Redesigning staff networks: Making inclusion work in old structures
The rise of staff networks
More and more organisations are setting up staff networks. There are many benefits to joining them — you get to meet colleagues outside of your team, grow your network (it’s in the name!), whilst also playing your part to create a more inclusive workplace culture.
At Wellcome, we now have six diversity and inclusion (D&I) staff networks, all set up in the last three years. As Chair of the BAME Network, I’ve been able to use my skills and experience in my day job that involves designing initiatives to engage the public in Wellcome’s work, to rethink how to make this network meet the needs of its members.
Operating models
Wellcome’s history as a charitable foundation funding science research means that we naturally gravitate towards using operational practices we find in academia. We like committees, we like round table discussions, and we like a Terms of Reference. Although these tried and tested mechanisms prove to be helpful in most professional contexts, these tools are often very fixed, preventing teams from trying new approaches that challenge the status quo or meet the needs of those not normally catered for.
Staff networks are an opportunity to innovate and modernise. How do you make inclusion work in old structures? How do you instill a creative freedom in your team to enable them to adapt to the old and the new?
Over the course of two years, I worked with the BAME network committee to try to answer these questions. As the outgoing Chair, here’s my top three takeaways. If you’re about to take on a leadership role in a staff network, I hope you find them useful!
1. From professional to personal
Traditional committee groups operate on the principle that positions are appointed on the merit of the individual’s professional expertise. Each person feeds into the decision by sharing their professional opinion, often facilitated by the chair.
For an employee network to meet its purpose in addressing D&I issues and driving change, it can’t rely on a small group of individuals with just their ‘work hat’ on. Unless they happen to be an expert in D&I, they need to start with their own personal views, experiences, and understanding on the topic of inclusion, and go from there.
To begin uncovering what we know and don’t know, those coming together need to feel safe to share their own experiences and participate in challenging conversations. Each needs to adopt an inclusive mindset: to listen, to empathise, to spot connections, build on stories, unearth opportunities for change and move into action. What is the shift we need to make? We need to move away from seeing ourselves as a collection of individuals and rather as a group of connected individuals.
2. Get to know your members
As noted in the above point, traditional committee meetings orientate around decision-making, where decisions are made based on the knowledge, information and expertise in the room. But how do you prepare your team to become informed enough to make decisions on behalf of a wider membership that are usually less catered for?
It’s probably safe to say that the standard chair prep such as putting a call out for agenda items, finalizing a fixed agenda and learning how to rattle through it on time will not suffice.
Empower your team to do some groundwork to understand the needs, challenges and barriers faced by the membership. In tandem, help them become more comfortable with representing views and opinions. This means supporting them to reach out to wider colleagues, build relationships, make time for conversations, develop better listening and communication skills. Your role now is less about preparing for meetings and more about enabling your team to become better at networking.
3. Take an innovations approach
Once you have agreed collectively on what to offer your members, the ‘natural’ next step might be to design and deliver activities, taking a traditional project management approach. This often results in the team spending a lot of time planning the perfect thing, putting in a lot of effort to make it work. This leads to high expectations — that everyone will engage with it, love it, and they will get it. If this is not the reception they receive after all that energy, huge disappointment and low morale follows.
The thing to come to terms with is this: most of the activities you put on won’t ‘work’ — not at the beginning anyway. This is because it’s hard to be sure what your members will find meaningful and therefore what will ‘work’. It’s entirely understandable. You are trying to serve a group of people who are often not served, so unless you have been up and running for several years with lots of great learning to build your ideas from, it’s going to take a bit of trial and error working out what works.
To speed up this process, try to be agile in your approach to delivering activities. This means not investing too heavily in designing one activity. Try lots of small interventions quickly, set some criteria for success to measure yourself against, evaluate, and continue the ones that work and stop the ones that don’t. Try not to perfect each activity — you can perfect the ones people like later.
So that’s it — my top three takeaways. I hope this resonates with those participating in your own staff networks, or helps those looking to start up your own. I’d love to continue the conversation — please comment below.
