How can strategies foster effective EDI practice? Committing to change

In this next blog we are continuing our series exploring how to build robust EDI practice in your organisation. There are 4 key aspects to robust EDI practices we’ll be exploring: 

1. EDI strategies to guide this development, 

2. Inclusive and accessible policies, 

3. Development and training, 

4. Involvement of staff and service users. 

   
   

This blog focuses on the role of EDI strategies. Check out our blog page for the other posts in this series. 

EDI Strategies 

In our previous two blogs, we’ve explored how accessible policies are the bones of EDI practice and how training can bring this to life. 

We can take this one step further by using an EDI strategy to give purpose to our policies and training. EDI strategies ensure that everything we do feeds into an organisational vision. We’ll be discussing a few approaches you can take to build a strategy that compliments your team’s vision: 

Identify strengths and development areas 

Understanding your strengths and development areas as an organisation is important. Having different departments complete a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) analysis can give a realistic insight into your existing EDI work at multiple levels. 

You can then plan what you want to continue progressing (your strengths), where you can unlock the most potential (your weaknesses) and the avenues and risks that could help/hinder you along the way (opportunities and threats). 

Vision and goal setting 

To ensure your strategy has direction, picturing what you want your organisation to look like 3 or 5 years from now is a great place to start. Using what you learn from your SWOT analysis you can then consider: 

• What EDI practices and policies do you want to have introduced/expanded to better support your staff? 

• What weaknesses are a priority for you to address? 

• What needs do your staff have and how can training help? 

• What have staff and service users shared as their EDI priorities? 

  
  

Your answers to these questions will reveal an initial vision which you can refine. You can then use this to set goals to make this a reality. 

Identify progress points 

With your vision and goals set, mapping out how you will assess progress is key. Organisations change each year so ensuring you have regular review periods will support you in balancing what is ambitious (to stretch your organisation) with what is achievable (to avoid overwhelming your teams).  

Reviewing what progress has been made so far and whether goals need to be expanded or narrowed to reflect your capacity and priorities will help keep your teams engaged. 

So where do I start? 

There are a range of tools that can help you through these different steps. A SWOT Analysis is a great starting point and can feed into the creation of a Theory of Change. This is a tool that is used globally to:  

• identify social change you want to see,  

• clarify how you will achieve this change, 

• commit to how you’ll review progress towards this change.  

  
  

When it comes to reviewing that progress, a Theory of Change can be complimented with a Monitoring, Evaluation and Targeting Plan to ensure there is ownership for making progress and adjusting goals as needed. 

Are you interested in developing your first EDI strategy or finding a way to revitalise your EDI work? Our Theory of Change workshops can support you in understanding what your teams want from your organisation’s EDI work and create a clear path forward to achieve this together. 

This blog is one of four posts in a series about building effective EDI practice. Check out our blog page for the next post in the series where we will explore staff and service user voice.