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How we created an LGBT-inclusive work place
Home Group was named the most LGBT-friendly housing association in the UK in a list published by charity Stonewall this week. Mark Henderson explains more about the group’s work on inclusivity
Inside Housing’s Inclusive Futures campaign aims to promote diversity and inclusion among housing’s leadership teams
Since Home Group became a Stonewall diversity champion a few years ago, the commitment from colleagues across the whole organisation to ensure that LGBT+ colleagues and customers can be safe, accepted, respected and celebrated has been phenomenal.
I want to thank them all publicly for their amazing commitment and effort. To be effective in this area it needs everyone to get involved and fully support what we aim to achieve. That has absolutely been the case this year.
A special thank you must go to our brilliant equality, diversity and inclusion steering group, who have driven this agenda hard from day one.
“The team has established powerful and impactful support networks for LGBT+ colleagues”
It takes such passion and commitment from colleagues to elevate an organisation to the heights we have reached. What was apparent to me and others was that the team driving our work were not focused on the Stonewall index per se, but were being driven by an unfailing desire to ensure inclusion, equality and acceptance.
Their work over the years has been outstanding. But last year, they took it to another level.
The team has established powerful and impactful support networks for LGBT+ colleagues, and set up an allies network that has gone from strength to strength.
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Pride at Home (the LGBT+ network) and Partners in Pride (the allies network) numbers have rocketed, with 88 Pride at Home members and more than 600 Partners in Pride members.
We’ve made a good start on our work on trans inclusion; we have developed a process on transitioning in the workplace in consultation with trans colleagues, and ensured that our policies and processes are trans inclusive.
Our ‘role models’ and ‘Lifeswap’ programmes are encouraging people to share their stories and to support others to be more knowledgeable about the challenges that LGBT+ people face in the workplace.
This year has seen a strong focus on education and awareness-raising.
Our annual equality, diversity and inclusion conference was widely attended by colleagues from across the organisation, including a strong presence from our executive team.
In fact, the executive team have been a significant factor in our prominence on the index this year.
All of the executive team and most of the senior management team are members of Partners in Pride.
The executive team have attended ‘lunch and learn’ events and local Pride events, and taken part in and promoted LGBT+ campaigns such as Stonewall’s Come Out For LGBT campaign and rainbow laces.
They’ve taken part in our reverse mentoring programme, promoted and attended LGBT+ events, and taken a very active role in our LGBT+ virtual conference which reached more than 2,000 colleagues across the organisation.
Home Group’s board were also keen to be involved, and took a photo of their support after a discussion on LGBT+ inclusion at their board meeting, which they shared across their wide-reaching Twitter accounts.
I am very proud indeed in what we have all achieved to date. To be placed 17th on an index that 445 other organisations entered is testament to the outstanding commitment, drive and effort that has been put in by colleagues across Home Group.
Our challenge now is to build on this exemplary work and take it to another level again.
Mark Henderson, chief executive, Home Group
Inclusive Futures
Inside Housing’s Inclusive Futures campaign aims to promote and celebrate diversity and inclusion.
We are pledging to publish diversity audits of our own coverage.
We are also committed to proactively promoting positive role models.
We will do this through the pages of Inside Housing. But we will also seek to support other publications and events organisations to be more inclusive.
Our Inclusive Futures Bureau will provide a database of speakers and commentators from all backgrounds, for use by all media organisations.
We are also challenging readers to take five clear steps to promote diversity, informed by the Chartered Institute of Housing’s diversity commission and the Leadership 2025 project.
THE CASE FOR CHANGE
34%
of housing association chief executives are female
1%
of housing association executives have a disability
1.6%
of housing association board members are LGBT
Women make up 46% of the UK workforce, but Inside Housing research found that they are under-represented on housing association boards (36%), executive teams (39%) and among chief executives (34%).
Almost a fifth of working-age adults have a disability (18%), yet associations reported only 1% of executives and 4.5% of board members with a disability. Many were unable to provide details.
Nationwide, 14% of the working-age population come from a BME background, climbing to 40% in London and Birmingham. Yet our research found that 6.8% of board members identified as BME, compared with 4.5% of executives.
Statistics on representation of LGBT people in the workforce are in short supply, but official statistics suggest that 2% of the total UK population identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, rising to 4.1% for 16 to 24-year-olds. Our survey found that 1.6% of board members and 10 executives were LGBT – but most organisations were unable to provide figures.
THE INCLUSIVE FUTURES CHALLENGE
Inside Housing calls on organisations to sign up to an inclusive future by taking five steps:
Prioritise diversity and inclusion at the top: commitment and persistence from chief executives, directors and chairs in setting goals and monitoring progress.
Collect data on the diversity of your board, leadership and total workforce and publish annually with your annual report. Consider gender, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, age, and representation of tenants on the board.
Set aspirational targets for recruitment to the executive team, board and committees from under-represented groups.
Challenge recruiting staff and agencies to ensure that all shortlists include candidates from under-represented groups.
Make diversity and inclusion a core theme in your talent management strategy to ensure you support people from under-represented groups to progress their careers.
INSIDE HOUSING’S PLEDGES
We will take proactive steps to promote positive role models from under-represented groups and provide information to support change.
We pledge to:
Publish diversity audits: We will audit the diversity of the commentators we feature. We will formalise this process and publish the results for future audits twice a year.
Promote role models: We will work to highlight leading lights from specific under-represented groups, starting in early 2018 with our new BME Leaders List.
Launch Inclusive Futures Bureau: We will work with the sector to compile a database of speakers, commentators and experts from under-represented groups. The bureau will be available to events organisers, media outlets and publications to support them to better represent the talent in the sector.
Take forward the Women in Housing Awards: Inside Housing has taken on these successful awards and will work to grow and develop them.
Convene Inclusive Futures Summit: Our new high-level event will support organisations to develop and implement strategies to become more diverse and inclusive.
The Inside Housing Diversity Audit: how diverse has our coverage been?
The media plays a key role in championing diverse role models, so we designed a project to measure Inside Housing’s track record.
