B is for Balanced, Diverse, & Inclusive Workforce
The first thing we must consider when working towards having a balanced, diverse, and inclusive workforce in your setting, is that you may not see anything wrong with our workforce and its diversity.
As a manager, if that’s the way you feel you must be honest with yourselves and call in consultants and professionals who can assess your settings and teams, holding an authentic and honest conversation about why this may be, what needs to be improved and why it’s important to make the necessary changes. They can also offer training, keynotes, and other services to help develop the overall team’s understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
"This strategy aims to transform your team into a more balanced, diverse, and inclusive workforce..."
Policy
Managers and directors need to look into their policies and how they support their staff, creating anti-racist policies, and not just an inclusion policy as they are two different things.
There are a variety of anti-racist policies online reports and research for settings to create their own or you can call in consultants to create a policy for you.
Environment
Assess your setting’s environment to ensure that there is space allocated for prayer or meditation.
Check that your resources, books, universal values board, welcoming boards, and yearly celebration boards are reflective of the wider community.
Staff
We need to understand that all staff need to be supported using a person-centred approach, all staff are different, and work differently and the way that they are managed, supported, and mentored needs to reflect that.
We need to look at our management team and ask ourselves: Is our management team diverse?
When recruiting staff, we need to recruit them based on their qualities. Recruiting staff based only on the fact that they can diversify your team is tokenistic and doesn’t make sense in the long run. Having diversity in your workforce is important but staff recruitment should be based on skill and quality of practice.
It’s also important to review your interview procedures and think about the questions you ask and how they may make different interviewees feel. Also give consideration to who you have present during the interview process, in my experience being interviewed by four women as a male can be intimidating. You want people to want to join the team not be scared off because they couldn’t connect with the management.
It is easy to lean on our own understanding when it comes to supporting staff, but it is imperative that we ask them about how they would like to be supported and give them agency. If decisions linked to a staff member’s culture, beliefs or community are made within the setting — for example teaching the children about Rastafarian faith or celebrations of Kwanza, it’s important to ask members of staff that are Rastafarian or that celebrate Kwanza to support and oversee the activities to ensure that they are appropriate.
We need to reflect on the way we treat and support our existing members of staff and their diversities, be it their race, religion, or culture, as well as how they identify themselves racially or through their gender.
Settings need to have regular EDI CPD just like they do for first aid and food hygiene. Building positive relationships and anti-racist practices are also essential.
In my opinion, many settings get complacent with doing EDI training ONLY when a discriminatory issue is flagged or a grievance is raised.
Create safe spaces
Managers need to be prepared to listen and create safe spaces for staff to talk about their concerns. Balance cannot be made if honest conversations cannot be held. Staff need to feel listened to and the necessary actions need to be taken in support of those conversations.
Managers need to be mindful of the language they use and how they address their staff, understanding that some terminology, assumptions or words can be offensive. Asking some questions or making jokes can come across as prejudiced and discriminatory.
For example, asking a person to touch their hair, calling loc’s ‘dreads’ or talking in a Caribbean or African accent. To many this may seem harmless or curious, but these actions are offensive.
Yes, recruitment is an issue in the early years sector, but high staff turnover and retention is a larger issues. We need to support our staff and create spaces that are safe not only for children but for staff also, a place that they want to work in and feel connected to.
Jamel runs training workshops for EY teams and settings based on approaches to practice, representation (anti-racist practice) and staff wellbeing. Find out more here.
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About the Author
Jamel C Campbell, is an Early Years educator, EY consultant, radio/TV host, storyteller, keynote speaker, writer, and bestselling author. With over two decades in the Early Years and education sector, he is a prominent UK Men in the Early Years champion. He appeared on CBeebies' “Tiny Happy People” and co-founded the Early Years Blacklist.
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