Look Ahead awarded Silver for Diversity and Inclusion

Published: 1st October 2021
Claudia Bartram, Deputy Director of People shares about our recent Silver status by The Inclusive Employer Standard.

Making sure that everyone Feels at Home at Look Ahead is a key part of our People Strategy, so we’re absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Inclusive Employers Standard at Silver this year.

This is particularly significant as in previous years we have achieved bronze standard. Being awarded silver reflects all the work we have all been putting in to move Diversity and Inclusion forward over the last 18 months, despite the difficult environment we have all been in, and I am pleased we have been recognised for our efforts.

What is the Inclusive Employers Standard?

The standard is a step-by-step, evidence-based tool that benchmarks the work that we do across the year. It is an extremely comprehensive tool that looks at the six pillars of inclusion which include looking at how we engage, equip, empower, embed and evaluate our work.

It cuts across all of our work and looks at our culture, our leadership, our policies, and our staff to look at how much inclusion is really a part of our work.

This external standard benchmarks against other large organisations taking part such as Asda, Clarion Housing, House of Lords, Guinness Partnership, Virgin Media, Anchor Hanover and the Cabinet Office.

Achieving Silver is a great honour for Look Ahead and recognises that we are truly embedding inclusion in everything we do.

Thank you to all of our staff

Our workforce is truly incredible and they have worked so hard over the past 18 months to ensure that our staff and customers feel included, particularly during a difficult year. Thank you to each of you have done things – both small and large – that have contributed to this culture.

Thank you to our Network Group leads who have helped to shape our work and the central service teams who keep it going.

We have much more to do in our work around Diversity but we are pleased with where we have come in this past year and honoured by this award.