A strong category for entries saw the judges particularly impressed by DPD’s initiative, which saw it introduce supported internships for young people with disabilities or special educational needs. This enabled them to achieve sustainable paid employment and to ‘thrive beyond 25’, the age when they’re otherwise abandoned by the system. Our judges described the programme as ‘groundbreaking and inspiring’. Here we profile the programme and look at the runners-up.
WINNER
DPD UK
Since 2018, the DPD Inspire structured internship programme has been provided supported employment for people with disabilities or special educational needs.
The parcel delivery company’s programme, which is open to people with a statement confirming their special educational need and those with an education, health and care plan, is run by a dedicated supported employment team who ensure interns have access to ongoing support.
Participants are invited to an onsite or virtual work experience day, a summer programme of activity, and a supported internship which includes hands-on experience. Once they ‘graduate’ from the internship, they take up paid employment with DPD, including apprenticeships. Interns are assigned a department manager, mentor, HR business partner and a job coach who assist them throughout their placement and meet regularly to set targets and review progress.
The company has retained 100% of those who have taken part in the programme. Examples include apprentices in IT, administration and inclusive digital marketing.
RUNNERS-UP
Aggregate Industries
In support of its aim to be an “all inclusive” employer, Aggregate Industries has formed several affinity groups to bring together employees with a variety of characteristics and backgrounds, including ethnic minority groups, employees with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals and women.
Representatives from each group are members of its ED&I taskforce, which comes together to shape policy direction. Activities and outputs from the network include the launch of an unseen disability scheme, a menopause and female wellbeing network, and ensuring that all women have access to appropriately-sized PPE.
It regularly surveys employees to establish how it is performing against the FREDIE framework: fairness, respect, equality, diversity, inclusion and engagement. The company develops action plans based on the feedback it receives and this year it ranked 47th in the Most Inclusive Workplaces 2022 index.
Tracking applications through to job offers indicated a gender imbalance at the shortlist stage. A blind CV trial resulted in a 50/50 gender split at shortlist and inteview stage, which has strengthened female representation.
It has improved its maternity retention rate from 25% in 2018 to 98% in 2020. All returners are also offered a return to work coach in addition to the practical support offered, such as a network for breastfeeding parents.
Capita Modular People Solutions
Capita’s IT skills development programme, Novus, provides intensive training for entry into IT roles. Recognising that some neurodivergent individuals struggle to access employment, it revamped the programme to make it more accessible.
It held a roundtable event including an expert panel from specialist charities to better understand the experiences of neurodiverse individuals. Its approach now focuses on education, mentorship and ongoing support.
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The company holds neurodiversity awareness sessions and offers access to job coaches, welfare managers and support to all neurodivergent staff. It also manages the Access to Work process for any workplace adjustments they may need, including access to assistive technology.
Since January 2022, 10% of Capita’s applicants have identified themselves as neurodivergent.
Coca-Cola HBC
Coca-Cola HBC is the bottling partner of The Coca-Cola Company and employs more than 36,000 people representing 73 nationalities.
To reach its ambition of having 50% more women in management positions by 2025, it has developed an ongoing series of “women leader stories”– videos that showcase the achievements of women at various hierarchical levels, with the aim of inspiring other women to realise their potential and take up challenges.
Local business units were asked to nominate women they felt were great role models. It initially started with female leaders, but this was later expanded to those in frontline entry-level and first line manager positions. Women take part in a video interview, which is edited and promoted via internal updates, social media and personal thank you messages from the CEO and head of talent.
Since February 2021, more than 17 videos have been posted, reaching a total of 5 million people. Women made up 58% of external senior leadership hires and 52% of internal hires in 2021, highlighting the impact the videos have had in encouraging women to take up a career at Coca-Cola HBC.
J Murphy & Sons
Civil engineering company J Murphy & Sons is a founding member of the first National Prison Employment Advisory Board. The scheme is being piloted at HMP Berwyn, but by spring 2023 employment advisory boards will exist at 91 prisons across the UK.
The scheme intends to equip prison leavers with skills that meet the needs of employers. Having paid employment after prison means leavers are less likely to re-offend.
The company wanted to be involved as it is estimated that 50% of the male prison population have the experience or skills that could be developed for a role in construction. It worked with Her Majesty’s Prison Service and New Futures Network to develop a “culture of employment” journey that begins when the person is sentenced, including training that will enable entry into any construction role and other support elements to ensure employability and accommodation upon leaving prison.
At its first event, more than 100 prisoners at Berwyn expressed their interest for jobs at Murphy’s, 60 of whom were interviewed. Fourteen went on to secure jobs at the company upon release.
The Murphy/Berwyn scheme is now the recognised role model for future partnerships between employers, training providers, prison support services and prisons nationally. At Berwyn alone, over 20 additional companies are now on board across construction, hospitality, catering and logistics sectors.
Kier Group
Kier Group is well aware of the fact that many view the construction sector as “manual, male and muddy”. It is working to change that image by improving diversity at all levels through family-friendly policies, a mentoring programme and employee networks.
After finding that many staff were experiencing microaggressions at work that were often disguised as “banter”, it launched an Expect Respect campaign designed to educate employees on inclusive language and to communicate its zero-tolerance approach to bullying and harassment, which can be reported via an anonymous channel. It worked with employee networks to develop interactive training, carried out by 100% of employees, setting out the five respect basics.
Kier Group also has a Making Ground programme to support those with criminal convictions to access work and skills training. From June to December 2021, the programme engaged with over 165 serving prisoners, offering five people placements and seven people long-term employment on their release.
In December 2021, the company increased maternity leave from 20 weeks at full pay to 26 weeks, and quadrupled paternity leave from two weeks at full pay to eight weeks. It also halved the qualifying period for new employees, from 52 weeks to 26 weeks.
Police Now
Recognising that only 7% of police officers are from an ethnic minority background and 33% are female, Police Now is taking an “under-represented first” approach to its graduate recruitment and training efforts within neighbourhood policing.
It has committed to ensuring 20% of its graduate intake each year is from an ethnic minority background. However, it recognises that it faces barriers to this, including the fact that more than half of ethnic minorities believe the criminal justice system discriminates against particular groups.
It decided to focus on building trust in policing, using a data-led approach to identify trends and building a targeted campaign to address some difficult realities.
Applicants from ethnic minority groups are supported with one-to-one coaching, mentoring and digital live chats for family and friends. Assessments use culturally relevant scenarios, include disproportionate use of stop and search, modern day slavery and misogyny within police culture. A six-week residential academy focuses on leadership development coaching and keynote speakers have included D&I thought-leaders and activists including the first openly gay Black officer.
A quarter of the graduates who joined in 2021 are from an ethnic minority background – double the proportion hired through direct recruitment into police forces. Fifty-two per cent of 2021 starts are female, compared with 42% hired directly.
South Western Railway
Against the backdrop of a challenging pandemic, South Western Railway has introduced a new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy around six pillars: engagement, training and awareness, empowering networks to drive change, embedding inclusive processes, evaluation and review, and encouraging applications from underrepresented groups.
It has supported this through the development of staff networks for groups including the LGBTQ+ community and those with visible and non-visible disabilities. Each network has an executive team sponsor to champion their agendas and raise profiles. The networks have resulted in tangible change across the organisation, including the development of menopause advocates who provide support and signposting to colleagues and line managers, cultural awareness days, and sponsorship of Pride events around its stations.
It also offers a Step Up, Step Forward leadership development programme for women. It has so far run 11 programmes, with the 12th due later this year, which has been attended by more than 180 women, 27% of whom have been promoted into higher-paying roles.
It has held focus groups for women in engineering, driving and guard roles to understand what attracted them to their roles and how they can make them more inclusive. This has resulted in changing the language it uses in recruitment literature, introducing unconscious bias training for hiring managers, and advertising on new websites including Mumsnet.
Travelodge Hotels
Although the vast majority of its workforce is female, women make up only 22% of district managers and 41% of senior roles at Travelodge.
Ethnic diversity is also an action point for the firm. One-fifth of colleagues identify as being from ethnic minority
backgrounds and in London this increases to 49%. However, at district manager level in London, just 14% are from an ethnic minority group.
In 2021 it set ambitious targets to improve representation at district manager and senior roles. It now ensures balanced shortlists of 50/50 male/female split for all of these vacancies. More than half of senior roles were filled by women.
Focus groups found that women experienced barriers including the potential for unconscious bias and a lack of development opportunities for hotel managers to develop the leadership skills needed to progress in their careers. This resulted in the company running a Women at Travelodge comms campaign, the creation of two new levels within its internal development programme, and unconscious bias awareness being discussed at regional meetings for district managers.
By the end of 2025, it hopes that 10% of all senior roles will be held by those from ethnic minority groups. To help acheive this, it has launched a video campaign centered around belonging and has recruited a wellbeing and inclusion manager to help build awareness and educate on key topics.
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