Our 2022 EDI statement

Here at The Nursery we continually strive to ensure everyone has equal access to opportunities, we celebrate and encourage diversity, and it is our utmost concern to make sure every partner feels included in our community. This is an ongoing commitment, and we are continually looking into new ways to improve this area of our company. You may be wondering how we go about doing this, our EDI statement unpacks what we have been doing and what we promise to continue doing…

EDI Statement

The Nursery is committed to becoming a more diverse and inclusive workplace and whilst we recognise that this is an on-going effort, our aim is for our commitment to be reflected throughout the fabric of our company, underpinned by three key principles:

·       Legal Obligation - The Company has a legal obligation to ensure that nobody is discriminated against

·       Business Case - A diverse workforce where different viewpoints are heard and valued generates better ideas and better solutions and creates a better business for everyone

·       Moral Duty - Every employee deserves recognition for the work they undertake, no matter their identity or background.

In 2021 we therefore established an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Team.  Made up of company partners who contribute to this team alongside their day-to-day role, our EDI working group is responsible for on-going education and resource sharing across the business; this takes the form of monthly areas of focus, and consists of guest speakers, resources lists, group discussions and activities, and podcast clubs to name just a few.

Just some of the areas of focus of the EDI team include:

·       Company Policy Review & Training

·       Pride month

·       Menopause

·       Age Discrimination

·       Allyship

·       Women in the workplace

·       Black History month

·       Neurodiversity month

·       Mental Health Awareness

 Other areas of company procedures to be impacted by ideas stemming from the EDI group include the use of pronouns across platforms – because of this all Partners were invited to share their pronouns - unconscious bias training and improvements to 1-2-1 and line management process.

The EDI team are also responsible for an annual survey of all Partners, offering them a voice to share their experience of working at The Nursery, allowing us to establish the health of the business in terms of perceptions and experiences of working at The Nursery. The results of this survey are shared at the company wide Partner update meetings and have been the catalyst for some positive change. Examples of changes made have been the inclusion of EDI statements within job postings:

“The Nursery is an employee-owned business where everyone has a direct interest in the future of the company. We are committed to promoting a fair, equal, and inclusive environment that everyone has the opportunity to learn and strive in.”

We have a recruitment process that includes the use of inclusive and open language and insist all CVs that come into the company from any source are anonymised. Information that is excluded from CVs includes any information that can be deemed as any personal identifier such as name, age, location, mother tongue language and gender. CVs are only shared with teams after this information has been redacted.

 The Nursery were foundation signatories of the Market Research Society Inclusion Pledge, and we have just launched a ‘best-in-class’ family benefits policy.  Last month saw the company come together for our second annual AGM, which included a review of the past 12 months in the business and also saw the results of our annual Gender Pay Gap report shared with everyone.

 The EDI Working Group had already made a great start in designing and implementing throughout the year an inspiring and engaging programme of activities, from education and training to awareness and context, covering an admirably wide range of issues. We have made great strides on this topic in the last year with an overhaul of our policies, hiring processes and reporting, and whilst there is still so much for us a company to learn, through the commitment of all Partners to all EDI initiatives, the objective to make The Nursery an even more open, welcoming and inclusive workplace is being met.