Excellence in Diversity Awards

Category: Latest Blog

  • Damian Kitson

    Damian is Head of Record to Report at Asda, and is responsible for the recording of all financial accounting transactions across all cost areas within Asda and manages a 13 strong team of accountants. Beyond his core, role Damian seeks out opportunities to further develop an inclusive workplace. He is the chair of Asda’s Disability Network, where his current focus is to help remove the public stigma of mental health, and is an active member of the Gender Steering Group, personally challenging himself and others to be fair in creating opportunities for both men and women. In addition, Damian is a Home Office Colleague Voice representative and a Culture Catalyst for the business, using his widening networks to impact wider teams, radiating the inclusion agenda around the company. At work he is known for his inventive ways of inspiring teams and has deservedly been recognised as “Finance colleague of the year”. Damian optimises an ‘Employee of the Year’ and this is illustrated through a fantastic array of endorsements.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Ricky Somal

    In December 2014, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust was cited in a national report by NHS Providers. This was in recognition of the Equality Standard toolkit designed by Ricky Somal, E&D Lead and a focused piece of work that has resulted in a 50% reduction in BME staff disciplinarians. Ricky has transformed the diversity and inclusion agenda at Southern Health with the design of an innovative 5-point E&D Integration Plan, and from March 2014 took lead of equality and diversity at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust in conjunction to his current role. This programme of work and associated patient and workforce outcomes has been recognized through national awards. Ricky designed and delivered Equality and Diversity Training which was completed by over 4,000 staff in 12 months. ‘Diversity Moments’ is a brand new initiative designed by Ricky to improve workforce diversity and inclusion. Diversity Moments is a series of focused positive action projects and interactive web-based learning vignettes to improve understanding of inclusion.

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  • HSBC Balance Network

    HSBC’s Balance network launched in October 2010 and was set up to help drive HSBC’s diversity & inclusion aim to increase senior female representation. Balance’s vision is to support the recruitment, development, advancement and engagement of a gender-balanced workforce within HSBC. The network now has 2,073 members in the UK and over 23 branches worldwide. Balance is different. When defining and designing Balance and how it was intended to make a difference, it was strongly felt that traditional “women’s networks” were not necessarily the right approach to impact gender diversity, and that to make a difference, both men and women had to be included from the start. Balance’s pioneering approach set out to impact gender diversity, appealing to and including both men and women equally. This has had the effect of generating interest and support from key groups of stakeholders that are often disenfranchised with a traditional women’s network. The impact and rapid growth of this astonishing network deserves to be applauded.

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  • Cam Kinsella

    Diversity, equality & inclusion for Cam isn’t just her ‘job’, it’s her whole world. Removing inequalities is Cam’s greatest passion and this is evident through her extraordinary achievements over the past 8 years across the industry. Cam transformed Golden Gates Housing Trust from an organisation with no systems in place to promote, monitor or support equality, into a leader within the sector; becoming the first winner of the DNA award and the only organisation still to date to have received 10 distinctions. Amongst Cam’s many outstanding initiatives include setting up GGHT as a hate crime reporting centre which saw reporting rise from 1 per quarter to 15. Additionally, Cam was a key partner in the ‘Keep Warm Keep Well’ Campaign which targeted older customers with winter warm bags. Cam recently brought her exceptional initiatives to Merlin Housing, and has already created plans to drive the organisation to excellence. Cam’s incredible commitment is rapidly evolving housing organisations to become truly inclusive employers.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Reverend John Butcher

    For the last 48 years, Reverend John Butcher has championed harmony, equality and diversity with people from all backgrounds, ages, cultures, beliefs and nationalities. He developed the annual Rotherham Show for young people to educate them on social awareness through entertainment and drama. John also trained a multi-cultural team to form ‘Cosmo Club’; creating harmony among children from all backgrounds. The club had a significant impact on the Hackney community, and John was able to engage local businesses and professional bodies in providing funding and resources; An outstanding £40,000 was also raised each year from charitable trusts. Due to the success of Cosmo Club John was not only invited and welcomed into other Boroughs, but also nationally and internationally. John’s work in inclusion was raised to a new level with his links with West Midlands Police as a volunteer Police Chaplain and as the Force Lead Chaplain. His passion has seen the development of a 40 strong West Midlands Police Multi Faith Chaplaincy Team.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – The University of Manchester

    The University of Manchester is committed to creating an environment where diversity is celebrated and everyone is treated fairly. They have a genuine commitment to equality of opportunity for their staff and students, and are proud to employ a workforce that reflects the diverse community they serve. Specialist staff networks, forums, training and events are just some of the ways in which the university keep their community connected and engaged with diversity issues. Top quality evidence showcased a real understanding from the University of the importance of incorporating all aspects of diversity. The University demonstrated incredible promotion of all equality strands and protected characteristics, and presented credible information which highlights the great lengths they are going to, to be fully inclusive. The University is also addressing youth unemployment through their leadership of The Works – an innovative employment and training initiative at the heart of our local communities in Moss Side and Ardwick.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Sharon Thomas

    Sharon Thomas Riverside

    With nearly 30 years experience within the housing sector, Sharon goes above and beyond her role as Community Engagement Team Leader at Riverside Housing. Her passion for diversity and inclusion shines through not only in her day job, but also her outstanding dedication to community and voluntary work. Sharon focuses all of her energy on ensuring Riverside is committed to inclusion and as chair of their BME staff group, has been fundamental in promoting the group extensively to all staff, resulting in membership increasing from 30 to 100 within two years. Sharon has lead many initiatives involving the community and promoting diversity throughout the northwest including training, information sessions and away days such as Operation black vote; a partnership project with the Ministry of Justice to establish a Magistrate shadowing scheme. Sharon has developed and delivered a number of exceptional initiatives to strengthen the relationships between communities by working with schools, community centres  and housing providers.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – English Federation of Disability Sport

    The English Federation of Disability Sport exists to make active lives possible and ensure that millions of disabled people can lead active lifestyles. Dedicated to disabled people in sport and physical activity, EFDS supports a wide range of organisations to include disabled people more effectively. The national charity know through much of their research that many communications could be missing a large proportion of the population because they are not accessible or appealing enough to disabled people, so they work hard to support providers with more evidence, practical support and resources. In April 2014, EFDS produced a guide to inclusive communications. Written in partnership with Big Voice Communications, it supports providers to reach a wider audience. The excellent guide has proven to be extremely successful with over 1000 downloads to date and it was also chosen by Government to be a part of their National Accessible Britain Campaign, providing advice toolkits to organisations and individuals.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – The Co-operative Group

    Respect is the Co-operative Group’s inclusive lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender network which is made up of a dedicated LGBT Steering Group from across the organisation’s family of businesses. The network provides voluntary support to raise awareness of LGBT community initiatives, local pride events and charities such as the George House Trust and Albert Kennedy Trust. In previous years, the co-operative featured in stonewalls top five employers and was listed as the most gay friendly retailer across the UK – the only retailer to feature in the Top 100 and the first to make it into the Top 10. The network is impressively the largest LGBT network in the UK with over 8,500 ‘Friends of Respect’; Over 1,300 of these are employees. Since the group established 5 years ago, they have achieved an extraordinary amount – not only supporting colleagues internally but supporting over 80 pride events such as Manchester Pride and Sparkle. Respect is also the most followed UK LGBT Network on twitter with over 9,000 followers.

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  • 2015 EiDA Nominee – Greater Manchester Police

    Greater Manchester Police has shown outstanding contribution to harnessing diversity within their workforce, actively taking the lead to highlight the business case for inclusion within the police service. In recent years, Greater Manchester Police have taken robust measures to increase the diversity of their workforce, successfully doing so in the process. The force has resourced a new operation, ‘Operation Peel’ to increase the diversity of staff recruitment, and to tackle issues internally last year GMP established a Hate Incident Governance Group to have organisational oversight of all hate cases involving discrimination within their police force. Having such a group enables GMP to have an understanding of the volume of cases and the type of issues staff experience when concerned about fairness. GMP have seen astonishing results from initiatives that they have implemented in response to their employees needs and diversity related issues, and continue to make improvements across many areas internally and externally.

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