Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) is a subject that features increasingly prominently in our meetings across all of our client base. It has evolved from being a subject that almost entirely was discussed in listed and international businesses two decades ago to being an important focus for almost everyone. However, as much as the subject is talked about with more regularity, it is still a subject that makes many feel awkward or afraid of stating views or asking questions for “fear of saying something inappropriate”.

This is a subject that is very important to our business. In October 2021, we started our development plan to research the subject, and develop ourselves and our proposition around effective ED&I. During the course of the past year, we have learnt so much from our research and our client base, and our recruitment processes are consistently delivering a balance of representation that exceeds the initial expectations (more details on how those initial expectations are met to come – setting these targets is the first of numerous challenges to overcome).

A report by Heidrick & Struggles published this month stated that 93% of executives in countries around the world said that ED&I is more important to their company now than at the beginning of 2020. This is no surprise to us – we rarely experience direct and conscious prejudices in our region and there is a growing momentum of seeing the benefits that a strong ED&I strategy can bring to an organisation. From our perspective, further improvements can be made by looking at the unconscious bias that can still exist and looking at how we can provide advice and processes that open our clients’ opportunities up to the widest range of people whilst still focusing on appointing the best candidate.

During the past two years, I have been very privileged to have sat on the Remuneration & Appointments Committee of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation. I believe that this committee sets the standard for how ED&I can make a valuable contribution to every recruitment process, and I have been involved in numerous conversations about how different organisations have developed their own interpretation of best practice in the subject. Taking some of this knowledge, our team at Pratap Partnership are working together to present a series of ED&I articles on the following over the coming weeks:

• The world view on ED&I and how does that translate to Yorkshire and the East Midlands?
• What does “good ED&I” look like for recruitment and across your team? How do you set a benchmark?
• What are the latest evolutions in technology to support positive ED&I?
• What is the Pratap Partnership process for positive ED&I?
• What else do we all have to learn and commit to for the future?

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We look forward to presenting our articles and from hearing any of your contributions or questions

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