Creating an inclusive culture and a positive team.
Miller Research undertakes research, consultancy and evaluation work across a range of sectors for clients in Wales and across the UK. Miller Research was founded around 20 years ago and works with clients across the UK from its base in Monmouthshire. The business employs 12 people.
As with many organisations who join the business programme, the focus for Miller Research was to ensure that fairness and equality became a natural part of working practices. This not only meant implementing policies, but training managers and raising awareness of staff on how promoting equality and diversity improves the working environment, relationships and positively impacts personal and business performance.
The aim of the business support was to embed inclusive working practices to support the recruitment, retention and progression of women and men working in Wales. Working with Chwarae Teg’s Business Team, Miller Research re-assessed their formal policies and procedures whilst striving for a culture of best practice in people management. Specifically this meant:
- Changing appraisals to ensure all staff felt valued through effective feedback and focussed staff self-development
- Taking a fresh look at recruitment and implementing a best practice approach
- Formalising the flexible working and family friendly offering as part of the Employer Value proposition
Actions
Family Friendly
The team attended an Equality workshop to gain greater awareness of legal responsibility and the cause and effect of unlawful discrimination. This highlighted that many internal processes can be unfair, if not illegal. With this as a backdrop, Miller research team attended a number of training events to gain an understanding of best practice in the areas of flexible working and family friendly policies. Armed with this knowledge, Miller Research was able to develop a suite of policies that ensured transparency for all employees. Miller Research saw this best practice approach to flexible working as a way to promote themselves an Employer of Choice and to attract interest from under-represented groups in future recruitment campaigns.
Performance Management
The Chwarae Teg Business Partner facilitated in house session on the ways to engage all staff in performance management, as sometimes employees can feel ignored and unappreciated. As a result, Miller Research updated its performance management policy and process with the aim of having personal development plans in place and the development of an internal talent pipeline for all future recruitment. With buy in from staff, this means everyone now understands they have the potential to grow and develop personally and professionally in their roles.
Learning and Development
Members of the Miller Research leadership team attended a webinar on best practice in learning and development. Managers improved their awareness of the benefits of Learning and Development on both the employee and the business and how it could aid the recruitment, retention and progression of staff. Following the webinar the team worked with their Chwarae Teg Business Partner to develop a new learning policy. The policy ensures that personal development is strongly linked to job performance and provides development opportunities for all staff, regardless of job role, working hours, location or gender.