Management School hosts Diversity and Inclusion seminar with Hays Recruitment
On Thursday 4 November, the Management School hosted an online Business Brunch covering Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the workplace.
The event was part of the Management School’s Corporate Partnership Agreement with Hays Recruitment and also aligned with the School’s Athena Swan commitments.
Clare Kemlsey, MD for UK&I at Hays Marketing, chaired the session and invited the panel to share their experience and views on a wide range of areas.
Dr Erin Hengel, Lecturer in Economics at the Management School, shared details of her research into disparities between genders in academia in her field of Economics. She commented on the importance of ensuring women are represented at senior management level to ensure they can influence decision making and support other early-career women to progress.
Amanda Newman, Senior Manager at Accenture, described some of the policies and good practices Accenture has in place to actively promote D&I and empower people to succeed, particularly following the recent Black Lives Matter movement.
Yvonne Smyth, Group Head of ED&I at Hays and Director for Hays Human Resources, highlighted details from some of Hays recent reports which show that talented job-seekers are placing increasing importance on an organisation’s ability to demonstrate a meaningful commitment to create a more diverse workforce and inclusive workplace and the organisational values which support this.
Following the presentations attendees had the opportunity to ask panel members questions. Topics covered included recruitment best practice and the concern about unconscious bias and positive discrimination, the impact of the job market on employees’ ability to work from home and the impact on a household’s primary care-giver in the shift to home-working.
Speaking about the event Anne Donnelly, Business Development Manager at the Management School, said, “We have all experienced a seismic shift in our work and home lives in the past seven months and this event could easily have run on for longer, given the range of topics covered and the questions asked by attendees at the end so it was great to be able to engage with people about such an important aspect of working life.
Thanks again to our partners Hays Recruitment, our panel speakers and everyone who contributed to a worthwhile session.”