initiative so back to that certificate in edi in
8:30
the workplace that i mentioned earlier this program as i said may be of interest to a lot of you and will come
8:36
in since september it's 20 credits you take a five credit diversity management and inclusion
8:42
module a five credit diversity law module and then there's a 10 credit diversity
8:49
research project so this can be academic or it can be consultancy based
8:54
and many of you may choose to do that project that research project on your own organization
9:00
perhaps as part of a development of your own dni policy so as i said mtu is an inclusive
9:08
community it plays a significant part in the lives of 18 000 students and 1800 staff
9:15
being able to be yourself at work is very important it contributes to better staff morale it
9:21
builds that sense of community and leads to better retention third level is a time where students
9:27
prepare to enter the world of work and develop skills to help them contribute to the greater community
9:34
empowering them to be their authentic selves and embrace the culture of edi in their workplaces of the future
9:41
and in their community leads to a better quality of life for everyone so before i hand over to
9:48
the first guest today can i again thank mary andrew jacinta lindy and
9:53
mary for all of their work in making this event possible i know that today is mary's last event
9:59
with cipd and mtu and i'd like to thank her for working so closely with us over the last number of
10:05
years to foster a positive and mutually beneficial partnership for cipd
10:10
and mtu it has been a pleasure working with you and we are delighted to partner with you again this year on this event
10:17
for members and for students and great to have um almost uh i think over 300 people signed
10:22
up so those of them who aren't here today will get these presentations over the coming days
10:28
so now it's my pleasure to introduce our speakers and we're delighted to be in to be joined by trisha smith
10:35
global lead of diversity and inclusion for dell technologies by jackie casey the senior manager of
10:42
talent acquisition with mckesson by dr deirdre donovan who is a lecturer
10:47
and course coordinator for the master of arts in human resource management at monster technological university and
10:53
by russell rochford partner with madison so before i
10:59
give you trisha's background and and bio can i ask you please to enter your
11:04
questions using the chat function as we progress through each of the presentations and again
11:09
please use the hashtag inclusivemtu if you're tweeting about the event
11:15
so as i said our first speaker today is trisha smith who's the head of diversity and inclusion for dell technologies in
11:21
europe middle east and africa at dell dni is more than what they do
11:27
it's who they are having full leadership buy-in is critical when creating real change within
11:34
organizations and as part of her role trisha works with the business leadership teams to drive a business driven culture
11:41
of diversity and inclusion and to ensure that dell remains an employer of choice
11:48
trisha is also responsible for driving leadership commitment engagement of customers and team members
11:54
in their dni agenda and promoting partnerships and engagements with global companies and
11:59
advocates with almost 5000 team members in ireland trisha is well positioned at the center
12:05
of dell technologies international operations based in kirk she brings away
12:11
international experience across her 15 years of passionately driving dni initiatives
12:17
and employee engagement across all of her previous roles so trisha over to you and we're looking
12:23
forward to your presentation thanks john thanks for the glowing introduction and thank you to cipd
12:29
ireland for the invitation um i have to start because we're in a zoom environment can you all see my
12:34
screen before i start give me a thumbs up if you can excellent and not my messy notes
12:40
and now genuinely look thank you for the invitation to come and talk to you so i'm just going
12:47
to start by sharing i don't have all the answers that's a different presentation
12:52
and but as john said my name is tricia smith and i do have the privilege of leading the diversity and inclusion
12:58
program for emea for adele and i'm very much looking forward to today i have disabled speaking sharing but
13:05
also learning from all the contributors you know already it was interesting hearing mary talking about the watchpoint of
13:11
carers you know people going back to work after krovet because that's something that we see in our business every day as well
13:17
so it's often good to just have these chats and recognize we're not doing this alone and and this
13:24
it's funny i talk to a lot of different teams ages nationalities companies
13:29
and the same topics come up so i guess it might be the same for you and although we don't have all the
13:34
answers we're trying at dell um and widely recognized as an industry leader
13:40
so what i'm going to do today is set the context briefly with an overview of dell who we
13:45
are and then talk a little about our strategy around ddi before sharing some of the programs that we run to cultivate that sense of
13:51
belonging inclusion as a company huge part of it is our employee resource groups ergs
13:57
so my goal today is to give you some context for within which our ergs work and share
14:04
information with the hopes that you find something you find value in and can take away for you and your organizations
14:11
so to kick off dell technologies who are we so when people think of dell you
14:17
often think laptops and yes that's a part of our business and i hope that you're watching this on adele laptop
14:23
um but what we do overall as a company is we create technologies to drive human progress so if you go to our website that's what
14:29
you will see so we're first and foremost an end-to-end technology provider
14:34
and i'm often asked what does that mean so how i like to think of it very simplistically is okay whatever
14:40
you're using to watch this whether it's pc laptop tablet that's the edge
14:46
and then you have the servers in your organization that serve your hardware on the edge so the route through then you've got the
14:53
cloud like zoom in this case or how your emails magically arrived
14:58
onto your laptop you've got the data center that brings it all together and then really importantly how we keep
15:04
all of that secure so hugely simplified and i hope that any technical people on the call
15:09
will excuse my simplification but that is really how i look at it so how we do that is we have seven
15:16
companies operating in that ecosystem and in ireland specifically then
15:21
we have five of those companies with a significant presence here with global and emea functions and
15:28
sales support in belfast so our ethos in this country apologies my phone is dinging here and
15:36
is three sites acting seamlessly as one so 10 sites in total between in cork for
15:43
example we have um dell we have dell emc we have pivotal virtue stream vmware
15:49
names that you may have heard of but that you didn't realize were part of the dell ecosystem and as dell's as dan said we have almost
15:57
5 000 full-time employees team members here and in total we have over 6 000
16:05
so as i said just to set the context to start with and back to that line you know i said we
16:11
create technologies that drive human progress so as one of the largest global
16:16
technology providers we think that we have a unique role to play in transforming the future
16:22
driving human progress and that we're well positioned to do so knowing the importance of social impact
16:28
the power of technology we're constantly asking the question how can we along with our customers
16:33
partners suppliers industry partners like this have a profound and positive impact on
16:39
society and the planet within the next 10 years so in november 2019
16:46
we launched our plan to do so which we called progress made real
16:51
so i want to share this with you just to share that this is what we look at as a
16:56
strategy within the entire company yes there's a bottom-up approach to edi equity diversity and inclusion
17:04
but really this is also top down it isn't new to us we previously had our legacy of good
17:10
you know we're always rated on forbes best employers for diversity and indeed's list of top-rated companies
17:16
for work-life balance things like that but what we try to do with this plan is marry
17:21
the two so our focus on driving inclusion as part of the social impact
17:26
is driven top down it's embraced by michael dell through his leadership team and that's my first
17:32
big point now as i said at the start i'm privileged absolutely privileged because i know that i have a mandate
17:38
because i see michael dell on stage on cnbc speaking about this stuff his name is on
17:45
the company he speaks about the stuff it's real as well as the new technology company
17:51
announcements so how can we make the next 10 years so much better
17:56
and this is our plan across four different areas advancing sustainability cultivating
18:03
inclusion and transforming lives by addressing society's most pressing issues and underlying each of these of course
18:09
is our commitment to ethics and data privacy so we also believe as a company that
18:15
what gets measured gets done anybody who has had dealings with dell will be familiar with
18:20
this so across each of these four areas we did launch what we called our moonshot goals what seemed like reaching for the
18:27
moon back in 2019 unattainable maybe but we still want to work towards it
18:32
but what we're seeing already is because of the laser focus on these goals we're already having an
18:38
impact and for cultivating inclusion our goal
18:44
is to have 50 of our global workforce and 40 of our people leaders to be women by
18:50
2030. we have to increase the diversity of our leadership and real inclusion happens on
18:56
purpose that is why we're doing this so how do we do it i don't have to tell you
19:03
you know the race for talent is keen but we also need to look at keeping our key challenge and then looking at this not just as a
19:10
company but as an industry so how we do that is across three pillars
19:16
we look at building and attracting the future workforce and that's very important don mentioned there about the
19:24
um the stella the aspire program but we also then want to keep talent and
19:31
really as i said at the start cultivate that feeling of belonging so i'm racing through this
19:37
but i did want to share just to give you that idea of the tone at the top reforming into our ergs our employee
19:45
resource groups so across the company we have 13 years of asian ireland and we're often asked what's in it for
19:51
me so this one page is the why for employee resource groups you know a lot of you will know the research better
19:58
than i do um but by 2024 i think it's estimated that about three quarters of the global workforce will be millennials or gen z
20:05
and just look at the way the world is changing and how that demographic is responding to the changes so as you can see here 84
20:13
of 25 to 34 year olds said that ergs have a positive impact on engagement we also did a lot of research and it's
20:19
on our website actually on gen z two years ago and another interesting finding
20:25
was that 65 were willing to take a lesser paid job for a job with more
20:30
purpose so this really is at the basis of what we try to do as a company
20:37
so here in ireland the percentage is even higher in terms of participation and these four ergs i'm going to hone in
20:44
on the bottom one a lot of viewers companies might have employee resource groups that reflect for example connexxus remote workforce
20:52
that came into its own last year they were able to straightaway support that move to virtual for us as a company
20:59
there's the business imperative but as mary mentioned at the start you know there is a known as an
21:04
extra responsibility we all have it i have my children on alert to not make noise for
21:10
the 10 minutes that i'm talking you know and our newest urge is family balance
21:15
and it started it was a surprise i suppose where it came from but it's really resonating through the pandemic
21:22
and obviously we have traditional families but we also have a couple of areas specifically right now
21:27
for example those caring for someone else whether it's an older person a child a sim sibling and we want to support and
21:35
ensure that those people have access to the support that's available for them they don't feel like they have to choose
21:42
between one or the other as a company i've included details of all of our
21:48
employee resource groups in here for you as well as these the other thing that i wanted to
21:54
highlight was our mark program so started in 2015 um
22:02
from a catalyst program this it's a four-hour session that all of our managers have now gone through and how this ties back in
22:10
is that this program leads team members through a journey around diversity inclusion unconscious bias
22:16
but the whole way into privilege recognizing your privilege and how to use it at work so it's very
22:22
important for us to ensure that things like the eorgs can function that team members can have access to
22:29
them as they go through their daily work as well so finally back to the start
22:36
as i said the key takeaway from our journey certainly is dna it's not an isolated program
22:43
although i'm responsible for the program here everybody in the company
22:48
is and it has to go the whole way through the entire organization tone at the top the company culture and
22:55
write down into the specific programs and tools like mark and eorg's
23:00
that we use as a company that's how we've seen success that's how we're hoping to continue to
23:06
see success and i'm very much looking forward to hearing from jackie as well
23:11
i know that some of the specific types of programs that they run at mckesson are interesting to us so look thank you
23:19
we can do this together let's keep sharing and again thank you don and to the cipd for the invitation today
23:28
thank you jackie and thanks for that for sharing that information so openly with us as well today and that has been very well
23:34
received and i'm sure that we'll have lots of questions as well later so our next speaker is jackie
23:41
casey from mckesson jackie is the senior manager for talent acquisition
23:47
and leads the team in ireland mckesson is a global farmland healthcare company
23:52
which is currently ranked seventh on the fortune 500 list a previous diversity and inclusion
23:59
innovation award winner during her time working with dell emc jackie founded
24:04
the mentoring role model program called stem aspire jackie is dedicated to ensuring
24:11
talent acquisition continues to impact and influence mckesson's dni initiatives and business
24:16
strategies so again over to you jackie and everyone if you'd like to put your questions in
24:21
chat as we go through please please feel free thank you john firstly
24:27
can you see the full screen am i sharing correctly we
24:42
okay perfect thanks
24:47
sorry not just for with me right okay so thank you so much john and thank
24:53
you to the cipd and to mtu and for the kind invite i'm absolutely delighted to be here today
25:00
so um what i'd like to do during my 10 minutes is to briefly introduce you to
25:05
mckesson and then maybe to focus on some of the dei initiatives that we have in the court site and then i'd like to
25:11
summarize by sharing a few top tips from a recruitment perspective
25:17
so mckesson's story begins over 185 years ago when john mckesson and charles olcott
25:23
first founded all cotton mckesson in new york city in 1833 and their first customers were the
25:30
captains of clipper ships and they were docked in nearby harbor and they went on from those early years
25:36
they went on to um develop the us's first nationwide drug distribution network
25:42
and they've been innovating ever since to improve patient care around the world
25:47
now mckesson are the largest and oldest healthcare company in north america they're ranked
25:52
number seven in the fortune 500 and mckesson deliver over a third of all prescriptive medicines in the us
26:04
so i think it's important to briefly share um mckesson's vision and our values to help understand the
26:09
company culture and also to understand what drives our diversity agenda so our vision is to improve care in
26:16
every setting and who we have our patients pharmacies providers
26:22
hospital hospitals and health systems biopharma and manufacturers and employees and or
26:29
how we work together are our values which are which are called eye care and i lead our eye care values and they kind of
26:36
guide how we treat each other our customers and everybody that we interact with and our eyelid values
26:42
guide how we approach leadership and we believe that everyone regardless of title our position has a responsibility
26:48
to lead and this year review really pushes us to make better faster decisions that benefit our customers
26:54
our employees and more importantly our patients and i have to say these values really are the language within mckesson
27:01
and they really have created a culture where people choose to be a part of and also the underpinner dei approach
27:08
as an organization mckesson are dedicated to doing their part to eliminate bias and to promote equality justice and
27:15
furnace in the world as well as inclusion diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace to support
27:22
employee growth we provide regular feedback and training and work to create and maintain an inclusive environment where everyone
27:29
brings their authentic self to work and know that they are appreciated and that the perspectives are heard and
27:34
considered in 2020 we appointed a chief impact officer dr kelvin baggett as a direct report to the
27:42
ceo brian tyler and he will have global responsibility for enterprise sustainability strategy
27:48
social impact and our dei agenda and in addition to this we are proud to be recognized for the seventh
27:54
consecutive year as one of the best places to work for lgbtq equality by the
27:59
human rights foundation and as well as the best place to work for a disability inclusion on the disability index for the fifth
28:05
consecutive year also honored to be recognized as one of the best employers for diversity by ford
28:13
so this will bring me to the court site where i am based um mckesson cork and they're actually based in the airport
28:18
business park and they consist of a team of over 150 employees who provide valuable business solutions
28:25
to mckesson businesses in ireland in north america in the uk in luxembourg and south east asia
28:32
the cork office has a very impressive broad structure strategist story it started in 2001 and as a nine
28:38
employee software distribution company where they were shipping tapes and cds dvds and
28:44
printed materials and this year is our 20 years in cork and so really since 2006 the main growth in the
28:51
cork site has been within the technology space so as well as our corporate services
28:57
and north star which is um a subsidiary of mckesson the main bulk of our operations in court
29:02
which lies in isrm which is you know information security risk management cyber security and also within
29:09
innovation such as ux design and devops so one of the cornerstones in my mind
29:16
one of the cornerstones of a successful dei programmer strategy is that they are rooted in authentic
29:22
commitment to making a difference as a company one of our key imperatives in cork
29:28
and has been supporting women in technology we are very proud to sponsor the mckesson mtu
29:34
scholarship and the mckesson women in it scholarship is awarded to the leaving certificate
29:40
student with the highest ceo points and as they enter into a program in the department of computer
29:47
science and the scholarship fees will be paid to the recipient for every year of their undergraduate
29:53
program and also mckesson provides them with a placement during their interim year
29:58
as well as mentors and the mckesson female phd scholarship is the first of its kind
30:04
in the country and it didn't start out to be so um i suppose unique and initially
30:12
it wasn't it was intended to be fit you know female only but at that time and was in mtu it was cit
30:20
and the crt advance program there was actually six phd positions available in total but they
30:26
only received six female applicants so when it was advertised then as a female phd there was an 85 percent
30:34
increase in women applying they had over 40 applications and i think this statistic
30:39
alone you know shows the um it shows the i suppose the the diversity
30:46
that is available when you when you really kind of put it out there so what i would like to
30:51
summarize with now is to share some top tips from a ta perspective and the number one one is know your why
30:59
you know employees are thinking bigger and beyond compliance these days now
31:04
compliance is very important russell will tell you all about how important compliance is in a minute
31:09
um but being intentional as to what you are prioritizing is essential to getting the support that you need from your
31:16
employees the key stakeholders so pick the main area that you wish to concentrate on so
31:21
for example in cork it was women in tech and within london it's having more diversity at the senior
31:29
level and for example so hr roles in ta rules from you know it was looking at the gender
31:35
banks and you know trying to attract more male applicants so really if everything is a priority
31:40
nothing is so be very clear on your why diversely so i want you to think of ta
31:46
as the talent gatekeepers enable them to drive the diversity agenda and to have deliver on
31:52
the relevant scorecard criteria holding ta accountable for providing a diverse shortlist and
31:59
diversity hiring can really help an organization to increase their ability to achieve the diversity
32:04
by between 21 and 37 however we must be realistic as this can
32:11
come at a price usually it increases the time to fill and also ta as a function
32:17
can be very goal orientated so it's worth considering these points in relation to setting metrics and kpis
32:23
it's also important for recruiters to remove bias wherever possible some examples obviously would be submitting
32:31
uh blind cvs removing bias from job descriptions using gender neutral language or you
32:38
know removing the barrier of a degree qualification um another tip that i find very useful
32:44
is to ensure you have a diverse interview panel not just in gender but also in level
32:52
okay and moving on to education and training so recruiters must know how to identify and mitigate
32:58
their biases when sourcing and evaluating diverse candidates just as much as the managers must
33:04
understand their part of their role in relation to driving diversity so it's important for
33:10
companies to ensure that their diversity training targets awareness
33:15
and skills development so for example small like micro learning then up to you know
33:21
bigger unconscious bias learning such as the mark program that tricia just mentioned and next up is local communities and so
33:30
workflow workforces should really reflect the communities that they serve and it's important to be community
33:35
minded and as a company we strive to strengthen our partnerships with non-profit and with charity organizations and
33:41
another example in the court site is our commitment to supporting the arts and our chosen and
33:49
you know our chosen beneficiary is actually the court opera house which is also a great attraction too and also a great benefit
33:56
and i for one cannot wait until the theaters open up um and as already mentioned mcketson corp
34:02
has strong relationships with local colleges but also with other educational initiatives such as the women reboot program and
34:09
which is the step back to it program and the fast track to it program and as well as we appreciate we we
34:16
participate regularly in the junior achievement programs and remote working as a company we have
34:23
always been fairly flexible however cobit has definitely opened up the talent pool in relation to recruit
34:29
for recruiters in relation to location and and disability the hr team also
34:35
created a specific program for employees called flex for your day
34:40
and this is supportive for managers on how to build a team culture that enables the flexibility within their team's work
34:47
schedules and it provides some really helpful resources for managers and how to talk to their teams how to
34:53
evaluate their options and to really help their employees to succeed and the final point inclusion there is
35:01
no diversity without inclusion being able to attract a diverse staff whether it's in terms of
35:06
gender ethnicity age disability or lgbtq is only the first step if we can't
35:13
retain these employees and all of the efforts that we went into recruiting has been for nothing
35:18
employees of any kind that don't feel welcomed appreciated equal and included are less
35:24
likely to contribute in a way that makes the company profitable or to stay for very long or to recommend
35:31
a referral for another diverse hire down the line um and so this is where the company's culture is key sometimes there can be
35:38
challenges in relation to diversity but there really should be no barriers in relation to inclusion
35:44
there's some great initiatives from a lot of organizations in relation to inclusion programs for example the drgs
35:50
that trisha mentioned and another recent example that our hr ops team have
35:55
managed to launch in in the court site it's a program called mental health first aiders
36:01
and this is a training program that is offered to all staff on a voluntary basis it's a two-day program and what it does
36:07
it helps um train them on how to recognize the early signs of mental health problems and to feel more confident in supporting
36:14
someone being a colleague or a family member experiencing any such problems and then
36:19
that employee becomes a mental health ambassador and it really delivers a sense of
36:24
psychological safety within the fight and i have to say that this program has really proved so beneficial especially
36:30
in this last year when we've been through so much change so i'd like to thank you so much for
36:36
your time i'm hoping some of these tips might and you know give you some inspiration from your your recruitment
36:41
perspective so i should head you back to don thank you so much thank you jackie and thanks for your um
36:48
very clear presentation there as well some great insights and i think that there are some great examples from both
36:55
trisha and yourself that will be of use for companies and organizations that are maybe not as far along their edi journey
37:02
maybe as as your organizations are at the moment so thank you jackie our next speaker is
37:08
dr deirdre o'donovan who is the lecturer and course coordinator of the master of arts in
37:13
human resource management at mtu with 12 years of lecturing experience in hrm and hrm related
37:20
modules deirdre was responsible for the design and development of the diversity management module on the ba in hrm in
37:28
2016 and is currently working on module development for our certificate in diversity and inclusion in the workplace
37:35
commencing in september deirdre's activities in research emerged from her postgraduate work
37:42
and are now primarily concerned with edi hrm and industrial and organizational
37:48
psychology particularly in the areas of inclusion and organizational citizenship behaviors
37:54
in 2015 deirdre completed her phd entitled diversity inclusion and
38:00
organizational citizenship behaviors a study of nurses in the irish healthcare sector
38:07
a conceptual framework for inclusion resulted from that study and more recently deirdre has published
38:13
four book chapters across the last five years the first two specifically related to
38:18
diversity and inclusion the third providing an overview of the hrm function
38:24
and the fourth chapter exploring the relationship between dni ocds and the learning and knowledge
38:30
management so again please feel free to answer your questions in the chat please use the inclusive mtu in your
38:37
tweets and i'll hand you over to deirdre thank you
38:46
thank you don that intro has made me feel a bit tired and very busy um i'm here to give a
38:53
slightly different perspective to trisha and jackie so we're coming from still an organization but we're
38:58
coming from public sector organization so i'm delighted to be here on behalf of
39:03
my colleagues this morning and to give a whirlwind whistle stop very quick tour of the edi project that we are currently
39:11
working on across mtu it's a project that we're very excited by um it's the first of its kind certainly
39:18
in terms of the higher education sector in ireland in terms of scope and size let's speak to that a little bit more
39:24
it began back in 2019 when our hr manager director casey
39:30
became aware of the need for some specific dni training in mtu
39:36
and she decided to look uh in-house to internal expertise and that's where i and the rest of the team came
39:41
on board to look at what we could do in this space across mtu now that's important because it means
39:47
that the project began as being needs driven it's continued to be needs driven and now it's both needs
39:53
driven and data driven so we're continually using our activities to work out what else is needed where we
39:59
need to go next in this project one of the things then that makes us unique um in terms of scope and size again in
40:06
the the education sector is that it's university-wide engagement so regardless of the type of student you
40:13
are whether you are full-time part-time day night access regardless the type of staff member whether you're teaching
40:19
non-teaching full-time permanent casual whoever you are if you're a stakeholder in mtu
40:25
this project concerns you and you can be as involved in this as you want to be
40:31
because our ultimate goal and i liked earlier when jackie was saying that the y is important our ultimate goal here is very clear we want to keep working
40:38
towards more inclusive classrooms and there's lots of activities already being done on that in mtu and we want to create an overall
40:44
inclusive mtu then for everybody so we're not just interested in staff we're not just interested in students it's about every stakeholder
40:51
and every stakeholder's experience or perception of inclusion while they're in mtu
40:57
so one of the first things that we did was we designed those workshops to meet the need for training
41:04
the workshops are both skills and awareness focused and that's something that we think is
41:09
important so it's not just about giving people awareness of things that matter to others it's not about
41:15
helping them to understand themselves more it's also about what the practicality of that
41:20
what does all of this edi stuff actually mean for us on a daily basis
41:25
in mtu how does it impact our performance and how can we assist students to learn and to engage in the learning
41:32
process and to perform to the best of their abilities and how can we help our fellow staff
41:37
members to perform their job to the best their abilities because that's really the crux of inclusion the crux of inclusion is
41:43
letting people be so that they can do their job the best way that they can
41:49
because of that it's very much focused in the workshops on engagement participation conversation
41:56
so creating that space and i know it always sounds very psychobabbly when you say it but creating that safe space
42:02
so that people know that this is where they can come and they can ask questions and they can raise issues that matter to them
42:09
in the workshops we look at a number of important concepts that are probably familiar to many of you so we set the
42:16
scene first for diversity in ireland uh diversity and education so again that why behind why we're here
42:23
we then explore the concepts of microaggressions uh privilege unconscious bias and then
42:31
we spend a hefty maybe third of the workshop looking specifically at inclusion what it is what it means what it doesn't
42:38
mean and how it impacts us daily across mtu
42:43
all of that is a lot the workshops um go on for about three hours now we've been told they don't feel that long
42:48
thankfully but they are they are heavy um especially if we have good participation
42:54
we want to make sure that people go away with the skills and the knowledge and a point of reference
43:00
coming out of the workshops so we've designed what we call our takeaway packs and in those takeaway packs we reinforce
43:06
everything that's happened in the workshop we have um content on everything that we cover
43:12
all of the exercises and activities that we use in the workshop they all go into that pack as well so people can look
43:17
back to what came up and any points that were interesting to them and anything that they took note of to use going forward
43:25
but we also give more information that makes people feel hopefully more
43:30
comfortable and engaging with dialogue in dialogue with people going forward so for example we have
43:37
um content on gender identity terminology sexual orientation terminology and we
43:43
have a table in there that we call the practicalities and in that we've identified a number of
43:49
dimensions of diversity and we talked about what they may mean for students in the classroom for students on campus and for
43:56
staff both in and outside the classroom and in campus in general
44:01
we've also created an overarching edi policy
44:06
now what i mean by an overarching policy is that it doesn't deal with absolutely everything to do with edi in that policy
44:12
it's not completely exhaustive but what it is is it's our umbrella for everything else that's going to
44:18
happen for edi so it identifies other policies that need to be developed and it identifies policies that we have that
44:24
are already really good but that we need to just re-examine an edi lens and it identifies a number of
44:30
activities and procedures that will stem from that now all of those are both needs and data
44:35
driven coming from the original needs of our stakeholders and what we're identifying as we go along the way
44:42
our other core activity um at this point is research so there's been quite a body of
44:47
research undertaken and first in terms of desk research to help
44:53
us shape our workshops and our eti policy but now also in terms of as don mentioned and pretty exhaustive
44:59
questionnaires across the entirety of mtu with staff and students there's
45:05
a number of things important to us and very important to us that shape what we do and how we do it on this project
45:11
the first thing is we want to capture the current initiatives in place there are some fantastic dni initiatives
45:18
happening in mtu long before this project started we want to find out all of the ones that we don't know about
45:24
not reviewed cannibalizing them but with a view to working out well how can we help how can we help these initiatives uh
45:30
further what can they learn from us what can we learn from them to shape our future activities
45:36
another core um importance for us is framing so
45:42
we try to frame everything and be very intentional in our framings that we can create safety for dialogue we begin the
45:50
workshops by reminding people that even though we're lecturers we're not here to lecture them we're not there to tell them they're bad
45:56
people we're not there to tell them that everything they've ever done or thought about dni is wrong we're there to create awareness
46:03
and to help them to be empathetic to um other students and staff and to identify what matters to them and how we
46:09
can all work together to create more inclusion and it's important because there's an element of accountability
46:15
um for you and others when it comes to inclusion and i'll speak to that again in a minute
46:21
the final thing that's important to us is moving beyond diversity management so moving beyond individual initiatives
46:28
towards the concept of inclusion or true inclusion so something we thought that would be
46:33
helpful to share with you to illustrate what we mean by that is is this model it's a framework for factors
46:39
contributing to inclusion so this shows based on research that diversity management is really important
46:45
and initiatives individual initiatives are very important they're a really good starting off point
46:50
for informing what we try to do with inclusion for beginning our skills and awareness training for creating that open dialogue
46:58
but we need to move past them fairly quickly towards thinking about inclusion more holistically
47:03
beyond dimensions of diversity we need to think about inclusion about
47:09
the individual level and the organizational level because we know that you can feel included and unincluded
47:15
at the same time you could feel included in one context basically so maybe in your team
47:20
but not included in another context or maybe not in the wider organization we also can't presume that because
47:26
someone feels included now that they will always feel included it's very similar to the concept of engagement
47:31
and what this model shows us is that diversity is half the the battle for want of a better word
47:36
with are infrastructural issues there are organizational specific issues that also impact whether we feel included
47:43
so whether we feel like we're part of a team um the extent to which we perceive
47:49
stability so stability referring to familiarity within environment but also to
47:56
um the development of friendships and relationships in the workplace do i have someone to go for a cup of
48:01
coffee with do i have someone to be my sounding board engagement and inclusion then are fairly
48:07
inextricably linked so typically if someone does not feel engaged in their job they also don't
48:12
feel fully included and vice versa someone doesn't feel included their engagement levels tend to drop as well
48:19
the issue of respect then so perceiving respect feeling respected by others and then of course management support
48:24
because management set the scene for everything in the organization so what's next for us is a lot more
48:30
activity and continuation of what we're already doing a lot more stakeholder involvement because we need to know what people
48:36
want in order to shape activities that help them feel included induction training for staff and
48:43
students so based on what we're doing now at some point we will develop induction training that every staff member and every student who comes
48:50
to mtu will take part in constantly reinforcing that message of inclusion
48:55
as they go through their time with us and mtu and reporting and sharing findings and
49:00
learning not just with academia but with industry so we are an academic content
49:05
still an organization and a workplace so what we learn in our context is just
49:11
as applicable to every other context and as dan mentioned we have the search and edi as well hopefully rolling out in
49:16
september which will hopefully see some of you at and i know now i'm at time so i want to
49:22
leave you just a couple of points okay our first intended outcome is inclusion for everybody
49:27
regardless whether you're a staff member whether you're a student whether you're an affiliate to someone who works on the fringes whoever you are if you
49:34
have a stakeholder interest in mtu we want you to perceive inclusion we want you to be able to perform while you're
49:40
with us value reinforcement if you pop onto the mt website you look up our values
49:47
the very first value is identified as inclusion we can't have a value of inclusion if
49:52
we're not continually reinforcing that even though we're aware that what inclusion is is different to everybody
50:00
and the very last thing i want to very very briefly leave you with is the concept of accountability
50:06
so when we talk about dni initiatives very often it's framed from how can i as
50:13
an individual help other people to feel included and that's really important your intent is important and why you're
50:20
doing what you're doing why you're saying what you're saying is important and you have a role but
50:25
try to remember as well though that other people have an accountability for their inclusion
50:30
if something is important to me i can't expect anyone else to know that unless i tell them
50:35
if i have a particular preference i can't expect anybody to know that unless i tell them so bear that in mind when you're trying
50:41
to work out how to be inclusive it's different for everybody and you can't know unless we create a
50:48
space for dialogue where we can share what's important thank you for bearing with me and i know
50:55
that was a very quick tour but i'll pass you back to don now for the legal context of russell
51:01
thank you deirdre and thank you for bringing us through um some of the mtu edi initiatives
51:08
um which will have a positive impact on our staff our students and on the wider community
51:14
as well so our final speaker today is russell rochford who is a partner with matheson
51:20
russell is partner in the top ranked uh employment pensions and benefits group of matheson
51:26
with over 14 years of experience advising a wide range of public sector
51:32
third sector corporate and institutional clients in the uk and ireland across a spectrum of contentious and
51:38
non-contentious employment industrial relations equality and immigration law
51:44
russell regularly advises employer clients on equality and dni issues arising from recruitment determination
51:52
including managing sensitive and complex equality disputes and litigation
51:58
he's an active member of the uk employment lawyers association the european employment lawyers
52:04
association and the employment lawyers association of ireland and the american bar association as well
52:12
as delivering regular presentations and training to colleagues and clients russell has delivered bespoke training
52:18
to members of the american chamber of commerce and the institute of directors in ireland on managing employment law risk
52:25
and defending employment claims he also regularly presents the deployment conferences organized by the american
52:31
bar association in the us and the white company here in ireland so again please feel free to enter your
52:38
questions in chat and russell over to you thanks very much don can i just first of
52:44
all check that i'm sharing my screen properly can people see that great thanks very much and many thanks
52:50
as well to the mtu and the cipd for inviting me along to today's session i'm
52:55
delighted to take part so as we've already heard the proper implementation of a dni program can
53:02
bring great benefits to a an employer but where an employer doesn't do that it can lead to problems
53:08
with productivity and staff morale and also give rise to employee relations issues
53:14
at its worst though it can expose an employer to a number of different claims under the employment equality
53:19
legislation so what i'd like to do first of all is give you a high level and overview of the obligations that an
53:26
employer has under the employment equality legislation i'll then consider how an employer can be made liable for claims and also the
53:33
types of remedies that are available to employees under the legislation lastly i'm going
53:38
to consider three particular cases recent cases to illustrate why it is so important
53:44
for an employer to foster a culture that prevents discrimination and promotes diversity
53:50
so as you know i'm sure the equality legislation prohibits direct and indirect discrimination against
53:55
employees and prospective employees on the basis of nine protected characteristics which are
54:00
hopefully listed there on the slide the legislation also prohibits harassment on the basis of any of those
54:05
characteristics and the victimization of an employee where they raise issues about equality and good faith
54:13
lastly the legislation requires that all employees are entitled to equal pay for equal work or work of equal value
54:19
and it also the legislation also imposes implied equal pay and non-discrimination
54:24
clauses into everyone's contracts of employment so there are therefore a number of
54:31
different claims that can be brought against an employer and that they can be exposed to under the equality
54:36
legislation the legislation only provides a defense to an employer for an indirect
54:41
discrimination claim so an employer will basically be vicariously liable for the acts of an
54:46
employee that engages in direct discrimination harassment sexual harassment or victimization even if those acts are
54:53
done without the employer's knowledge or approval and the equality legislation
54:59
does recognize that though and it allows an employer to avoid liability for the
55:04
acts of an employee where it can prove that it took steps as were reasonably practicable to prevent
55:10
the employee from carrying out the discriminatory act so that basically means that the measures the practices and the
55:16
procedures that we've listened to from jackie from trish and from deirdre they're all
55:21
important when it comes to implementing a dni program but from a legal perspective all important in mitigating an employer's
55:28
exposure to legal claims i will discuss what those measures and practices look like in a bit more detail in in
55:35
just a bit so in terms of the employee remedies that are available
55:41
if an employee suffers discrimination harassment or victimization you know what avenues of redress can
55:46
they seek i'm sure you'll be all familiar with the fact that the main redress is a claim
55:51
before the workplace relations commission where an employee can be awarded up to two years gross remuneration
55:57
the wrc and the labour court on appeal can also require an employer to take specified courses of action towards
56:04
compliance such as revising equality policies or implementing training and in my
56:10
experience specified courses of action are often much more effective than a monetary
56:16
award against an employer it's also important to note that when the wrc and the labour car
56:21
court are assessing damages for the purposes of an award in an equality claim
56:27
they don't have to limit their analysis to financial loss only they can also provide compensation
56:32
for the general stress and suffering caused by the discriminatory act
56:37
and also an element of compensation to deter other employers what that means is that where somebody
56:43
brings a discriminatory dismissal claim the awards will generally tend to be
56:49
much higher than what somebody would get in an unfair dismissal claim a standard unfair dismissal claim because the um the basis of the analysis
56:56
in relation to awards is just on financial loss only in those cases so you should also note as well that
57:02
while cases before the wrc um and the labor course sorry the wrc
57:07
only are held in private and the names of the parties are anonymized when the determination is
57:13
issued an adjudication officer actually has the right to publish the names of the parties in a claim
57:18
under the equality legislation which they often do and in my experience that really does act as a deterrent to employers because
57:25
they understand that there could be amongst other things reputational damage and you know potential adverse media attention
57:32
in the event that their name is is linked with um you know a bad decision from the wrc on
57:37
the equality side the last point to mention on this is that in cases of gender discrimination
57:43
only an employee is entitled to actually bypass the wrc and bring a case before the circle court
57:49
and the benefit there is that there's absolutely no ceiling on the damages that can be awarded by the circuit court
57:56
um despite that um heightened sort of award potential there
58:01
is actually remarkably few cases that have been brought before the circuit court primarily because employees will be at
58:08
the risk of costs when it comes to claims before the civil courts so i talked there before about the
58:16
reasonable steps defense that an employer can use to avoid liability for the acts of an
58:22
employee and the most common steps um are as i'm sure you know the implementation of an effective
58:27
employment equality policy the provision of regular up-to-date equality training
58:33
the accommodation and promotion of equality and diversity by amongst other things the establishment of the sort of
58:39
erg committee that that trish mentioned earlier on and also
58:46
the inclusion of positive actions in the workplace and where those actions are permitted by the equality legislation
58:53
so what i'd like to do now is just talk you through some cases some very recent cases that illustrate why it's so
58:59
important for an employer to implement measures and practices that deal with equality diversity and
59:05
inclusion the first case there on your slide is actually a decision of the employment
59:11
appeals tribunal in the uk from last month actually it's la
59:16
uk limited versus gallon as a tribunal decision in the uk it's not binding on the employment fora and the courts here
59:22
in ireland but the decision is of persuasive value which means that it can be taken into account
59:28
by an adjudication officer or a judge here so in this case the complainant who was
59:33
of indian origin he complained to his manager that another employee had made racist remarks
59:38
uh to him on a regular basis his manager told him that he should
59:44
report it to hr but his manager did nothing else about it and at the same time around the same
59:49
time two other managers had also heard the remarks but they also did nothing about that so when the
59:55
complainant was dismissed from the employer in a separate matter relating to his performance he issued a grievance
1:00:01
which the employer dealt with but the employee then went on to bring a claim of harassment to the
1:00:07
employment tribunal under the uk equality act um an employer in the uk has the same sort of
1:00:13
reasonable steps defense that an employer in ireland does and in this case the employer
1:00:19
produced evidence that it had equal opportunities and anti-bullying and harassment policies and that it also
1:00:25
properly trained its staff including the individual who had harassed the complainant in this case
1:00:30
so you think that all is good for the employer in its defense however the employment tribunal at first
1:00:36
instance rejected the employer's defense that it took all reasonable steps to prevent the discriminatory acts
1:00:42
and it did that on the basis that the training that had been issued to the employees was around 20 months old so the tribunal
1:00:49
said that it had become stale and had ceased to be effective and the tribunal said that that was
1:00:55
evidenced by the fact that those remarks those type of remarks had been made and also by the fact that the two
1:01:00
managers had failed to report the matter as they should have done pursuant to the training that they had received
1:01:07
so the employer appeals that decision to the eat the employment appeals tribunal
1:01:12
and they basically argued that the statutory defense in the uk which as i said is the same in ireland only required reasonable steps to be
1:01:19
taken the actual effectiveness of those steps was not relevant as you can imagine the eat rejected that
1:01:26
it upheld the tribunal decision and in doing so it said that the length and the depth of
1:01:32
training is important and in particular it said that the brief and superficial training is unlikely to have a
1:01:38
substantial effect on preventing harassment it also said that if it becomes clear to
1:01:43
an employer that harassment is still occurring or that perhaps training hasn't worked as as it should have
1:01:49
the employer is then basically on notice of the need to take further steps which in in that case would be to improve and
1:01:55
refresh the training i wanted to mention this case not least because it was so recent but because
1:02:01
i think it'll it's a very sensible decision it'll be followed here in ireland but i think it's a silencery reminder as
1:02:08
well to employers that it's simply not sufficient to simply you know churn out policies and training as
1:02:13
a box ticking exercise your policies your training have to be routinely monitored to ensure they're
1:02:19
effective and where they're not they should be refreshed and that is entirely consistent with the irish human
1:02:24
rights and equality commission's guidance on equality policies and training and it's also
1:02:30
consistent as well with recent wrc and labour court cases here the second case is a decision of
1:02:37
the wrc from november last year um it's a case called a receptionist
1:02:42
versus a hotel um very imaginative names for for these cases but they can't name the
1:02:48
the actual employers everyone would be glad to hear um unless you do something very bad in
1:02:53
that case the complainant brazilian national was subjected to derogatory remarks about her nationality
1:02:58
from an employee as well as other discriminatory acts and when the employer was asked about this
1:03:04
by the adjudication officer the employer said that they neither had a grievance policy nor did they have a policy in relation
1:03:11
to diversity they also confirmed that they provided no training at the to two employees in
1:03:16
relation to equality diversity and inclusion so when awarding fifteen thousand euros
1:03:22
um for the discrimination that the employee suffered on the grounds of a race the wrc commented that the employer in
1:03:29
its words had a laissez-faire attitude to its obligations they had no measures in place to safeguard the dignity of employees and
1:03:36
it was therefore really easy for the adjudication officer to find that the employer just would not have treated an irish
1:03:43
person in the same manner as it had treated the brazilian complainant just to also mention as well
1:03:49
the owner of the hotel in that case it was actually his mother who was the employee who had harassed and passed off these druggety remarks so
1:03:56
it was a bad case all around for the hotel the final case then is a case
1:04:01
uh from 2018 um it's called the shop assistant versus a retailer in that case a shop assistant suffered
1:04:08
sexual harassment in the form of remarks and physical assaults from an assistant manager over a period of about six months after she returned
1:04:15
to the office from maternity leave the behavior was basically ignored by other employees
1:04:20
including managers who had witnessed it and the complainant eventually
1:04:25
got up the courage to complain to a deputy manager and who then spoke to the perpetrator and but the deputy manager didn't report
1:04:33
it to hr and because he had passed it on to the perpetrator the perpetrator unfortunately exacerbated his um or worsened his
1:04:42
behavior and she was also then ostracized by other colleagues which caused her health to deteriorate
1:04:48
the complainant then brought a claim for gender discrimination and sexual harassment under the equality legislation
1:04:53
and during the course of the hearing the employer obviously put forward the reasonable steps defense and showed
1:04:59
that it had a bullying and anti-harassment policy it showed the training was given excuse
1:05:05
me to all employees but the wrc in this case gave that short shrift basically and said there was no
1:05:11
point in having a bullying and harassment policy and providing training if it's never going to be implemented by the managers and the wrc also criticized
1:05:19
the fact that the bullying and harassment policy didn't refer to sexual harassment and so the aod judication officer in the
1:05:26
case considered what he described as the inexplicable failure of management to prevent the discriminatory
1:05:32
treatment as well as the serious nature of the discriminatory acts and awarded the complainant forty thousand
1:05:37
euros which um as compared to the complainant salary is a very significant amount
1:05:43
um so that brings my presentation to an end i hope those cases do highlight the importance of
1:05:49
having effective good quality policies and training that are routinely monitored to ensure that they are up to
1:05:55
date in terms of you know the law and best practice as proper as as part of your dni program
1:06:01
thanks tom thank you russell that was certainly
1:06:07
food for thought especially with the case law that you gave us some examples of there so that was very useful and beneficial so thank you very
1:06:14
much so i'm going to hand you over now i think to marry to take us through the questions and answers and i know
1:06:20
there were some comments there on the chat as well
1:06:27
do we have marry again okay um thank you john for that and
1:06:33
thank you to trisha deirdre and uh russell as well for um the presentations and
1:06:41
jackie not forgetting you jack thank you so much for those presentations there's some great work going on there
1:06:47
so i'll just have a quick look there at the questions there this one which came in there for you at the start
1:06:54
um it came in from shane and how do you ensure uniformity of the edi message
1:06:59
across business platforms with different leadership teams now that came in when trisha was speaking so
1:07:04
trisha do you want to take that that's a great question the short answer is with difficulty
1:07:11
you know and as we've heard as well from some of the presentations like this some leaders are more
1:07:18
interested more tuned into this than others and there are always going to be some for whom this is
1:07:23
never going to be on the radar so over the past let's say six months nine months
1:07:28
um one thing we have done is we have made this part of the of goals so leaders have to actually
1:07:36
inform themselves it's thought leadership as a company this is the culture that we have i mentioned about the tone at the top
1:07:43
really leaders have to row in behind that and so we've made more than that of
1:07:48
available we've made more resources available but just sorry now to take time but one thing we
1:07:55
did find was when we made the mark program a requirement for all people managers
1:08:01
that was a huge help shane because it meant that people who maybe didn't get it before
1:08:06
they started off the four hours going oh god i've sit through this and it's unconscious by his training by the end of it they went ah okay i get
1:08:14
it a little bit more so they're more receptive so that's a very i suppose with difficulty
1:08:20
is the short answer but um really we try and just make it readily available so that people
1:08:25
don't have to dig in order to get it that's great tricia thank you very much for that
1:08:31
um jackie there was she came in there as um it's as we are all well aware validating the
1:08:38
return on investment on organization development spend is always challenging but what kinds of measures do dell and
1:08:45
mckesson capture or report so maybe jackie you can take that one if you would please um i was a big a big
1:08:52
test um and i think trisha you might jump in here as well and eos is a big
1:08:58
kind of it's a survey employee employee opinion surveys and a lot of um you know you can you can measure you
1:09:04
know a lot of uh i suppose whether your employees are positive and you know the leaders are also achieving their scorecard metrics
1:09:11
so that's two ways of measuring it um full surveys attrition even down to attrition
1:09:16
levels you know if you've got you know a department where their tradition levels are really high uh you know there's something to look at there
1:09:22
as well so i would say eos pulse surveys and attrition and the amount of people in ergs as
1:09:29
tricia went through as well that can be a huge success you know whether there's an erg that's doing really really well or so
1:09:35
there's so many different ways with so much data to measure this just to add on to that i think you know
1:09:42
cross-referencing those different data points is hugely successful in identifying
1:09:47
where things need to be you know as jackie mentioned if there's one group where they have no problem getting women
1:09:53
for example into a group and yet after six eight ten months those women are leaving
1:09:59
there's a couple of different data points you know the manager maybe has certain the promotion rates
1:10:05
things like that and so definitely looking at the data but back to the manager or from the top has to be
1:10:12
interested in looking at that data i think as well thank you for that jackie um we're just
1:10:19
conscious of time here at the moment um i just have one more question there for deirdre um
1:10:24
how is a project like this resourced in higher education um
1:10:30
with some difficulty and a little bit of luck uh so as don mentioned we were very
1:10:36
fortunate that we were able to get some funding from the strategic alignment fund administered by our teaching and
1:10:42
learning unit and we were able to get some funding from our hr department as well in the context of higher education um a
1:10:49
lot of initial work is discretionary so it's people doing it on top of their their regular jobs
1:10:55
and getting funding for projects like this in the humanities umbrella
1:11:02
is very difficult so if there are any budget holders who are looking for something to do with
1:11:08
some of their budget we will gladly help you out with your budget spend so yeah that's terrific thank you very much
1:11:16
and thank you um to all of the speakers russell um i don't see a question there for yourself
1:11:21
but thank you so much um you've obviously explained everything to everyone i'm just passing back to
1:11:27
andrew now i can today
1:11:35
andrew i was going to make um lots of wonderful comments about what we've seen this morning i'm not going to do that
1:11:40
unconscious of the time i will however remind you of a few uh areas that we discussed one was uh many advocating real change
1:11:48
known as mark um the concept of uh
1:11:54
takeaway packs which i didn't have to talk to you about again because uh i i hadn't heard it before uh
1:12:01
also the reputational damage which russell spoke about which really scares me and and i hope that um
1:12:09
here this morning we've been conscious of that uh however i'll give my award for the the best comment to trisha for
1:12:15
her comment about the children on the alert for 10 minutes i thought how our life has changed
1:12:21
but isn't it fantastic that we can spend an hour and a quarter this morning whether you're in gully gold west media
1:12:26
cork and be able to uh join in on our discussions which i thought was fantastic
1:12:31
i'd like to give thanks to our speakers jackie deirdre ross watson patricia i'm our chair wonderful don crowley and
1:12:39
thank you very much somebody is thanking me as well uh we had 25th
1:12:46
registration which is a phenomenal number for an event of this and it just i suppose shows the interest in the
1:12:51
topic of edna i don't know if um jacinta is still there but i'd also like to thank the
1:12:58
team in dublin and cipd uh jacinta and mary connector for joining us in the
1:13:03
movie uh here in clark to karen holland and particularly to
1:13:09
my vice chair at the moment mary manning you don't realize that it's a four-year term when you take on the rule of chair
1:13:14
in the cipd there's a year going in that's vice chair two years this year in the year going over so mary's been a four-year contribution
1:13:21
which i think is phenomenal i'd like to give her my sincere thanks i'm sure thanks to all the members here today
1:13:26
um i have i was going to have one quote for you i have which i have in a slide but i'm
1:13:32
not sure where the slide is so i'll just pick it up here myself
1:13:38
um i'll just leave you with this thought um this morning diversity
1:13:45
is being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance so with that
1:13:51
thought uh i'd like to thank you all for attending today and hopefully we'll see you at another event uh going
1:13:58
forward very soon best luck to everybody thank you
English (auto-generated)
CIPD Trust
Tackling barriers to work today whilst creating inclusive workplaces of tomorrow.
Bullying
and harassment
Discover our practice guidance and recommendations to tackle bullying and harassment in the workplace.
Latest webinars
Explore how to create a menopause friendly work environment and empower employees to continue to work and thrive whilst experiencing menopause transition
See how you can deliver more with less and explore what's needed for designing learning for the modern workplace
Explore the benefits of using AI in the workplace and the ethical and governance issues
Watch this video and explore where can employers raise their employee value propositions, and critically where should you start?