Bababam’s Sarah Toporoff introduced this session focusing on how essential diversity and equality are for a work success.
“Inclusive hiring is not lowering the bar, it is opening the gate – breaking down the systematic barriers” said Faustine Ladeiro-Levent, the Head of Recruitment Marketing & Employer Brand, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion from the UK. She gives out five key takeways starting with being brave, intentional and keeping the bar high. Her advice for employers is to connect people in an authentic way, encourge them and provide internal training emphasising that experience is a privilege.
Rebecca Grisedale-Sherry, Audio & Digital Producer for the BBC, talked about how to create a safe space for people with disabilities. The first thing she always tells her colleagues are her strengths and weaknesses. Listeners to the presentation were no different -she revealed, as she has visual disability herself. The team should have the ability to choose how they work – choose their softwares, working practices. Let them be flexible all around,including home office, because the team’s comfort means better outcome. The technology, with which the team is working, should be also consistent, so they do not need to re-learn the basics again and again. And then, when you create a team, develop the working process and when you find the right settings, you can pass them on and teach them to other people. In order to meet these requirements, you should think ahead about people with disability and their comfort, to achieve the best results possible.
Leanne Alie, host and creator of the multi-award-winning Coiled podcast, points out the importance of picking team members from various backgrounds. Her programme BBC Sounds Audiolab for new podcasters gives people a chance to share their untold stories both humorous and serious. Her presentation showed multiple examples of her colleagues’ productions for example podcasts: You can not see, Who was Michael X and many more. In the following discussion all three speakers agreed that questions of diversity were much more discussed in the UK than in the rest of Europe and demonstrated that around 40 % of London’s population consisted of people of colour.
“You need to know where you are to know where you are going.” which summed up the great vibe that spread through the room.
