Lessons from workplace equality, diversity, and inclusion projects

I’ve been involved in training on equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace twice while working in the UK.

The first time was around 2014. I was asked to prepare a plan for making the organisation’s offering more inclusive, diverse, and accessible, so we could reach beyond the core audience that was predominantly white, wealthy, and highly resourced.

I reached out to several organisations dedicated to underserved communities to understand their needs and expectations, and what they wanted from an organisation dedicated to supporting people with chronic illness. I collected my findings, using patters in nationwide health inequalities to frame the gaps in the organisation’s offer, which stopped us short of serving people of different ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, or communication needs. I put together a detailed, low-budget plan for addressing these gaps within the remit of my team.

Senior management responded with incredulity that British Sign Language users can’t read British English and a suggestion that poor health outcomes in Black communities result from people of colour “not caring” about their health.

This surprised me because I believed myself to be part of an organisation prepared to make the efforts required to achieve the stated objectives, which didn’t happen. After I changed roles, I considered the project a personal failure and sent apology emails to the partners whose time I thought I’d wasted; in response, many shared their experiences of similar “failures”.

In 2022, as a more senior member of staff, I was invited to complete online training on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, before participating in stakeholder interviews, sharing my insights about what the organisation needed to change to broaden its reach.

I couldn’t complete the training because I considered it biased against minority groups. I flagged this with its creators, quoting examples of problematic language, and information that was incorrect, which included statements about affirmative action being an "unfair" form of "positive" discrimination, which shouldn't be welcome in a workplace.

A slide two clicks later showed the ethnic breakdown of job applications, whereby less than a quarter of applicants self-identified as Black or Brown, although their likelihood of getting a contract was similar to that of any White applicant. The box with food for thought asked participants to think of reasons for this discrepancy in applications.

In response to my concerns, the creators of the training responded with comments about my “direct” communication style, which they ascribed to my heritage. Thereafter, when I declined to participate in stakeholder interviews, the project leaders said they were “sorry” I didn’t find their feedback helpful.

In subsequent meetings about the project, most conversations I heard circled around ticking boxes without the organisation looking “tokenistic”. Discussions were circular and lacking any context or substance while no efforts were being made to understand disparities in health outcomes.

Both teams, working in a similar field several years apart, failed to acknowledge that they were discussing matters affecting people who were not in the room; in fact, they were discussing matters affecting people they didn't even personally know. In both cases, leaders asked questions and ignored the answers; when called out, they used personal attacks instead of having in a matter-of-fact discussion they'd said they wanted.

Finally, in both cases, the project involved senior stakeholders who hadn't experienced the problem they were trying to address. Convincing them that there indeed was a problem—in the world at large and within their organisation—was the biggest obstacle on the road to change.

This I find to be especially challenging among people and organisations that self-described, and wanted to be perceived, as “liberal” and/or “progressive” who may express sympathy but are reluctant to act.

In an interview with her journalist-turned-activist father, a transperson Victoria describes this phenomenon as "liberal hug from above". The image refers to the way that able-bodied people with a stated intention to help tend to speak to people in wheelchairs about disabilities: Towering above them, nodding sympathetically upon hearing what it's like to not be able to walk, instead of crouching and looking the seated person in the eye.

In the 10 years of being actively involved with this work, I have experienced the slanted look many times. I've dealt with unstable and insecure housing, and chronic and recurrent illness, while working several minimum-wage gigs without any social protections to make ends meet until I collapsed. Meanwhile, my friends climbed corporate ladders, saved for their pension, and took out mortgages, all the while talking in my presence about wanting to help "those people" who struggled in this "unequal" world.

When I shared some reality checks and ideas, drawn from my own lived experience, I got head nods and frowns, punctuated with "ohs" and "ahas", which left me feeling reduced. Phone calls stopped. I was no longer a friend. And despite the same glossy credentials, I was no longer (even seen as) an equal.

During Project Neighbours interviews, I've often been asked about why I was interested in what I broadly referred to then as "diversity". At first, I didn't have the language to describe what I was brushing against and trying to understand. I often just said that the world didn't seem to me fit for purpose and I was crowdsourcing ideas to redesign it. To my mind at the time, any change started with me getting to know the different people around me.

Ten years later, conversations about equality, diversity, and inclusivity have gone mainstream. Many more organisations declare to have policies, targets, and training to create a culture where everyone is "represented" and can "do well" no matter their life story, identity, or health status. And yet, their websites are incompatible with screen readers and offices have no step-free access, if you can even get into the building, which requires that you can hear and see well.

After 10 years of talking to people, I'm clearer on what things are called, and I'm starting to share some ideas, which often come from the very different people around me. I don't claim to understand very much, but I'm trying to put things together in a way that brings meaning to the world that's always been in chaos.

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