The general idea

This is a very boiled-down summary: an overview with some key principles and examples, to provide a structure for thinking about these issues and identify things that need addressing (or areas of unmet potential). The stages vary slightly between organisations but are basically as shown.

While I personally work with my clients on a range of participation types (e.g. as activists, board members, or as informed and empowered individuals) the examples below mostly relate to staff (in the interests of conciseness) but the principles are applicable across all participation types.

Key principles

It’s often assumed that people who are not participating (or not being fully included and empowered) are ‘minorities and margins’. However, in the organisations I’ve worked with, it’s the people who are participating who disproportionately come from minorities (e.g. graduates, people from ‘professional and managerial’ backgrounds, those from London and the South East, and men, all of whom are minorities in wider society). The people who are un-represented or under-represented, or mainly found in less-influential roles, or who find that practices and cultures are designed around someone unlike us, are the diverse majority of us.

Some issues are particular to specific demographic groups (which is why people like me collaborate with those whose demographic specialisms complement our own) but most mechanisms of inclusion / exclusion affect multiple groups. Attempting to ‘take one diversity at a time’ frames this work as a play-off between competing minorities (and struggles with the fact we are intersectional creatures) rather than making things user-friendly for more than just a minority.

I see a lot of attempts to become more representative and inclusive fail because they address one or two stages of participation at a time, and neglect issues upstream or downstream of what they’re doing (e.g. they tackle issues with selection, but no-one comes for selection because of outreach failures; or people are recruited but then find themselves in organisations maladapted to them). The chain of participation is a strong as it’s weakest link.

Overview of key areas to consider

1) Allowing the organisation to understand the issue, and feel its importance

It’s important that everyone in an organisation recognises that becoming more representative of the wider population is not just a way of displaying virtue. It is:

• What allows organisations to have an adequate range of insights into the society in which we operate (the alternative to which is failing to see opportunities and threats – like the organisations that didn’t see Brexit coming — and accidentally alienating would-be allies).
• What allows us to involve people who have the potential to be an asset to our organisations but are currently prevented from doing so.
• What allows people who are in our organisations, but don’t come from the usual backgrounds, to perform to their potential and retain more wellbeing, rather than trying to operate in an organisation maladapted to them or self-censoring their insights to fit the dominant consensus.

My usual way of doing this is, i) beginning this work by gathering everyone to discuss how this work arises from the values and objectives of the organisation, and them as individuals. ii) When presenting findings, reprising the connection to values and objectives, and asking individuals to identify widening participation actions they will take to advance their values and objectives.

2) Understanding the situation: who is and isn’t represented, who feels empowered.

When surveying an organisation’s people, I look at Protected Characteristics and measures of socioeconomic background. But first I talk with people to identify characteristics particular to the organisation (which have included anything from what region of the UK people are from, to perceived physical fitness). If possible, this should be broken down by seniority and function (e.g. because people from underrepresented groups tend to be found in less influential roles).

Data from a survey is used (among other things) to demonstrate how un/representative the organisation is of the public (to counteract humans’ tendency to overestimate our own normality).

NB the data is good for seeing the un/representativeness of groups, but doesn’t describe individuals:  we are far more idiosyncratic and intersectional than that!

3) Common mechanisms determining whose involvement is facilitated or obstructed, encouraged or discouraged

There are many, and they vary by organisation, but include: financial, cultural and social capital (the latter including ‘sector capital’: whether individuals know or knew people in similar organisations). They also include: differing motivations to participate (which often correlate to demographic), discrimination and experience of discrimination, whether relatable people are seen to be involved, geographical issues affecting participation, ‘fit vs belonging’, headspace, and epistemic issues.

Practices at each of the ‘stages of participation’ (see below) can be checked against these.

4) The offer

What is asked of potential participants? (e.g. will volunteering improve your chances of getting a paid job, putting people who couldn’t afford to do unpaid work at a disadvantage?)

What is offered to potential participants? (e.g. is this a short-term contract that is too high a financial risk for someone without access to family wealth?)

Are you valuing what you already have rather than ‘added value’? (e.g. are you asking for skills that others in your team already have or could be trained for? And are you actually — rather than rhetorically — valuing people from underrepresented backgrounds, e.g. by including in a person specification’s criteria, the ability to understand and engage communities the organisation currently struggles to reach?)

5) Stages of participation

5.1) Outreach

Allowing people to see that not only do opportunities to participate exist, but participation is relevant to them. (This can be a big process, and you may be a small organisation. This is where ‘thinking as a movement’ comes in: someone may get initially exposed to the movement by you, but participate via another organisation, and sometimes you’ll benefit from others’ efforts. Consider collaboration!)

This process can be understood by considering why the children of doctors are 24 times more likely than the rest of us to become doctors themselves: i) those individuals get insights into what a medical career involves, ii) it doesn’t seem intimidating to them, because relatable people are doing it, iii) they have access to people who can guide them through the sometimes-unwritten rules of ‘getting in and getting on’, and iv) such a career offers to bolster their sense of belonging & identity (again, because people in their circle are doing it). In short, it offers comfort and identity-affirmation.

The data (see ‘Understanding the situation…’ above) tells you about who is missing. Consider i) what channels and messages might reach them; ii) whether what you are saying resonates with their motivations (which might be different from your own) and reassures them about their likely concerns; iii) whether what you are saying makes sense to people who have not, like you, had chance to become familiar with issues and framings that are unfamiliar to people outside your organisation. Meet people where they are: literally and metaphorically!

5.2) Application and selection

Be careful not to leave rules unspoken. For example, very often in recruitment, the successful candidate doesn’t meet all ‘essential’ criteria (in an article in the Harvard Business Review, the writer says “If you’re completely qualified for the job you apply for, you aimed too low”). That’s a problem for people who never applied because they made the mistake of thinking “essential” meant “essential”, who tend to be from social groups who aren’t told otherwise.

Interviews, the way they are typically conducted, are dreadful ways of selecting suitable candidates. For example, in one study, a group of university admissions staff were asked to predict the end of-year grades of students, using interviews and data on prior academic performance. Another group only looked at the data. The result? admissions staff who were able to interview students were beaten by those who only had access to data 79% of the time: the extra information gleaned from interviews was worse-than-useless information, such as the social confidence that people typically equate with competence but is often just a mark of background.

I’m not saying don’t do interviews, they are good at raising red flags, but are typically over-weighted, compared to tests that give some insight into what is actually needed to do the job. There is also evidence that if interviewers discuss which biases might affect their decision-making (prior to interviewing and prior to discussing the relative merits of candidates) it tends to reduce the effect of those biases.

5.3) Onboarding

Someone I interviewed for my book said going into a workplace dominated by people from upper middle-class backgrounds felt like he was being asked to combine the usual learning curve of a new job with ‘a crash course in applied anthropology’: it takes up a lot of headspace and makes us look like we’re struggling to do the job.

Once we’ve been in a job for a while, it’s hard for us to see what isn’t obvious to new people. I’ve suggested to numerous clients that they ask new staff to review application, selection and onboarding processes, to identify instances in which they felt under-informed or baffled. That requires psychological safety techniques (which come into my work a lot, because people who feel like outsiders often feel they’ll reveal their imposter status by admitting to not knowing something).

5.4) Culture and practices

A lot of this concerns behaviour (e.g. individuals from ‘lower’ socioeconomic backgrounds have told me, on more than one occasion, that their colleagues unshakingly talk about the communities they come from in ways that are at best patronising and at worst insulting: from referring to people who have experienced poverty as though we have no agency, to referring to people who voted for Brexit – which for many of us includes people we love – as some mix of stupid and evil). 

I’ve spoken to numerous people who’ve felt under pressure to keep the insights they bring from their lived experience under wraps, for fear that it will be dismissed if it is dissonant with consensus in the organisation. Some of this can be addressed with basic chairing skills: making sure everyone gets the chance to speak up. Sometimes it is a matter of psychological safety. But there are also other approaches I’ve worked out with clients, including ‘reframing expertise’ (holding ‘expert’ staff accountable not just for what they know and say, but also for what diverse perspectives they have sought out).

5.5) Development and progression

Again, a key theme is unwritten rules: I’ve come across a lot of people from outside the dominant demographic who assume that progression happens the same way becoming a fairytale princess happens (you do good work and wait until someone important rewards your virtue). As someone whose parents never ‘climbed the career ladder’ (my mum remained a shop assistant, my dad remained a ‘pit electrician’) this was the story I absorbed. In contrast, other people absorb the unwritten rules of progression at their parents’ dinner tables, and often fail to see that what’s obvious to them isn’t obvious to others.

Some of the people I interviewed for my book worked in accountancy and said they appreciated the fact that rules of progression were written (at certain levels at least): do the qualification, get the experience, progress to the next level. There are also companies (like Compass) who can be learned from: they make it clear to all staff what opportunities are available, what those opportunities involve, what they require, and what support is available to get there; with managers equipped and accountable for supporting development and progression.

5.6) Feedback, learning, and keeping good practice going

Some of this is covered above. One of the techniques I use are roundtables, in which I brief people on the demographic data and mechanisms of inclusion / exclusion, and ask them to identify how those mechanisms play out in specific practices at each stage of participation. It’s a diagnostic tool, for getting insider knowledge of what happens in the organisation. BUT it also allows people to see they are not alone in feeling ‘put on the back foot’ by practices and cultures designed around someone unlike themselves (which means people become more likely to speak up with insights that the organisation would otherwise not hear). It also gives people the concepts and thinking tools to assess whether new and evolving practices will promote or frustrate the organisation in becoming more representative, inclusive and effective.

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A bit about me:

I’m Duncan Exley. I work with not-for-profits to involve a larger and more representative group of people (as activists, staff, board members, and/or as informed & empowered individuals) and to adopt practices that unleash the potential and support the wellbeing of people from all backgrounds. My specialism is underrepresented socioeconomic groups and regions, and I work in collaboration with specialists in other demographics. I offer analysis-&-recommendation &/or training, and take a down-to-earth approach (I’m told!) based on a career in the sector. Message me for a no-commitment chat:

www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-exley-608b4317

duncanexley@gmail.com / 07969 110281