Is your organisation healthy on equality? Helen Taylor writes up Tai Pawb’s session at TAI 2017
In the second session at Can Do Corner of TAI 2017 Alicja Zalesinka from Tai Pawb asked attendees to check their equality health. Attendees were asked to take part in a live poll on equality and diversity in the workplace. For those who know my limits of technology, this was quite an achievement for me.
The poll asked participants to consider the approaches taken within their organisations to equality issues – a positive result was that 57% of participants had re
ceived E&D training in the past year. The poll also showed that 14% of participants felt that senior managers were poor at displaying their commitment to E&D. It was acknowledged that these results are not necessarily representative of the sector, but showed the power of doing pulse tests to see how organisations are percieved to be functioning in terms of equality.
QED Award – quality in equality and diversity
The session was used to highlight the soon to be launched QED Award – the new quality mark for equality and diversity in housing in Wales created by Tai Pawb. It is hoped that the award will challenge the sector to improve and meet standards on E&D, and will be used as a proud recognition of meeting these. It was emphasised that training and understanding of E&D should be considered a ‘living’ issue, particularly in these times of great political and legislative change. By considering it as this type of issue, organisations can be aware of the impact of these changes on service users and ensure that their services are responsive to these.