Is your local authority workforce truly representative of the community that it serves? 

Local councils play a critical role in reducing inequalities within their communities, therefore the workforce of the local authority itself must consistently be working towards better equality, diversity and inclusivity within the workplace and its services. The government’s recent update on their Employee Equality Objectives for 2020-2025 stresses the need to ‘embed an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) approach to all our work’, so ensuring your local authority is actively doing its part is crucial to its performance and innovation.

Diversity can relate to age, religion, ethnicity, nationality and educational background. Hiring or giving voices to people from different backgrounds and with different experiences can bring in new ideas, knowledge, innovation, and creativity. These equal, diverse, and inclusive organisations perform better for these reasons.

Knowing the difference between diversity and inclusion 

It is important to note that diversity does not equal inclusion and visa vera. Diversity refers to recognising that the individuals who make up your workforce have things in common but are also different in their own ways. Whereas inclusion refers to those differences being seen as a benefit that leads to better innovative decisions. Be sure to reach out to fresh new talent across diverse networks but at the same time, don’t forget to nurture and promote your existing employees.

Is there a focus on inclusive leadership?

The working environment should make your employees feel valued, empowered, and safe and give them a sense of belonging. Communicate with your employees and ensure that they feel as though your approach is inclusive and if not, there are many inclusive leadership training resources you can use to achieve this.

The more work your local authority does to ensure its workforce is equal, diverse and inclusive, it can provide a better approach to representing the majority of the community that it serves and lead to better outcomes for its internal workforce as well as the wider community that it serves.

We pride ourselves on being an agency that puts EDI at the forefront of our recruitment services, our EDI officer Akbar Hassam, ensures that our processes are constantly innovating towards a better diversity and inclusion model. We recently released a pledge to double our recruitment figures for women in senior positions as part of our year-to-date review for International Women’s Day, which you can read here.

Is your local authority looking to fill vacancies with experienced professionals to help implement change and transformation? See how we can help you by contacting us via email at [email protected].