EDI: What it is and why it matters
As diversity awareness month draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on what diversity means to Verco and ensuring Equality, Diversity and Inclusion remain the pillars on which we continue to enhance our culture and practices.
We want to create and maintain an environment in which our team feel supported, heard and included as a group of unique individuals working towards a common goal. It’s so important to us, it has long been a part of our mission; to “Develop a community of passionate and diverse professionals”.
Broadening our definition of EDI
When we think of EDI, we can sometimes focus on protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation) without thinking of our wider identities that give us advantages and disadvantages.
It's important to broaden our definition to include characteristics such as accent, age, caring responsibilities, culture, visible and invisible disability, gender identity and expression, mental health, neurodiversity, physical appearance, political opinion, family status and socio-economic circumstances, amongst other personal characteristics and experiences.
Encouraging EDI at work
As a proud B Corp, Verco is always reviewing best practice and looking for ways to grow and improve our understanding. We set goals year on year (see our Impact Report). This year, as well as asking our team for their views and ideas, we’ve been challenging our EDI strategy, enhancing our maternity leave policy, implementing initiatives to encourage women into engineering, celebrating Pride, listening to knowledge shares on mental wellbeing and we will shortly be learning more about neurodiversity, too.
We strongly believe that celebrating diversity helps foster innovation, enhances decision-making, broadens our understanding of the wider market challenges, and keeps our employee satisfaction levels high and our culture inclusive.
Sharing helpful resources
Here are just a few resources we refer to in our continual research into EDI. We hope you'll find them useful too.