Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
Equity, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I) plays a vital role in how Wavehill operates as a business. It influences our work culture and practices, and how we approach our working relationships; it is embedded within our core values. Through our research design and practices, approach to recruitment, and retention strategies, we want to better reflect the diverse range of clients we work with and the communities we engage with. Yet we recognise that this is a continuous journey. As we evolve and grow as an organisation, we continually learn and strive to improve.
Engagement and collaboration are key ingredients to our approach. Through Wavehill’s employee-owned company structure, we have developed mechanisms for all staff to feed in and contribute to key decisions that impact the strategic and cultural direction of our company. This is important as it enables staff to articulate and put into action the type of organisation we all want to work for. In turn, this has further embedded an ED&I culture into Wavehill and led to greater accountability across all levels of the company.
This means looking at:
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Our research practices: Working in collaboration with our clients, stakeholders, and communities to adopt appropriate best practice so that our research methodologies and approaches are more inclusive.
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Ways to improve our approach to recruitment and retention, that is mindful of an individual’s circumstances: As such we are developing a long-term strategy to attract talent from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences.
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How we share information with our clients, collaborators, staff, and wider stakeholders, making appropriate adjustments to all our content including our website, our report templates and other project outputs to ensure we consistently meet accessibility standards.
Why is Equity important for Wavehill?
Equity recognises that we do not all start from the same position. It focuses on fairness and impartiality; that we should acknowledge and correct imbalances by removing intended and unintended restrictions through a reflective process that is continuous. We are mindful of this through our work, our engagement with different communities, and our research practices. As such, we acknowledge that where appropriate, we need to adjust and correct imbalances to ensure all voices are represented and everyone can access our research. We recognise for example that we may not always be best placed to conduct research with more hard-to-reach groups and may therefore use peer researchers with similar lived experiences.
Why is Diversity important for Wavehill?
Diversity is about recognising people’s differences and acknowledging the benefits that different perspectives and experiences can bring to Wavehill and our clients. We recognise that greater diversity and different perspectives can lead to more creative and innovative responses to our clients’ challenges whilst a more diverse workforce better reflects our client base. We have developed a long-term recruitment strategy to attract talent from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences. We have developed a comprehensive recruitment pack and a more transparent recruitment process; this includes seeking out different channels to advertise our vacancies on. We are continuing to develop our internship programme to ensure interns gain paid, meaningful work experience.
Why is Inclusion important for Wavehill?
Inclusion ensures people’s differences are valued. At Wavehill, we work continually towards developing an inclusive environment where all staff can perform to their full potential, no matter their background, identity, or circumstances. We ensure, through regular staff surveys and other internal mechanisms and touchpoints that the voices of all staff are represented. Through these channels, there is acknowledgment that whilst progress is being made to become more inclusive, this is a continuous journey. We want to be accountable and believe that by sharing the work we have been doing we can improve our understanding of the challenges involved and in turn take meaningful action. Some of the ways we enable this include: •Inclusive research practices. We work in collaboration with our clients, stakeholders, and communities to adopt or co-produce appropriate research methodologies based on best practices that ensure our approaches are more inclusive. •Ensuring accessibility requirements are met. The production of our content is mindful of accessibility principles. This includes our updated report, tender, and presentation templates that can meet required accessibility standards, to our outputs that strive to use appropriate, inclusive language. Our branded Wavehill colour pallet is AAA-compliant and appropriate colour contrasts are consistently used. •Providing training and support. We have committed to sharing knowledge and best practices focused on the challenges of equity, diversity, and inclusion within the workplace and beyond. By raising awareness and having a better understanding of the different challenges individuals and communities face, we can create an environment where everyone we work with feels safe and valued. This, in turn, means better outputs for our clients and better outcomes for the communities we work in.
