Diversity & Inclusion lead - qualifications?

[pinkmink]

Asking this here because my employer’s Diversity & Inclusion lead has quite a bad track record of ‘including’ women.

They don’t seem to have an understanding of the basic issues that women face at work.

To date, I haven’t had to directly ask them or challenge them on anything - but I’ve seen plenty of odd stuff from them that’s caused me to raise an eyebrow. However, I’m going to be on a work stream (women’s recruitment - we urgently need more women employees) that will require me to work closely with them.

I was wondering if anyone could explain to me what I should be able to expect of a D&I lead who is doing a fantastic job? What principles should they be following? What qualifications should they have? Should they have been on any courses or seek guidance from certain organisations?

This person doesn’t seem qualified and I’m concerned they won’t give advice at the right stages of the project to make it a success. I was wondering if any of the clever people here know what “good” looks like, so I’ll be able to flag to higher ups if stuff is going wrong.

Is it a Civil Service one?

I work in D&I. My background is research and analysis, you really need an evidence based approach . However these days I am old fashioned and it’s increasingly ideology that employers are looking for. They also want someone who has particular protected characteristics, being a woman doesn’t count 🤷‍♀️.

In terms of principles transparency is key so you can show why you are making a recommendation. You need a good legal understanding (I practiced employment law) and communication skills - lots of briefings and long reports.

Again I will say you used to need these skills…

Thank you, this is really helpful!

In my workplace you just have to tick one acceptable diversity box yourself to get one of several senior roles we have in this area. You don't need to have any understanding or empathy for any other diversity or inclusion issue or a background in it.
Older women left behind of course. Carers. Lesbians.
If you're a young black trans person or gay man with traveller heritage then you are perfect.
Apparently if we are over 40 and currently live in our own home we can't have ever been working class and are suffering from middle class privilege and need to go on more training.
So basically your diversity needs to be obvious at a glance.

I think the corporate world are doing it better tbh

@Pigeontown the corporate world talks a good game but IMO are not good. They don’t use job evaluation, no one knows what other people are getting paid, they collect recruitment data but don’t publish or use it. The employee experience is usually very different from the corporate aims.

About 3 years ago I applied for a job that was perfect for my experience. At the first interview I was told that I was the only candidate to be interviewed who didn’t have protected characteristics. So I said sorry I don’t know what you mean, I’m a woman and if you had asked you would know that I have a disability. Didn’t get another interview. Can’t say who got the job as outing but let’s say they were great supporters of TWAW.

Thank you for raising this. I worked at a FTSE company and was subjected to an awful lot of total crap from these D & I idiots. I looked up who these leaders were. Comms and PR seemed to dominate. I could see nothing that qualified them whatsoever. One of the men (who told us all that only white people can be racist) had set up a company on the side providing services to other companies on D & I. They are grifters and chances in my opinion. Makes me absolute furious that these people are raised up and them I'm expected to sit down obediently and nod along to whatever crap they come up with. I would frequently be wondering what would happen if the crap was challenged in court. So much of it in my view was horribly racist, homophobic and sexist. I think the leaders were too dumb to realise. They were just shouting American nonsense they had read online. I won't have a permanent job now. Only contracting so I have an excuse to totally bypass this crap.

The other thing I would add. At my old company, the aim wasn't to actually change anything. It was to look to change things whilst ensuring no actual money was spent. Once I realised that, I found the whole thing a lot easier to deal with.

One last thought. Google blocks of their text. I found they were essentially copying and pasting from Wikipedia or some such.

Well, ours (CS) just sent everyone a long email about world menopause day and didn't use the words woman or women once. There's a link to a survey about menopause that just asks for gender. Says a lot.

@disingenuousbanana

Well, ours (CS) just sent everyone a long email about world menopause day and didn't use the words woman or women once. There's a link to a survey about menopause that just asks for gender. Says a lot.

Forward it to your boss and tell them you find it deeply offensive.

@Franca123 unfortunately in the CS that would go down very badly! I've completed the survey and put that asking for gender makes no sense in a survey about menopause, but it's unlikely to help.

Oh sorry. Wasn't sure what CS meant but I do now.