Gaining Inclusive Employers accreditation

Project overview

Martin House Children’s Hospice was progressing along its journey towards becoming an inclusive organisation. Staff were working to reduce barriers to care for ethnically diverse groups of people, and taking steps to make the hospice a more inclusive place to work.

However, the hospice wanted to make sure they maintained this momentum and ensured the work was not tokenistic. This involved:

• providing evidence about what they were doing to become more inclusive
• monitoring their progress
• utilising a framework or action plan to help guide their work.

Following a procurement process, Martin House decided to work towards accreditation with Inclusive Employers. The accreditation process took three months and involved the hospice completing a framework of 35 questions about their inclusion activities. They needed to provide evidence of what they were doing across the organisation.

After completing this framework, they would receive a rating of Gold, Silver, Bronze, or ‘committed’.

Outcomes

Martin House set up an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) network group, who led on the work on the accreditation. Staff were invited to volunteer to join the network and 21 people came forward (around 10% of the total staff team).

Together the network members worked through the accreditation questions, pulling together evidence from across the hospice about the EDI work they were doing.

They soon realised that colleagues doing a lot of brilliant work in this area, but some of this was siloed. The EDI network was able to take a more strategic, co-ordinated approach and integrate these smaller pockets of work across the whole hospice. In this way, Martin House aims to develop an inclusive culture.

Some key highlights include:

• The Care team was leading in a Rainbow badge initiative and this has now been rolled out across the hospice.
• The hospice worked with Jessica Lynn to provide trans and gender diversity awareness training across the whole organisation. 
• Makaton was being used in the Care team but the hospice is now looking at where this might be helpful in other areas.
• The hospice’s spiritual practitioner arranged visits to mosques and Synagogues  – this opportunity has now being considered for the whole organisation.
• Managers were already supporting employees who are neurodivergent, but this wasn’t necessarily recognised across the hospice.
• There is now a central catalogue of helpful organisations for signposting and one colleague is undertaking a neurodiversity workplace assessor training course.
• The hospice completed Menopause Friendly accreditation in partnership with other local health organisations.  
• Staff have been empowered to organise events such as Eid Fest and Chai and Chat sessions to support families and breakdown cultural barriers.

As a result of completing the process, Martin House was awarded Bronze accreditation. This was a real success, with less than 40% of organisations the same size achieving this level of accreditation.

Key facilitators

The members of the EDI network group are very engaged and keen to improve equality, diversity and inclusion across the hospice. Working together as a team made the accreditation much easier. Certain members of staff, such as the Cultural Liaison Officers, were particularly helpful.

The group agreed terms of reference and decided to meet every two months (although in practice they met more regularly during the accreditation period).

Martin House has linked the key pillars of the Inclusive Employers framework into key strategic documents where appropriate. This includes the hospice’s strategy, values and trauma-informed framework. This has helped make sure inclusion is embedded within everything the hospice does.

Colleagues across the hospice were very positive about the idea of seeking Inclusive Employers accreditation. Everyone could see the benefit and was happy to be involved. Trustees were also supportive and the process has helped them to learn more about what the hospice is doing to improve.

It was helpful that there is no ‘pass’ or ‘fail’. The lowest outcome for Martin House would have been achieving the ‘committed’ status, which would still have given them tangible evidence of the hospice’s dedication to improving inclusion.

Having the accreditation is a good way to evidence the hospice’s commitment to improving inclusion. In particular, it:

• helps build relationships with stakeholders from a wide range of backgrounds
• shows potential funders that the hospice has an inclusive culture
• helps demonstrate to potential employees that Martin House is a safe and supportive place to work.
   

Challenges

Although staff were keen to support the accreditation process, it can be difficult for colleagues to find the time to contribute when they already have very busy roles. However, a key part of the process was identifying work that is already taking place, which made things easier.

There is a cost consideration for any accreditation process. Martin House carried out a procurement process and considered the cost vs benefit of different options.

Martin House plans to renew the accreditation in two or three years time, when they are hoping to have progressed enough to gain a Silver or Gold award.