Recruitment company PageGroup and the group behind the HS2 high speed rail network won the overall awards for equality and inclusion at the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (enei) awards yesterday.
PageGroup bagged the overall award for the private sector thanks to its OpenPage diversity and inclusion initiative, while HS2 won the top award in the public sector.
HS2 also won two further awards, for Impact through Innovation, and Inclusive Procurement.
Small employer of the year went to the Southbank Centre, which also won the Representative Workforce Award.
Shomari Burford from the Ministry of Justice was presented with a Personal Achievement Award, in recognition of the way in which he changed the attitudes of his colleagues as a participant in the organisation’s Workfit scheme.
Two employers – Santander and South East Coast Ambulance Service – achieved enei’s ‘gold standard’ for equality for the fourth year running.
Zurich Insurance achieved this benchmark for the second year, while Nationwide Building Society and legal firm DWF made the gold standard for the first time.
In total, awards were given to 13 organisations in 11 categories. A further nine organisations were highly commended for their work.
The event was hosted by vice president of The Law Society, Christina Blacklaws, who spoke about her personal challenge to promote diversity at senior levels in the legal sector. She was joined by David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who spoke the EHRC’s aim of taking a more active role in eradicating discriminatory practices in organisations.
Denise Keating, chief executive of enei said: “We have been encouraged by the steps organisations have taken to promote equality and diversity and hope this will encourage other companies to follow their lead.
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“We are delighted that so many organisations are prepared to publicly share best practice and are delighted to be able to recognise the innovative work they are doing.”
The full list of winners is as follows:
- Overall Winner 2017 – Private Sector: PageGroup
- Overall Winner 2017 – Public Sector: HS2
- Small Employer of the Year: Southbank Centre
- Personal Achievement: Shomari Burford, Ministry of Justice
- Gold Standard Award for Equality – DWF, Nationwide Building Society, Santander UK, South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust and Zurich Insurance UK
- Global Diversity Award: IBM UK
- Inclusive Culture Award (Private Sector): PageGroup
- Inclusive Culture Award (Public Sector): Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust
- Disability Confident Award: Civil Service Workplace Adjustment Service
- Representative Workforce Award: Southbank Centre
- Equality and Inclusion Senior Champion of the Year: Seema Bains, senior partner, DWF
- Community Impact Award: Anchor
- Impact through Innovation Award: HS2
- Advancing Social Mobility in the Workplace Award: DWF
- Inclusive Procurement Award: HS2
- Team of the Year Award: PageGroup
- Employee Network Group of the Year (Private Sector): Standard Life
- Employee Network Group of the Year (Public Sector): NELFT NHS Foundation Trust
