Race Equality Week: #ActionNotJustWords
This week (7 – 13 February) is Race Equality Week, and as part of Arcus’ ongoing focus on promoting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion we are getting behind the initiative to ask all our colleagues, customers and partners to take action.
We only make a difference to tackle race inequality in our workplaces if we all work together and commit to change. The Big Promise campaign asks businesses, leaders and employees to commit to a promise to deliver change.
The Big Promise
Chris Green (CEO), Mark Woods (COO) and Monima Harrison (HSQE Director) have already made theirs: between them committing to sponsor ethnic minority talent, participate in dialogue with colleagues to create change and monitor outcomes, set a zero tolerance to racism and micro-aggressions and build the mechanisms to identify, develop and promote ethnic minority candidates in our business.
Promises are detailed at the base of this article.
Stating promises publicly ensures commitment is strong, so we’d like to encourage you all to be accountable and head here to make your Big Promise: https://www.raceequalitymatters.com/make-a-big-promise/
#MyNameIs
In a recent poll 73% of respondents from more than 100 organisations said they had their names mispronounced – an uncomfortable position for any individual and big barrier to a truly inclusive culture. Balance this against 88% of respondents stating a phonetic name spelling campaign would help tackle race inequality. By us all adopting this, we remove any awkwardness of initial interactions and foster a truly inclusive approach.
We’re encouraging our colleagues to take the time this week to add a phonetic pronunciation of their name to their email signature (and other communication channels as appropriate: meeting invites, social media, name badges) and we’d like to encourage others to do the same. It’s simple, but it makes a huge difference.
We’ll be sharing these initiatives through LinkedIn and Twitter this week, so please keep an eye out and engage with that content – particularly around your own personal Big Promise
