Join National Inclusion Week
Get instant access to the NIW starter toolkit containing:
- Inclusion champion assessment
- Business case for inclusion guide
- NIW printable assets
- And much more
How to create an impact with your National Inclusion Week initiatives
National Inclusion Week (NIW) is a fantastic opportunity to showcase, celebrate and make impact on your inclusion agenda. Whether this is your first time participating in this celebration of inclusion, or you’ve been involved for the last 12 years, you will find lots of advice on how best to prepare for NIW 2024 by reading this guide.
Inclusive Employers are the founders and organisers of this wonderful week. We want to make sure that participating organisations feel confident and supported to plan a week of engaging inclusion themed activity, that will have a lasting impact.
We hope you enjoy reading this guidance and feel ready to prepare for NIW 2024!
How to prepare and plan for a week of impact
Preparing for this week of dedicated inclusion action includes:
- Communicating your NIW 2024 plans effectively, both internally and externally.
- Engaging with an inspiring and fun range of activities during the week. NIW 2024 takes place on Monday 23rd to Sunday 29th September.
- Using the week of events as a springboard for ongoing inclusion activity, so your efforts are integrated into your wider and ongoing programme of I&D work.
Below we explore the steps to preparation in more detail, so you can set yourself up for a week of success and inclusion impact.
Who will lead your National Inclusion Week activity?
Identify a NIW project lead and team to design and implement your activity. Having this in place from the beginning will help significantly when it comes to preparing.
When you think about who will be in your team, consider how you can involve different parts of the organisation; HR, staff networks, leadership teams, procurement, communications. It’s important to make sure your team includes a diverse range of thought and experience, and that the whole organisation feels involved. The more you prioritise diversity and inclusion in your planning process, the greater the impact your work will have. NIW is a unique opportunity to unite your organisation through inclusion.
How can you incorporate your inclusion objectives into your planning?
As part of your preparations, give yourself time to consider your organisations inclusion and diversity objectives. How can you weave your objectives into your NIW 2024 activities and really maximise the impact that the week can have for you?
Considerations include:
- Identify the inclusion and diversity priorities in your organisation and considering how the NIW 2024 theme, #ImpactMatters, can shine a light on these objectives.
- Read more about the theme in the toolkit, ‘Impact Matters: About the National Inclusion Week 2024 theme’ to help you prepare and get inspired.
Make sure your plans reflect your inclusion progress
Recognise where your organisation is on its inclusion journey as part of your preparations. Set realistic goals and make plans to reflect, support and progress your existing I&D work.
For example, if you are starting out, you may want to keep things simple. Focus on introducing colleagues to inclusion and developing an understanding of some of the key concepts.
Involve staff networks in your NIW planning
Engage with your staff networks, employee resource groups and forums. Their ideas will be valuable when it comes to planning your activity and deciding areas of focus. Staff network groups may be able to support you with running events too.
Engage key leaders
An important step in your preparations is engaging with senior leaders. Encourage them to attend, participate in or champion internal and external NIW events.
This sends your colleagues and external partners a positive message about your organisations commitment to inclusion. Attendance and involvement in these events can provide valuable learning opportunities for everyone involved.
How will you deliver your events and activities?
Consider the delivery methods that will be most effective for your events and activities.
A combination of platforms is likely to be most effective, so you can engage with as many colleagues as possible and deepen the impact of your activities.
These might include webinars, virtual get-togethers with breakouts, physical events, online activities through your intranet, newsletters and social media channels.
How can you schedule your events and activities to have maximum impact?
Consider when you choose to host your events and activities, so that you have the potential to engage as many people as possible. Think about what time/days might be most suitable. Consider running events at different times on different days to allow for those who start late/finish early, work part time, etc.
How can Inclusive Employers boost your inclusion activity?
As the organisers and founders of NIW, Inclusive Employers want to support you to have a week of impactful inclusion activity and have designed dedicated events to support with this.
One of the best ways to prepare is by booking onto one of our ‘Getting ready for National Inclusion Week 2024 events’, where you will learn more about preparing, engaging with key stakeholders and using the week to make an impact. During the week itself there will be a number of events to get involved with, including networking, deep dive into key inclusion topics and a panel event. Make you are registered to keep up with the latest NIW information.
Want help with delivering impactful activities for your people?
Our in-house training for National Inclusion Week 2024 allows for a stand alone or series of expert-led training solutions across a wide breadth of carefully curated topics to suit the ‘Impact Matters’ theme these are:
- Impact matters: being an inclusive colleague
- Impact matters: courageous conversations and creating psychological safety in the workplace
- Impact matters: striving for sustainable change in challenging times
- Impact matters: collecting, managing, and evaluating inclusion data
These can be the flagship activities of your National Inclusion Week that truly make an impact in your organisation. All topics can be delivered as webinars or workshops, depending on your needs.
You can also upgrade your organisation to become a supporter of National Inclusion Week, allowing you access to our premium content that helps you to shape your activities for the week and beyond with a step-by-step inclusion impact plan. If you are a Member, you can login to access this content straight away.
Make sure your NIW plan is approved
Once you have crafted your plans, make sure you get your activity and events approved in advance.
Make sure everyone involved in your plans is available and has booked time out of their diaries. Early engagement helps to ensure as many people as possible are involved.
Make sure budgets are secured and signed off and any technology or space need is booked in advance.
Share your National Inclusion Week events on social media using the hashtags #ImpactMatters and #NationalInclusionWeek2024
Create a plan to communicate your activity
Now you have your plan, make sure it’s important to involve the key stakeholders to make it happen.
Engage your communications and marketing team
Work closely with your communications and marketing team. It’s important to involve them early, as they can support you to generate excitement and engagement with your activity across your organisation.
What communication channels will be most useful?
Your comms and marketing team may be able to support you with this step. Consider what channels are available to communicate effectively with the different parts of your organisation. For example, email, posters, intranet, Teams, Yammer, and other internal platforms. Work these channels into your comms plan to make sure all employees are being kept up to date with your NIW plans.
Prepare your NIW communications
Prepare your communications and get them approved ahead of time so they’re ready to use in advance.
How can you communicate your activity externally?
Consider how you can communicate your NIW activity to people outside of your organisation.
Thousands of organisations will be taking part and using the theme, #ImpactMatters, to communicate their plans beyond their own organisation.
The free NIW toolkit provides the ‘Impact Matters’ logo and tools to help communicate your involvement. You will find these in the Branding section of the toolkit.
Use social media to boost the impact of your activity
Develop a social media plan to share your NIW activities before and during the week.
Remember to follow our dedicated National Inclusion Week page on Facebook and Instagram. Use the hashtag #ImpactMatters, #NationalInclusionWeek2024. You can also tag @InclusiveEmployers on LinkedIn and @IncEmp on X.
Tag us in all your NIW social media activity so we can share your participation too!
Prepare to make impact!
Capture and share your inclusion activity
Capture stories, photos and experiences of your colleagues engaging with your own inclusion activities and the wider National Inclusion Week events.
Share your National Inclusion Week events on social media using the hashtags highlighted above.
Measure and track the impact of your inclusion activity
A crucial way to prepare is knowing how you will measure and track the impact of your inclusion activity. If you can track the number of people attending your webinars and other events the reach of your activities can be evaluated. You might consider collecting diversity data if appropriate.
If this is an area where you need some support, in our NIW in-house training we are offering a specific option on collecting, managing, and evaluating inclusion data that can be delivered in a webinar or workshop format.
Engage with Inclusive Employers
Connect and engage with Inclusive Employers in all the ways highlighted in this article. Follow us on social media to keep up to date and see the full spectrum of inclusion activity that is happening during NIW.
If you would like support from Inclusive Employers about any of the ideas shared here, it’s easy to get in touch. Members can contact their account manager to discuss. If you’re not a member you can contact us on the form here.
Don’t forget to enjoy the week, and make sure that as many people in your organisation as possible are engaged and excited to participate!
Be prepared for after National Inclusion Week, too
Celebrate your inclusion achievements
Celebrate everything you have achieved during the week! Acknowledge all the support, participation and commitment that you received internally and externally.
How can you build on the inclusion impact you made during NIW?
Consider how the week has helped you bring to life or progress your inclusion agenda. How can you use the momentum from the week to continue this progress throughout the year? Help your employees to understand the bigger picture of inclusion, that it’s important throughout the year, not just during NIW.
Commit to steps you can take over the next 12 months to embed inclusion and build on all the work you did to prepare for this event. This will mean you are really making the most of NIW.
Share this plan with your colleagues, teams, and departments in the weeks and months after week is over. Consider how different departments can get involved and support your inclusion plans to become a reality.
National Inclusion Week and your inclusion strategy
Incorporate NIW into your inclusion strategy and use your involvement as a milestone for your inclusion agenda. What have you learnt, and where would you like to be next year, how would you prepare for National Inclusion Week 2025 differently?
It is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the past 12 months of progress and plan for the next 12 months of action and impact.
Gather and listen to colleague feedback
Talk to colleagues who supported you to prepare for this week and those who attended events. Get their feedback on the successes and challenges of the week so you can incorporate this into your NIW 2025 planning. Make sure to communicate any changes or improvements resulting from their feedback so they know it has been listened to.
Keep in touch with Inclusive Employers
Keep in touch with Inclusive Employers via our social media channels and newsletter so you can be the first to hear about our NIW 2025 plans!
Remember, if you’re not a member of Inclusive Employers you will need to register to access the free toolkit. This gives you access to NIW branding, details about the theme and a few starter resources. There is even the option to upgrade your involvement to become a NIW supporter. The supporter toolkit includes a premium guide on the theme: Impact Matters which also includes a step-by-step inclusion impact plan, an in-depth, on-demand webinar with worksheet as well as the popular NIW quiz, these items really help to shape some of your activities for the week to make the most out of it.
Join National Inclusion Week
Get instant access to the NIW starter toolkit containing:
- Inclusion champion assessment
- Business case for inclusion guide
- NIW printable assets
- And much more
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