Oh hi! Welcome to Chapter 7 of our DEI journey. If you’ve missed a chapter (or just want a reminder of what we’ve been up to), you can head over here. 

Recently, the inaugural council and taskforces said their goodbyes and passed the baton to a newer, bigger crew. The council is bigger because our company is too. And with so many new faces on the team, we’re excited to have launched our strategy for the second year!

But before we get into that, we have to say how grateful we are to our very first DEI council, who left us with incredible memories, plus opportunities to learn and acknowledge, connect, bond and celebrate each other. They’ve launched some pretty cool initiatives that have helped us address big challenges. Here’s a small sample… 

To help us identify opportunities for career growth: We launched Learning Fest, a chance to set aside time to fall back in love with learning, and invest in professional development as we all navigate our career paths.

To help us diversify our teams: We created a bespoke Bias & Influence workshop. Working with our partner Collective, we designed something that was reflective of our international team and an opportunity to understand our structured hiring process.

To help us speak up: We revisited how we talk about Radical Candour, helping our team understand its benefits, reintroducing frameworks and creating opportunities to raise our voices in safe spaces.

To help us deepen our cross-cultural understanding of each other: We did virtual tours of each other's home towns and had random catch-ups to get to know one another better.

We’ve got a lot more insight about how our team is feeling now, too. Our biannual CultureAmp survey now captures thoughts on Inclusion and has helped inform our next steps for the year ahead.

Where to now?

Well, we’re not letting go of a good thing. We’ve reflected on all the action from the past year and refined goals and objectives. Spoiler alert: they’re mostly staying the same. They still feel really stretchy, very inspiring and help us focus on where we’re having different experiences as a team. Changing now would mean we haven’t done enough of the hard work needed to address these challenges.

1. Build the foundation

Build the foundation of DEI at Who Gives A Crap by embedding explicit, core company values and stated philosophies and broadening employees’ empathy and cross-cultural understanding of each other’s lived experiences and adversities.

2. Enhance team representation

Enhance our recruitment and hiring processes to increase representation across the organisation at all levels, teams and hubs, with a focus on BIPOC candidates and currently underrepresented voices and perspectives.

3. Cultivate a culture of empowerment

Empower employees’ voices, day-to-day work, and career advancement by cultivating a culture that encourages the giving and receiving of feedback, learning over perfection, and the ability to grow through clearly communicated equitable processes.

Continuing with the initiatives we believe in and being really intentional about any new ones we introduce will allow us to remain agile and responsive to the needs of our business as we grow.

What we’re doing differently… and other ways we’re connecting to our purpose

Following on from Chapter 6, we’ve taken lots of learnings into the new year, including:

• More upfront planning & prioritising so we remain agile

• Maximising face time by collaborating within time zones 

• Getting clear on where we need help and bringing people in with expertise so we maintain momentum

This type of cross-functional collaboration is not just happening in the world of DEI, though. This year, we’re working in a similar way to push forward some big impact and sustainability goals. Together, these are called ‘purpose pods’. Cross-functional in design, purpose pods will leverage the core skill sets, interests and growth areas of our team to help us weave our shared values even tighter into the way we work.

Integrating DEI into our everyday

Over the past year there have been calls to get closer to the work the council is doing, as well as spotlighting the amazing work each of our teams is doing. So another thing that’s changed is an evolution of the External & Brand task force into the Integration task force.

After sharing our strategy earlier this month, we invited teams from across Who Gives A Crap to brainstorm, refine and pitch back a DEI-related initiative they would like to own this year.

We hope this will be a chance for people across the organisation to feel a heck of a lot closer to the work, to apply their expertise and celebrate achievements they know are directly contributing to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Pretty cool huh?