Diverse Voices Engaging Employees in an Increasingly Diverse Workforce Ramya Yarlagadda Policy and Research Officer, IPA

2011 WERS nLarge scale survey covering almost 22,200 employee across 2,680 workplaces nGood opportunity to look at the state of employee engagement in the British labour market nUsed 2011 WERS to look at how engagement and MacLeod and Clarke’s enablers (strategic narrative, engaging managers, voice and integrity) vary across different groups of the workforce

What did we find? nGaps in employee engagement exist across various groups of the workforce

Gender  Women are more engaged than men

Age nYoung employees tend to be the most engaged, with engagement progressively decreasing with age until 65 when it increases again

Disability nDisabled employees lot less engaged than those who are not disabled

Why do these gaps exist? nDrivers of engagement “Engagement is not a one size fits all thing, and actually the drivers of engagement are going to be very different to different groups of people.” Doug Crawford, Cerus Consulting

Why do these gaps exist? nProvision of flexible working “We need to understand the expectations women are informed by – is it about an opportunity to work in an environment where they have flexible working, where they get more opportunity to get child care? Understanding what their engagement really means is very important.” Dianah Worman OBE, CIPD

Why do these gaps exist? nDiscrimination in the workplace –Formation of ‘in-groups’ and ‘out- groups’

Why do these gaps exist? nUnconscious bias “I think there has to be a huge dimension of unconscious bias because we know that [at times] we recruit people who are ‘like me’, people that ‘I’m used to’, and people that ‘I’m comfortable with’.” Sandra Kerr OBE, BITC

What can be done to address these gaps? n‘Two sides of the same coin’ “People come in their entirety. We know that our people are diverse, so we have used our employee engagement statistics to work on issues that affect them. Our approach to engagement is woven into everything we do, and diversity and inclusion is a major part of it.” Claire Bell, University of Lincoln

What can be done to address these gaps? nIn-depth analysis of employee engagement surveys “I think people need to be often convinced that action is necessary before you can get the shift in culture and I think employee surveys, staff surveys [are important] in setting the tone. The results [of surveys] can show what the engagement levels are and where there are differences.” Sandra Kerr OBE, BITC

What can be done to address these gaps? nLeadership and organisational culture “Leadership is absolutely critical. Without good leadership, diversity and inclusion doesn’t happen. If they are not seen to demonstrate through their actions that commitment, then you know people will only think of it as lip service.” Heather Downey, Nottinghamshire Fit for Work Service

What can be done to address these gaps? nSupport line managers “It [managerial training] is fundamental. Almost 50 per cent of disabled employees [expressing] dissatisfaction at work cite their line manager as the reason and it is [often] to do with a lack of awareness and skills and confidence on part of the line manager.” George Selvanara, Business Disability Forum

What can be done to address these gaps? nEmployee networks “The most successful networks are those which are actually aligned with some sort of governance arrangement which allows them to feed into decision making processes within an organisation.” Paul Deemer, NHSE

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