Embracing and embedding diversity – One Mears, Many Talents

Our first project was to collaborate with the Mears senior team to formulate a new business case for diversity and inclusion, and to provide recommendations on how to embed diversity and inclusion as a strategic priority. EW Group Chief Executive Jane Farrell worked with a high-level Diversity Steering Group at Mears to ensure the new approach was both strategic and operational. The design phase also included conversations with Mears managers in London and Brighton.

Jane Farrell launched the new business case for diversity and inclusion at the ‘One Mears, Many Talents’ conference for the top 300 Mears Group managers in March 2017. Our work was given a senior-level stamp of approval at the conference by Mears CEO David Miles. Speaking about the company’s continuing focus on social value, David made it clear how he wants diversity and inclusion to be approached with the same commitment as health and safety.

As part of the conference, a team of EW Group role-playing actors took to the stage: acting out a series of short workplace scenarios where the managers needed to make difficult decisions. What would they say when they overheard this inappropriate comment? What would they do when unconscious bias was rearing its head in a panel tasked with making a key business decision?

Diversity training, consultancy support and the Inclusive Culture Pledge

Since the launch of the new business case, Jane has designed and delivered a series of bespoke pilot diversity and inclusion programmes for managers. One of these sessions was incorporated into the Mears in-house leadership programme. Jane’s fellow consultant Teresa Norman has also provided consultancy support around gaining industry-wide accreditation.

The evaluation statistics from our pilot groups clearly demonstrate the value of the training that EW Group has delivered:

• The percentage of delegates who described themselves as very aware of what unconscious bias is increased from 0% pre-course to 100% post-course.

• The percentage of delegates who had a clear idea of the ways that they can behave inclusively in a team increased from 60% pre-course to 100% post-course.

• 100% of the attendees were satisfied with the content and style of the training.

In November 2017, Mears Group signed our Inclusive Culture Pledge at our 25th anniversary event at London’s City Hall. We were joined on the night by Jo Fry, Group HR Director, and Gary Jackson, Group Director of Customer and Community Success.