How to make your business 'inclusive'
Pride in Gloucestershire's chairman tells us why the simple actions of one firm demonstrate what it is for a business to be truly inclusive - and the massive positive impact that can have.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The Raikes Journal. As you know we usually drop a paywall across Thursday’s edition, making the main story for members’ only - but not today.
Today we thought we’d keep the bar off so everyone can read what we think is a really interesting and insightful piece, especially for any business looking to achieve that dynamic culture that makes staff proud of where they work, makes customers feel welcome and your company genuinely part of your local community.
We also help Sarah Cook celebrate five years of her business, HR People Support. When Raikes first appeared on the scene in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic it was lucky enough to interview Cook and her then fledgling company. Her own personal story was inspirational, but what she has achieved since and continues to has taken it to a whole new level.
In case you missed it, you can see our Monday edition - indeed all our editions - on our website (www.raikesjournal.co.uk). Monday featured a big interview with Nicola Bird, a woman already making her mark in the construction sector, but on reflection very possibly only just beginning to build her legacy now! For any young woman looking at a career in construction we recommend you take a few minutes to had a read. You can find that story, and all our other stories, right here.
And please do continue to bear us in mind for your stories and ideas. Contact andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk or telephone 07956 926061.
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid, you’ll be able to see past the paywalls that fall across many of our second and third email editions of the week and that lock all our archive after two weeks and our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series, you’ll be able to comment on our stories and you’ll be helping make this community interest company sustainable - able to deliver even more stories about the county, about its businesses, charities and education and training providers.
Currently we’re offering 45 per cent off as we seek to build our membership - which works out at just £1.27 a week or £5.50 a month (that’s £66 a year)! For commercial opportunities email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
Celebrating success: Happy fifth birthday to this Cheltenham business!
🥳 It’s not everyday that a business reaches its fifth birthday, and we felt we would spread the love and help HR People Support mark the special occasion. Its own team celebrated with a gathering at Cheltenham’s Brasserie Blanc restaurant, marking five years which has seen the firm grow from an idea in the head of its founder, Sarah Cook, to where it is now – a team of experts helping more than 250 businesses of all sizes and responsible for 4,500 staff across the region navigate the complexities of HR. In that time HR People Support’s growth has been aided by the acquisition of two other firms, seen its reputation grow and seen Cook become a well-known face in the Cheltenham business community, not least as deputy chief executive officer of its chamber of commerce.
Your Raikes’ briefing notes
📈 Top 100: For a firm started on a kitchen table a couple of decades ago to reach £60 million turnover is impressive enough, but ProCook has revealed plans to dwarf that figure by taking advantage of a “significant opportunity for growth”. The high street and online cookware retailer founded in Gloucestershire by Daniel O’Neil has revealed a bold plan to target a £100 million turnover, which it will achieve through opening more shops and the use of AI. Read more here in our Reports & Deals channel, home of our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series, which tracks the fortunes of the county’s biggest firms by turnover.
💪 A Gloucestershire firm has predicted profits of around £50 million for the first half of 2024 after revealing it has enjoyed a strong start to the year. Mears Group, which has its headquarters in Brockworth, said it expected profits before tax to be ahead of the same period last year - and its own expectations. It said the first six months of the year had seen it benefit from improvements in operating margins, strong cash generation and improved revenues from management-led activities. Mears will announce its interim results for the six months ended 30 June in August. Read more here.
🏠 Bromford, a housing association with more than 47,000 homes across central and South West England and a Tewkesbury address, has announced its intention to merge with Norwich-based Flagship. The new business, called Bromford Flagship, will allow it to deliver even more homes, with its bosses predicting that figure will rise to 2,000 homes a year for the next 30 years. Fifty per cent of those new homes will be for what it calls ‘social rent’.
🎯 If you want to get to know business owners in the middle of Cheltenham your luck is in. Join them for a night of networking and darts at the town’s Flight Club. Cheltenham BID, which represents all such businesses, is staging the event for members and non-members at the Henrietta Street venue on Thursday 4 July from 6pm. You’ll also hear about future BID events and initiatives and get sight of the forthcoming Wimbledon Big Screen, due to be installed in the Brewery Quarter from 1 July to 14 July. Tickets are free for BID members and £20 non-members. Find out more here.
🍕🏆 If you are one of those people who can’t resist a good quiz, are partial to pizza, and love to see county charities being supported, then Randall & Payne and WSP Solicitors could well have the answer. The county firms are due to stage their Annual Charity Quiz Night, hosted by former BBC producer, presenter and podcast host, Faye Hatcher. Due to take place at Kings Stanley Village Hall from 6pm on Thursday 18 July, tickets are £60 per team of four people with all proceeds going to the charities Teckels Animal Sanctuaries and Young Gloucestershire. To book click here, email marketing@randall-payne.co.uk or call 01242 776000.
How to make your business 'inclusive'
Pride in Gloucestershire's chairman tells us why the simple actions of one firm demonstrate what it is for a business to be truly inclusive - and the massive positive impact that can have.
By Andrew Merrell
If you want to make a bold statement you can fly a flag. GCHQ thought it was a good idea to be more visable about its support for gay and trans people, and dually flew the rainbow flag for the first time in 2014.
In 2015 it went one better and on May 17, a day identified internationally as a celebration against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia, it lit up the famous ‘doughnut’ building with the rainbow colours, a symbol of LGBTQIA+ pride and LGBTQIA+ social movements.
In a much smaller, but no less meaningful gesture in 2023, law firm Willans LLP draped rainbow flags across its regency offices overlooking Imperial Gardens – site of the Pride in Cheltenham festival.
It was a big year for the event, which was a collaboration between festival organisers Pride in Cheltenham and Cheltenham Pride (the latter organised the return of the parade for the first time in a decade) and the statement from a stalwart of the town’s business community was welcome morale support.
We began this story with GCHQ because its backstory could be said to reflect the journey the nation itself is on, and in that sense the one we are all on.
Until 1991, GCHQ, the intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and the Foreign Office, would not employ openly gay men or women. It took another 14 years before it felt it had got its house in order enough to dare risk flying flags about how inclusive it was.
It is also a journey many of our businesses and organisations are on too, or want to be on. But how on earth do you become ‘inclusive’?
One thing is for sure, as much as waving a flag is a statement, a business needs to do a bit more than that.
“We wanted to make sure our culture internally really was where it should be too,” said Tom O’Riordan, a partner in Willans’ wills, trusts and probate team and someone who has helped lead on what modern parlance would term the ‘education piece’ within the firm.
“We thought about getting involved sooner in Pride, but it is important for us that it was meaningful.
“We did not want it to be ‘rainbow-washing’. You can’t say you are part of a community, and then not be aware of what that means.”
On one level it’s the same battle companies face when they want to portray themselves as green, as charitable, as caring. Raising your profile for being any one of these also exposes your business to scrutiny – from inside and most certainly from your staff. If it is only PR-thin, with nothing to back it up, you are playing a dangerous game.
Willans is already known as a long-established firm of expert lawyers that has been serving clients in the county and beyond for more than 75 years, but it wants to also be sure it remains a firm that is part of its community and serves all of that community.
Working out what that looks like is, it turns out, a journey that will never end.
James Melvin-Bath, a senior associate, solicitor-advocate, in Willans’ Legal 500-rated dispute resolution and litigation team, said: “For us it is about being approachable. Regardless of ethnicity, background, gender, whatever, you need people to feel they can trust us with what are often the most intimate parts of their lives.
“The next generation that is coming along is very diverse and inclusive. A lot of business say that describes their business now, but I think you have to always be developing, always looking at yourself and asking ‘what are we doing?’ before you say you are all those things.”
Melvin-Bath and O’Riordan are both LGBTQIA+ champions within the firm, which has champions across a range of subjects – from charity to the menopause and training.
For Richard Stevens, chairman of Pride in Cheltenham, part of Pride in Gloucestershire, the simple gesture of the flags by Willans was poignant.
“We saw them and were really pleased. We didn’t ask the firm to do that, it just did it. We felt welcome. It meant something,” he said.
“When it came to this year we suddenly faced a crisis and needed a sponsor’s support at the last minute.
“Willans came to mind. We didn’t know what to expect when we approached the firm, but it actually said ‘we were thinking of getting involved, but were not sure how. How can we help?’.
“It was incredible how it mobilised itself to support us at such short notice. But it is about more than that.
“They talked to us about what they were doing internally, and we talked about the needs of the LGBTQIA+ community and they listened.
“Even simple things like ‘where can I get my gender recognition certificate signed?’.
“It needs to be signed by a professional, but it is a very personal matter it can be very difficult for people to walk off the street and explain that to a stranger and risk being rejected.
“James took that away and actually came back! He said ‘we can do that. Please tell people they are welcome’.”
Melvin-Bath said: “It is important that people feel they can approach you. They have to feel they can come into reception, speak to someone they have never met before, tell them what it is about, why they need the signature, for example, and feel they will be understood.
“A statutory declaration like that is just £5. We give that to charity, but it is about being approachable for that community - or for anyone.
“Willans has been here for 75 years representing Cheltenham and we want to represent all of Cheltenham.”
And to be straightforward, as Melvin-Bath explained, it all makes good corporate sense too.
“We are a business afterall,” he said, explaining that the ‘education piece’ around LGBTQIA+ was for everyone.
Just looking at wills, for example, without the correct wording acknowledging such, beneficiaries who have changed gender, surviving partners in same sex marriages of polygamous relationships would not be recognised.
Stevens said: “It is also about much more too. I’m an accountant. When I first started my job I didn’t know whether it would be detrimental to my career to have a conversation in which it would become clear I was gay, so I kept clear of that.
“Seeing people like you, doing roles you can aspire to, seeing a business comfortable with who you are, it gives you hope and removes any feeling of being marginalised. It is hugely important.”
We thought we would give the story over for a little analysis – part of the beauty of having a Founding Partner of The Raikes Journal - Simon Merrell, a partner at Merrell People - who spends his professional life helping businesses and organisations big and small to understand and deliver culture change.
How important is it that a company that wants to shout about its culture and values gets its house in order first, that its staff feel the journey is genuine?
Massive! The actions have to match the words - if not we won’t believe it. Importantly,in inactivity is still an action. Companies don’t need to be at the finish point, all organisations are a work in progress.
What are the benefits of putting the work in?
I might view this a little differently. Putting the work in is often where the real change is taking place. Change takes place through dialogue, decision-making and action. The opportunity to engage people here is too good to miss.
How does a business go about doing this in a meaningful way - and know it is getting it right?
Don’t over promise. Work out what it is you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it. Work out where different people sit. Remember to not just include the comms/spokeperson. The voice of the company is not going to be the voice of everybody, neither should it be one person.
Does it sound like Willans is approaching this intelligently?
“Yes. Communing around important topics in the right way will create awareness and strengthens relationships. It is never a straight path. All organisations need to return to their method.”
Stevens said Pride in Gloucestershire had formed a group specifically to support other businesses on their journey. That group’s members already include some of the county’s biggest firms, such as St James’s Place and Spirax Sarco.
“Over the past few years we have been approached by more and more of the county’s employers reaching to ask how to effectively support LGBTQIA+ colleagues, share best practice and understand how they can better support the LGBTQIA+ community,” said Stevens.
“The need to demonstrate good ESG (environmental, social, and governance) principles of business is increasingly important in today’s world not only for recruitment and retention of staff, but also to demonstrate to stakeholders that a company values the community and world in which it works.
“In response, last September during Pride Week, we ran a networking breakfast for employers, those companies that did attend represented over 10,000 employees from across the county.
“One of the outputs from that event was a desire to have a group to help each other and seek help how to improve LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the workplace
“Therefore we have launched the GLIDE Consortium!”
Find out more about GLIDE here.
* LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, and more.