How can staff and service user voice feed effective EDI practice? Understanding your team’s vision for change

bewhatyouseeltd
Apr 30
3 min read

This final blog in our series exploring how to build robust EDI practice in your organisation looks at the role of staff and service user voice. There are 4 key aspects to robust EDI practices we’ll be exploring:

Involvement of staff and service users,
Inclusive and accessible policies,
Development and training,
EDI strategies to guide this development.

Staff and Service User Voice

In the first 3 blogs in the series, we’ve discussed how policies and training are the bones and life of EDI work whilst strategy gives this life purpose.

The best EDI approach will look different for each organisation. This is because the priorities, needs and barriers in each company change based on the size, sector, work and staff/service user demographics.

Centring and involving all staff’s and service users’ experiences ensures that your direction matches their needs. There are some guiding questions to keep us on track:

What voices feed your EDI work?

EDI work should be everyone’s work as it benefits us all. When we let everyone have a say in what that work looks like is important.

If this work is left to one EDI/HR team, there is a limit to how much organisational change one team can make without wider support. It also means that you lead from a single perspective instead of the diversity of thought in your organisation.

Approaching your EDI practice as something everyone has a stake sets you up for meaningful progress and create a culture where everyone feels their voice/perspective is heard.

How do you acknowledge and reward EDI work?

Being involved in EDI work can be intense and require people to reflect on negative experiences they’ve had to highlight the necessary change.

Acknowledging this and looking to compensate colleagues taking this on important for longevity. This is especially important for teams that do not have EDI has a core part of their contracted role.

Compensation could be a salary boost or carving out a fixed ‘EDI hours’ each month to focus on this work. If the latter, it is important to recognise what other work can be deprioritised to keep progress consistent without overloading your colleagues.

What approaches are you using to build engagement?

Co-designing your EDI plans with tools like Theory of Change, open forums and consulting with your staff networks can help facilitate engagement as you develop your work.

Asking (and compensating) a variety of staff at different levels of seniority to co-lead these spaces can help colleagues who may feel distant from leadership feel psychologically safe to engage.

So where do I start?

It can be scary opening yourself to feedback. However, this vulnerability is often needed to build trust (even beyond EDI work). Starting any communications/sessions with what you want to learn from your team and how their insights will feed into your refreshed EDI strategy will help.

Acknowledging where you think previous approaches have missed the mark will also humanise the process and create a culture where mistakes are recognised as a natural occurrence. This not only builds trust but the confidence to experiment.

Engaging external facilitators for support can allow all roles/teams to fully engage as participants and reduce the impact of a power dynamic. Hierarchies in the planning stages can create barriers to people feeling comfortable sharing their perspectives.

Are you interested in developing your first EDI strategy or finding a way to revitalise your approach to EDI work? Our Theory of Change workshops, Inclusive and Compassionate Leadership training and Bespoke Consultancy services can support you in understanding what your teams want from your organisation’s EDI work and empower your teams at all levels to achieve this together.