Winner: St Modwen
Developer St Modwen created its EDI strategy and action plan in 2018 and has set some ambitious targets for 2025. These include 50% of senior staff to be female, 40% of the total workforce to be female, 14% of the workforce to be ethnic minorities, 75% of early careers females, 50% of early careers ethnic minorities. It also aims to achieve the National Equality Standard by 2025.
EDI consultancy Brook Graham helped create the strategy to align with St Modwen’s commercial ambitions, having assessed the company’s maturity in this area. Initial steps have included overhauling St Modwen’s recruitment process, training, mentoring and creating EDI champions and sub-groups.
Changes to the recruitment process include:
- using two people to interview to remove bias; removing names, addresses and universities from CVs;
- removing the tick-box for criminal convictions to avoid discriminating against ex-offenders.
Other finalists
Fortel Group
Skanska
Compulsory EDI training explains St Modwen’s aspirations and what is expected of employees. Delegates to each training session are intentionally selected from various parts of the organisation so that personal and working experiences can be shared. In one case, this led to a rethink on the provision of washing facilities offered in new-build homes, due to culture and belief.
Company champions, from varying levels of seniority, receive a budget and resources to establish subgroups in categories such as parents, carers, faith and belief, disability, gender, sexual orientation, health and wellbeing and menopause. Events such as Pride, Carers Week and Men’s Health Week are celebrated throughout the company.
An innovative approach to target-setting sees St Modwen forecast workforce demographics over a five-year period, aligned to local business plans. The intention is to work out what combination of retention, recruitment and progression will increase representation in previously under-represented groups.
