Advance Inclusion in your workplace
Lead the way to create inclusive workplaces with expert support, tailored resources, and a vibrant member community. Inclusive Employers membership gives you the tools and insights to advance inclusion and make a lasting impact.
At Inclusive Employers, we are committed to helping businesses build and nurture inclusive cultures. One of our success stories is our collaboration with Leidos, a global leader in technology, science, and engineering. In 2020, Leidos added ‘Inclusion’ as a core value to their business, but the journey to make this value a reality required more than a declaration.
Leidos UK began by benchmarking their progress with our Inclusive Employers Standard and achieved Bronze status in 2022. With guidance from their Account Manager at Inclusive Employers, they set out to address gaps in employee data and enhance inclusion efforts across the board. The result? A series of incredible initiatives:
- A neurodiversity awareness campaign that included workshops, peer support groups, and internal blogs to foster understanding.
- Increased employee participation in demographic data collection, allowing Leidos to make informed, data-driven decisions.
- A shift toward a more open and transparent workplace culture, where employees feel empowered to share their stories.
Leidos’ recent progression to Silver in 2024 is a testament to their hard work, supported every step of the way by Inclusive Employers.
“Having Inclusive Employers there to workshop some of the trickiest questions and check our responses was so beneficial. This wouldn’t have happened the way it did without Inclusive Employers; we feel very lucky to have you!” Fiona Keady, UK Inclusion and Diversity Lead at Leidos
Read the full story below to discover how inclusion can transform your workplace.
The challenge
In January 2020, Leidos globally added ‘Inclusion’ to its corporate values, visibly committing to inclusion across the business. Understanding what true inclusion meant, however, required more work. “People thought they knew what it meant, but the reality was different.” Leidos UK wanted to make progress, so Fiona was tasked with learning more about what support was on offer.
“Towards the end of 2020, we started to research, learn and develop our UK offerings, and by December 2021, we decided to apply for the Inclusive Employers Standard. We felt like that was a good way to get a benchmark of where we were, and then to use the feedback to show us where to go next. So we applied for the Standard in December 2021 and got the results in March 2022. We achieved Bronze on our first attempt. We were really delighted. Once we achieved the Bronze Standard, we talked to Inclusive Employers about embarking on full membership to gain access to their high-quality resources and a regular contact ( Consultant).
“There’s not an inclusion checklist, do these 10 things and you’re sorted, it’s constantly evolving. Having that support and reassurance that we’re going in the right direction is so important”
The solution
With the detailed report from the Inclusive Employers Standard submission and support from their Inclusive Employers Membership, Leidos began to make changes. They started with data. At the time, their workplace demographic data had gaps meaning they couldn’t make data-led decisions or measure progress.
Many employees weren’t engaged with data collection efforts (“there was some resistance I think to sharing personal data. ‘Why does my employer need to know this information? This is so personal’.”). With support from their Inclusive Employers Account Manager, they took steps to educate their employees on why data collection is so vital and, crucially, began to see disclosure rates increasing.
“We’ve done a lot of work with support from Inclusive Employers. We launched a demographic data campaign involving communications, live sessions, trust-building and a monthly alert from our HR system (Workday) sent to any colleague with missing demographic data. The alert outlined the purpose and process to add data, then also clarified we have ‘Prefer not to say’ answer options if anyone feels uncomfortable to disclose their actual data.”
Data collection for age and gender was already nearly 100% as these fields are compulsory for payroll, pensions and tax. Where the real shift happened was in non-mandatory data fields. For example, the response rate for ethnicity data started around 70% and is now 100%. Response rates for other fields, such as Disability, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation, have increased significantly too, by as much as 50+ percentage points in some cases.
As the inclusion work progressed with Inclusive Employers’ support and guidance, Fiona noticed an increase in employees and line managers asking for support with neurodiversity. Drawing upon the resources of Inclusive Employers, Fiona collaborated with her Inclusive Employers Account Manager and employee-volunteers to develop Neurodiversity Awareness Workshops. It was a collaborative process of developing the content, running ‘train the trainer’ sessions, and supporting around 30 people across the business with lived experience of neurodiversity to help deliver the training. “Emily (our Inclusive Employers Account Manager) was so impactful in reassuring us. Their support was a bit like having stabilizers on a bike, helping us get going and building our confidence until we felt ready to go for it.” So far 90+ employees have been through the training.
The training was just the start of significant activity around neurodiversity, including:
- Creating a Leidos UK electronic toolkit (magazine format) about neurodiversity, different conditions, and what resources are available.
- Starting an internal blog series written by a colleague with personal experience of ADHD, leading to several colleagues coming forward who wanted to get assessed.
- Running a live Q&A session with a senior leader who is Dyslexic and advocates for neurodiversity.
- Creating neurodiversity peer support groups where neurodivergent people can connect confidentially and share their tips, challenges and have fun. “As an employer, whilst you don’t have an obligation to make connections like this, if you support and facilitate it, you’re more likely to have engaged, thriving staff.” These groups also “feed back any challenges/tips to me privately, to help inform our central neurodiversity and wider inclusion efforts. For many people, this has helped them realise they’re not alone and together we can make a positive difference, without them having to disclose their condition beyond the group unless they want to.”
More broadly within the inclusion space, Fiona and other colleagues have developed a live chat series, called ‘This Is Me’, to help break down barriers and create more psychological safety in the workplace. “Typically there’ll be a senior leader and another colleague who have a live conversation about times where they’ve either felt vulnerable or made mistakes or overcome an obstacle. So far some of the topics have been imposter syndrome, the power of failure, breaking through assumptions, succeeding against the odds, and coping through change.” The talks are popular and include lively Q&A sessions where other colleagues often share their own stories of the theme. Fiona felt empowered by her Inclusive Employers Account Manager to package the talks as a series. “It was Inclusive Employers’ advice that helped us to package it up like that and to go forward with it.”
Momentum continues to grow, demographic data disclosure rates continue to rise, and more colleagues are connecting with inclusion across the business.
“This wouldn’t have happened the way it did without Inclusive Employers; we feel very lucky to have you!” – How membership has progressed inclusion
“Inclusion isn’t a one and done thing; you can’t do these 10 things and be sorted. Inclusion maturity is constantly evolving. Having the support of Inclusive Employers means we are focused on aligning our inclusion work with our values and progressing our inclusion maturity.”
How membership has progressed inclusion
As the inclusive movement grows across Leidos with Inclusive Employers’ support, the Leidos value of ‘Inclusion’ has embedded strongly across the UK business. Some of the impact includes:
- Investment from Leidos UK in creating Fiona’s full-time UK Inclusion and Diversity Lead role.
- A more transparent and open culture, such as colleagues becoming more comfortable disclosing or talking about different conditions and experiences. “Increasingly employees will ask questions or positively challenge when something doesn’t feel right. There’s been such a big change just in the way that people are happy to come forward and talk to us and open up those conversations.”
- Relatedly, earlier this year, some new branding guidance was issued, which didn’t mention whether or not colleagues could include gender pronouns in their email signatures. A large number of colleagues quickly responded to check pronouns could still be included in their signatures under the new guidelines – which they could be, but what Fiona noticed most was the swift action taken by so many staff, when not that long ago very few would have noticed: “In a way, I loved seeing that because it was showing people felt they could stand up for it… A few years ago, people tended to be like ‘gosh, why would we put gender pronouns in our e-mail signatures?’ We were starting from absolute basics and trying to educate people in why it’s important, whereas now it’s like, ‘why have you not even mentioned it’?”
- Increased investment and recognition for Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). In 2024, the 7 Leidos UK ERGs collectively received a Leidos Global Award from the global CEO in recognition of their efforts. This has led to more colleagues being aware and joining ERGs as allies and supporters.
- Importantly, employee engagement metrics have also shown staff have felt tangible changes. “If we look at our last full global engagement survey in March 2023, inclusion was one of the top three strength areas from the whole survey. People are more interested in and curious about inclusion.”
Inclusive Employers’ expert support has helped every step of the way. Fiona personally has felt a significant impact from Inclusive Employers. “In the beginning, I was a bit nervous in some cases, such as ‘how do we respond to this tricky inclusion query?’, because we were building our own awareness at the same time. Having Inclusive Employers there to workshop some of the trickiest questions and check our responses was so beneficial – partly to mitigate risk but also to make sure we were giving full, proper answers and explanations back to people.”
Inclusive Employers’ flexibility of support has meant that other colleagues can access expert insight as well. For instance, bringing members of the Talent Acquisition team into a monthly membership call. “In this way, we’re responding to the needs of key groups within our business. Bringing them directly into the call means they can ask questions in real time. We can workshop some of the challenges there and then, so it’s much more efficient and empowering for them.”
The ongoing support and advice has helped Fiona feel more confident as she’s developed in her role too: “The sense-checking and reassurance from Inclusive Employers gives me confidence. My knowledge and understanding of Inclusion and Diversity has mainly been self-developed or gained through on-the-job learning rather than formal training, so to have an independent expert validate and say “you’re doing a good job” is really good for confidence!”
“ Inclusive Employers has helped us increase our impact.” – Making a business impact
Leidos UK has seen real impact from their Inclusive Employers membership. This ranges from cultural and behavioural shifts…
- “Our employees are more confident in coming forward to talk to us and share their stories; that for me is probably the biggest impact.”
- In a recent Inclusive Leader training session, the trainer used the terms ‘shy’ and ‘introvert’ interchangeably. They were positively challenged by an attendee who opened up a discussion around introversion and shyness. “That person then wrote a whole blog about their experience of being an introvert and why that’s different to being shy. We shared that out, and other colleagues came forward to say ‘this is so true, this resonated for me’.”
- “Active listening to employees when they come forward, making sure that we’re engaged and listening. But also showing them that we are taking positive to steps to make inclusive changes.”
…to winning work:
- “The UK Social Value Act and our own customers have highlighted the importance of advancing inclusion within businesses. Achieving the Inclusive Employers Standard has strengthened our inclusive credentials and provided evidence of inclusive activities for winning and retaining work. Because it’s an independent benchmark, our customers know it’s genuine. It has a tangible effect on our commercial business.”
What’s next
With Inclusive Employers’ expert support, Leidos UK is committed to building its inclusive culture and collaboration further. Fiona has already begun to share her experiences and learnings with the wider global business. “I know we can leverage Inclusive Employers’ global support to help with that”. Some of the initial focus areas include building on existing programmes, strengthening support for employees, improving data demographics, and exploring supplier diversity.
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