Racial Equity in the Workplace

Race Equality Week is an annual UK-wide movement uniting organisations and individuals to address the barriers to race equality in the workplace. This year the focus is #ListenActChange.

Alongside internal staff awareness activities, we are sharing some of the listening, action, and changes that Corra has made to become a more equitable place to work. Whilst we have made changes, there is much more we can do to further racial equity in the workplace. This is a priority focus for Corra. We are committed to being an anti-racist organisation and report on our progress.

#Listen

Listening and responding to people, communities and organisations and amplifying voices that are less well heard is at the heart of Corra’s approach. This includes listening to our staff team, and we’ve introduced new ways to do this.

• We have an anonymous yearly survey which asks the staff team lots of questions about what it’s like to work at Corra. This year we have included questions to identify ways to further racial equity in the workplace.
• Following the work of our Racial Equity and Engagement Officer, an anti-racism working group was set up in 2020. This group looks at how Corra can become anti-racist and has been key in identifying ways for Corra to be more equitable. This has included the formation of an anti-racism action plan that sits across Corra’s work and operations with specific responsibilities assigned to members of the senior management team.
• We’ve undertaken learning as a staff team to better understand racism, bias, and the structures that need to change.
• We have engaged with key reports and research conducted by others such as Do Black Lives Still Matter? by Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights to identify areas of improvement.

#Act

We’ve taken action to make our recruitment processes more equitable.

• Anonymised applications – there is no identifiable information used as part of the first sifting stage, which identifies candidates for interview.
• We now provide applicants with an overview of the question areas in advance of interview.
• For trustee recruitment, we have invited applications in formats other than written documents e.g., videos and audio recording.
• We have invested in proactive outreach to groups we weren’t already reaching, supported by people from communities that have been under-represented on our board. This has included Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
• Increased advertising of jobs on different job sites and via Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic led organisations such as Equal Jobs.
• Participating in internship schemes that recruit people who are under-represented in the funding sector – this has included being part of 2027.
• Ensuring that forms and job packs are written in plain English.

We now report on the diversity of our staff and trustee team through a yearly Diversity Equity and Inclusion report. We are exploring targets which will help to diversify our staff and trustee team.

We’ve taken some action to make working at Corra more supportive for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic people.

• Corra is working to take a trauma-informed approach in our work to become anti-racist. We know that for staff, particularly those involved in Corra’s anti-racist work, the emotional toll of reliving trauma of racism is significant.
• Corra offers culturally appropriate counselling for staff.
• Further support can be accessed through the Health Shield Cash Plan which covers the cost of a range of health and wellbeing support.
• Corra offers specific mentoring and coaching for staff.

#Change

Our yearly staff survey gives us valuable staff feedback, which helps us to make positive changes. Some of the feedback so far has been that the recruitment process has improved. Staff have also told us there’s more we can do to ensure that staff feel more supported across Corra, and we’ll be making further changes in the coming year to our policies and processes to implement more changes.

We welcome any ideas or suggestions for improving Corra’s approach to creating an inclusive and equitable workplace. If you want to chat through any ideas or suggestions, we would love to hear them. Please contact Karen at hr@corra.scot for a chat.

Thank you to all our staff and stakeholders who have shared their insights and learning in our journey to becoming an anti-racist organisation.