Theme A: Diversify Talent
How organisations are perceived by prospective job applicants influences the diversity of people who apply to work for them. Organisations who are able to engage the interest of people from a wide range of backgrounds connect with them on many levels including:
- Visibility of the diversity of leaders within the organisation.
- Use of inclusive language in promotional materials including recruitment.
- Visibility of staff networks for people who share a Protected Characteristic adopting an intersectional approach.
- Case studies and stories from staff on what it’s like to work for the organisation.
We recognise through our workforce monitoring data that although we have people who identify as coming from different backgrounds and having Protected Characteristics, there is room to improve diversity in our workforce.
We will work to improve and develop our approach to attracting people from a diverse talent pool to apply to work for us and support them effectively through the recruitment process. This will include:
- A review of the visualisations featured on the NHS Golden Jubilee website, (with particular focus on the careers page) to ensure demographic imagery aligns with people who share a Protected Characteristic.
- Employability engagement activities with underrepresented groups including people from BAME, Disability, LGBT+ and low socio-economic backgrounds.
- Outreach communications strategy via social media and press, targeted at people from underrepresented backgrounds.
- Inclusion of underrepresented employees within interview panels, where practicable to bring a diverse set of opinions when profiling potential new talent to the organisation.
We will work to improve diversity across our workforce and Protected Characteristics with a particular focus on improving diversity in relation to disability through:
- Learning and education for recruitment managers on supporting disabled applicants including people with neuro diversity.
- Engaging with disability groups to promote NHS Golden Jubilee as a Disability Confident employer.
- Improving the recruitment process and removing barriers for disabled applicants.
Career development and promotion within the NHS and NHS Golden Jubilee should reflect the diversity of our workforce. We recognise there is more we can do to ensure that people from different and diverse backgrounds feel inspired and empowered to develop their career. Adopting agile working going forward, and this having been accelerated by home working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, introduces its own barriers for some. We recognise that in order to support equity of career progression, we must support training and eLearning remotely. We will also focus on ensuring support for promotion and career progression that aligns with our priorities for increasing diversity at all levels in our workforce.
This will include:
- Introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting to help identify areas for improvement.
- Understanding and addressing barriers to career progression and promotion for people with Protected Characteristics.
In order to enhance our outreach and engagement activities with staff from underrepresented backgrounds, we plan to review the remit of the existing Equalities Group and implement the following changes:
- Rebranding of the existing Equalities Group to Diversity and Inclusion Group including a revised governance structure and updated Terms of Reference (TOR).
- Creation of staff-side satellite networks to represent BAME, Disability and LGBT+. In doing so, we will encourage members to self-identify their respective network to reflect contemporary terminology.
- Membership of the new NHS Scotland national BAME network in addition to other emerging national frameworks representing the Protected Characteristics and Fairer Scotland Duty.
Equality Outcomes – Theme A
Our equality outcomes related to Diversify Talent are:
- A1 Increase the number of people in our workforce who identify as having a Protected Characteristic with a focus on: Race, and Disability.
- A2 Increase the number of job applications, including internal promotions, received from people who identify as having a Protected Characteristic.
- A3 Reduce Protected Characteristic pay gaps resulting from diversity imbalance across NHS pay bands.
- A4 Enhance our outreach and engagement activities with staff from underrepresented backgrounds through the creation of the following satellite networks: BAME, Disability and LGBT+.
