Assessing Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Maturity

This project was undertaken by Professor Vincent Charles and Dr Tatiana Gherman.

We initiated our project by undertaking a discovery phase, aiming to develop a deeper and comprehensive understanding of the organisation and the challenges they faced.

We facilitated a process to engage staff in initial conversations about EDI. As such, we engaged in several problem structuring sessions with both management teams and staff members to refine our understanding of the underlying issues. Our analysis encompassed an examination of their existing EDI approach, a review of past EDI-related concerns, and an exploratory analysis of various pieces of organisational data provided to us.

Subsequently, we focused on designing an instrument that would serve as a foundation for providing Brandon Trust with baseline evidence of their EDI position. We presented the analysis and instrument to Brandon Trust, discussing and refining it to meet their specific requirements.

Lastly, we delivered the finalised instrument for data collection and held a further session with the Director of People and Organisational Development to discuss the instrument and its implementation.

Brandon Trust is a UK charitable organisation working with and for people with a learning disability, autism, or both. They focus on helping people with said disabilities to empower them to live the life they want. They provide high-quality, person-centred support that focuses on enabling each individual to achieve their dreams and truly live free.

Brandon Trust had been working on the development of their new strategic plan, with a particular emphasis on the theme of inclusion, especially from the viewpoint of the people they provide support to.  In order to establish a starting point, Brandon Trust sought to gather some foundational evidence regarding the current stance of their staff on aspects of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).

The problem we addressed was how to measure EDI from the perspective of opportunity, that is, to understand how EDI manifested itself and how their staff members experienced it, whether there were any problems in this regard, and what the opportunities were.

We reviewed the existing EDI issues, analysed organisational data, and collaborated with Brandon Trust to identify the optimal course of action for measuring the EDI standing of staff members.

Subsequently, we designed a soft operations research inspired instrument that enables them to assess their position on EDI aspects.

We provided Brandon Trust with a valuable instrument that enables them to collect data on their EDI position, the manifestation of EDI, their staff members' experiences, any existing problems, and opportunities for improvement.

It was a pleasure working with Brandon Trust, gaining insights into the challenges they face, and utilising our data and analysis expertise to support them.

Furthermore, we have offered ongoing support by proposing an impact study to monitor the EDI aspects at Brandon Trust. This study would involve periodic assessments to identify emerging areas for improvement at different points in time.