Editor's Welcome

Editor's Welcome

I am the Founder and Director of rba Equality and Diversity, and am delighted to have recently been appointed to the AIA Council. I know that the issues of equality, diversity and inclusion are truly important to AIA. They want to work with their members to help and encourage them to adopt these crucially important standards – and also to make sure they are reflected in their own working practices in the Association.

‘Equality, diversity and inclusion’ is not just a box that businesses need to tick to complete their administrative ‘to do’ list. Every employer must do their utmost to create inclusive workplaces, where all employees feel valued. We must all build our businesses to promote more women, Black and ethnic minority workers to senior positions, to make adjustments for people living with disabilities, and to be considerate of those with poor mental health.

But it takes a forward looking employer to realise that employees who feel valued are more likely to ensure that customers have a positive experience. In my article on page 14, I’ve written about the real opportunities that adopting these standards can bring – and some of the obstacles that stand in our way to achieving a truly equal workplace.

This isn’t going to be a quick and easy process. We need to create safe spaces for difficult conversations, and sometimes we will need to hear some hard truths. But that is the only way for us to really understand the issues involved and move towards a fairer society.

I’m happy to report that we are making some progress. In some recent research of professional services employers by iResearch Services, 75% of those surveyed had formal equality, diversity and inclusion policies in place (see Rachael Kinsella’s article on page 17). However, only three quarters of those firms are currently measuring the success of those programmes. Unconscious bias results in the continued exclusion of historically marginalised groups of people, often because of their gender, ethnicity, or culture. We must evaluate our initiatives to make sure that we are not just paying lip service. We must measure our diversity programmes to make sure that – in the end – all our people really count.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who so sadly passed away in 2021, could not have put it better when he said: ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.’ It is a lesson that we all can learn from. I encourage you to embrace equality, diversity and inclusion to build a stronger, happier and better world.

Brian Blömer is Director at Moore and leads the Corporate Services team, focusing on market entry and corporate establishment of foreign companies.