Breaking Down Barriers: A 2022 Review and Future Plans from the UK & Northern Europe DEI Council

Why does DEI Matter?

Research has shown that a diverse workforce can help boost a company’s creativity. People from similar backgrounds are likely to have similar opinions and ideas, but the more diverse the workforce, the more likely there are going to be a wider variety of ideas.

The DEI Council UK & NE, was set up in late 2021 and is currently led by Ajita Chamberlin and Harsa Beagley. They, along with current team members, Juan Prada, Natalia Findall, Laura Bruder, Daniel de la Fuente, Anthony Taylor, Eden Cooke Watson, Piet van Nassau and Liam O’Sullivan meet on numerous occasions last year, and although our membership had decreased, we made a number of improvements during 2022.

Here are the key actions from 2022

 Careers Page

Our Careers Page has been updated to include our DEI Vision and slogan.  You can view the career site page yourself by clicking on this link here.

Unconscious Bias Training

The DEI Council and the Sales and Marketing teams in the UK & NE received unconscious bias training which we hope to roll out to other areas of the business in 2023.

Salary Transparency on Adverts

Statistics show that transparency of salary on adverts is critical to advert success and more likely to attract diverse candidates.

In terms of gender pay gap, being transparent about salary will help break the cycle of moving from one underpaid role to another.

DEI Insights

We have researched other companies in relation to DEI and have been using this information to benchmark improvements at Colart.

So where do we go from here and what happens in 2023?

Our key focus for 2023

Recruitment

We will be introducing anonymous resumes which will remove unconscious bias in the early stages of selection.

Education

Unconscious bias training will be rolled out throughout the business, enabling a better understanding of what DEI means at Colart,

and reduce bias in attitudes and behaviours at work.

Corporate DEI Video

DEI Council member Daniel de la Fuente is leading a project to produce a video to get people to thinking about DEI– watch this space.

Pronouns

We are also in discussion about introducing the use of pronouns within our workplace.

Diversity Statistics

Whilst we will conduct a wider voluntary diversity questionnaire, for now we would like to understand the ethnic make-up of employees in UK & NE.

We have added an ethnicity section in Splash. Completing it is optional, however the data will greatly help us understand our future focus areas.

Here is how you complete this easy-to-fill-out form 

Step 1

Click on My details then select Personal Details

Step 2

Click on Edit

Step 3

Scroll down to Ethnicity and pick main group and sub classification: