Partnership for our people defines our approach to everything that we do, and the challenges that we face are those around shaping our culture as we move forward into the future. The combined effects of the global pandemic and the events that led up to the Black Lives Matter protests have laid bare the inequalities in our society, and this has led us all to ask deeper questions of ourselves and of our colleagues. This has given us cause to re-evaluate our approach to the way we govern ourselves and run our business; challenging one another to improve our working practices, our relationships with one another and our environment, in order to create an even better, more equal, more diverse and inclusive place to work.  Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group are thinking hard about the different ways that we can do this.  We are all immensely proud of the blog posts written by some of our colleagues, actively encouraging us all to engage by telling their own personal stories about race, being part of the LGBT+comunity and more, and what this means for them.

 

We recognise that it will take time and effort to effect the changes that we would like to see, so we are taking a long-view approach.  A stand-out commitment for us now is to strive for more diverse representation throughout our practice that is more truly representative of the society we live in. Discussions are focussing on ways of reviewing our recruitment methods; engaging with majority groups internally, generating discussions to encourage self-reflection; initiate reverse-mentoring and peer to peer mentoring opportunities to help bridge any gaps in understanding of the issues around diversity and inclusion. 

 

If we really want our organisation to be reflective of the society we are living in, we need to appeal to a range of people that might otherwise not consider a career in engineering.  We understand the importance of addressing the issues internally within our practice, and so too, we need to do our bit to encourage and inspire them.

 

Our Community Engagement Group advocates our contributions to Social Value.  As such they champion and coordinate volunteering activities where people in all our offices in the UK can participate. Throughout 2019/20, volunteers from our practice have carried out some amazing support work for young people:  from teaching or lecturing at universities to their involvement in STEMnet activities, offering Career Ready mentoring with local schools in London, Bristol and Manchester, and student workshops in our London office.  

 

We are excited to have signed up to the Mayor’s Fund for London Diversity Pledge, and really look forward to partnering with others to effect and drive sustainable change. We anticipate that working in partnership with employment support organisations and schools will give us greater access to a broader talent pool in future, allowing for more brilliant minds to join us as we continue our journey towards inclusion.