Prioritising gender diversity and inclusion at Kin + Carta Create

The State of Play

We know it’s tough in Tech right now. According to Technation.io only 17% of the UK Tech workforce are women, and women own just 5% of tech start-up businesses. Girls and young women have few female or non binary role models to look up to in our industry, and with just 7% of the girls choosing computer science at A-Level, the balance looks unlikely to shift any time soon without some real focus and a concerted effort to attract a more gender diverse audience into technology roles.

An Agile Approach to Diversity and Inclusion

So, in an environment of such fast growth how do you prioritise a diversity strategy when the available resources do not work in your favour? At Kin + Carta Create, we tackled this in the way that we tackle most things; through an agile, iterative approach.

We kicked off the strategy and set the direction of travel by talking to our team at Kin + Carta Create. Through a series of interviews, conversations and an anonymous survey we were able to build a view of how people felt about gender diversity within our organisation. Based on the perspectives we heard, we mapped out the typical Kin + Carta Createber journey and key paint points hindering a more diverse Kin + Carta Create..

At this early point in the journey, we also established our Diversity vision. Our vision was designed to be all-encompassing and address diversity as a whole, not just gender diversity.

Our Vision

"That every person at every level at Kin + Carta Create feels heard and empowered to Shape Kin + Carta Create today and tomorrow"

Beneath our vision we established our long term goals which were focused on key points in the lifecycle of a Kin + Carta Createber, Hiring, Engagement and Development:

1. DEVELOPMENT / BUILD A DIVERSE LEADERSHIP TEAM
2. HIRING / ESTABLISH A BALANCED WORKFORCE
3. ENGAGEMENT / CREATE A NETWORK FOR EVERYONE

Some successes we saw included running our job adverts through a tool called Texio to identify bias and encourage a more diverse set of candidate responses, ensuring we had a 50/50 ratio on all speaking panels, and more female presence throughout the candidate interview process.

We also established a women’s network called Women on the Rise; a space for women in the company to meet, share stories, hear inspirational speakers, and discuss career progression. And, once a quarter we all gathered for a women’s breakfast - an opportunity for us to spend some social time together and build those all important relationships that encourage a happy and prospering work environment.

Along the journey, we added a third person to our team. Shaima Eaton joined our taskforce and brought with her a hugely valuable third perspective and HR experience, which helped accelerate our inclusion strategy. This is just the start of the journey, and although the diversity strategy is now very much a key focus for our People team, we intend to keep driving this strategy forward.

Our 5 Key Takeaways to establish your own diversity and inclusion strategy

1. Build a team of champions

Success relies on strength in numbers, it’s so important to find those people at all levels who are supportive of what you’re trying to achieve, and will be allies in the process and enablers to success.

2. Small teams, move fast

A small nimble team has more chance of moving at pace and establishing success than a large committee with conflicting views. We found 3 to be the perfect number.

3. Seek external advice

We were extremely lucky to have support from a number of different people from outside our organisation, allowing us to sense check our approach with people who were not so deeply connected. We also found that bringing in external speakers with comparative experience lent real credibility to what we were trying to achieve.

4. Not everyone feels the same way and that's ok

We were lucky at Kin + Carta Create that the general feeling was really very supportive, and we worked hard to establish common goals that people could relate to. Not everyone is going to feel the same level of passion towards the topic as you do though, and that’s ok, don’t let that affect you.

5. Start small and iterate, it's never going to be perfect

Change doesn’t happen overnight, by adopting an agile approach you acknowledge it may not be a perfect solution but you are going to learn a lot and keep moving forward. Establishing small experiments and setting manageable goals means you won’t be overwhelmed by the task at hand and can progress quickly.