EDI Leadership: How Accreditation and Partnerships can Enhance Impact

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) must be at the heart of every organisation’s strategy. Creating an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive is not just a moral imperative, it is also fundamental to our success as a business.

At London South East Colleges (LSEC), we are proud to have been recognised as an exemplary employer for the third consecutive year by Investing in Ethnicity’s (IIE) Maturity Matrix. This is an organisation set up to encourage a stronger focus on the ethnicity agenda in workplaces , demonstrating commitment to a diverse workforce.

Partnering with expert bodies like IIE and Inclusive Excellence, is helping us to navigate our EDI journey by providing support, and also a framework in which we can develop and improve our practice.

Here are the key areas in which we are seeing real benefit from this collaboration – and other organisations can too:

Expert Guidance & Sharing of Best Practice

Partnering with specialist organisations offers access to industry-leading knowledge, frameworks and the sharing of best practice. These resources are helping us to integrate EDI more effectively into our cultural and operational strategies.

For example, we have adopted the Black Leadership Group’s 10-point plan within our EDI actions and are further developing our tutorial and student behaviour charters using another of their frameworks (SALT). This is driving positive change in all parts of our business.

Benchmarking & Measuring Progress

One of the greatest challenges in advancing EDI is measuring progress. Drawing on external expertise is enabling us to benchmark ourselves against sector standards, identify gaps and then develop targeted action plans. Our continued recognition in the Investors in Ethnicity Maturity Matrix has enabled us to track our development on a year-on-year basis, using consistent markers. This is helping to ensure continued and sustained progress in areas such as Recruitment, Employee Life Cycle, Culture and Inclusion and Supporting Strategy.

Accountability & External Validation

Gaining accreditation from a respected external body strengthens an institution’s credibility. For us, receiving independent validation of our commitment to EDI offers reassurance to all our stakeholders that this genuinely is an organisational priority for us – and ingrained within our Group Strategy.

A highly valued accreditation highlights us as a progressive and socially responsible organisation, which then attracts stakeholders, funders and partners who share our values.

Enhanced Student & Staff Experience

As a diverse, multi-campus FE College in south east London, we know that an inclusive environment benefits everyone. We focus on ensuring that all our staff and students feel valued, supported and able to achieve their ambitions – regardless of background, ability or previous education.

We do this by embedding EDI principles at every level of our organisation, prioritising staff and student voice for example, and then acting on feedback. By creating a culture where everyone feels both heard and listened to, we see higher engagement, retention and ultimately success.

Working towards an accreditation framework can really support this, as it helps to identify any gaps or areas we may not have considered when working with (and consulting) our student and staff community.

Attracting Talent and Nurturing External Partnerships

As one of the largest employers in our region, we understand the importance of attracting and retaining diverse talent across all areas of our business. We want our workforce to fully represent the communities we serve, reflecting our values and with opportunities for everyone to grow.

External accreditation in relation to EDI enables us to demonstrate our commitment and our values to potential employees and indeed, all stakeholders. It offers a third party ‘endorsement’ of what we know we do well, which then helps us to build strong, dynamic teams and partnerships, who share our vision of inclusion.

Addressing Systemic Barriers

A key aspect of meaningful EDI work is identifying and then breaking down systemic barriers. We work hard to challenge biases and ensure policies and practices do not inadvertently disadvantage any group.

Our work with Investing in Ethnicity has helped us address these challenges and implement proactive solutions that promote true equity. For example, we provide Group-wide training programmes to all staff, including EDI and unconscious bias training – and our talent management programmes have significantly improved representation in under-represented roles by over 10%.

For our organisation, receiving the highest level of IIE accreditation for the third year absolutely reflects the collective efforts of our staff teams. However, it is also a great incentive to sustain the work we are doing, and to continue on our positive EDI journey.

The FE sector is incredibly diverse and inclusive, with much best practice to share and develop. We are delighted to be part of this and are keen to collaborate with other colleges – so please do get in touch as we would love to hear from you, to share experience and insight.

By Janet Curtis-Broni, Group Chief People Officer, London South East Colleges