Inclusive Employers Inclusive Compass – Monthly Insights: Inclusioneers Conference 2023, disability, the white gaze and more
Designed to help inclusive leaders navigate the ever-changing landscape of inclusive leadership, providing them with direction and guidance as they strive to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace.
Farhanah Iqbal, Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing, writes this month’s insights.
We’re gearing up for our first-ever Inclusioneers Conference, bringing together a wealth of expertise around all things inclusion and diversity. In this edition, we talk about the Inclusioneers Conference, and we’ll also be signposting you to our tips and ideas for disability inclusion and celebrating Disability Pride in your workplace. And with “Stories to Tell” as the theme of this year’s upcoming South Asian Heritage Month, we explore the importance of storytelling in subverting the white gaze and making our workplaces more inclusive.
Contents:
Inclusioneers conference 5th July
Inclusive Employers are delivering a day of expert best practices, top tips and insight for HR leaders and I&D enthusiasts at our Inclusioneers Conference 2023! Focused on the latest Inclusion and Diversity topics, this event will allow professional Inclusioneers to engage with and share their experiences. The day will include a selection of panels, talks and roundtable discussions on key inclusion topics, including:
- Recruitment and positive action
- Hybrid working
- Racial equity
- I&D strategy
- Future-proofing
- Staff networks
- Keynote and speakers
Tickets have been selling fast for this unique event that will bring together professionals across sectors with our in-house event will cover the latest inclusion and diversity topics and provide a fantastic opportunity for you to engage with and share experiences with other professional inclusioneers. Download the Inclusioneers Conference 2023 itinerary today.
Buy TicketsPreparing for Disability Pride Month, what you need to know
July is Disability Pride Month, giving us pause for thought to ensure disability inclusion is a priority in the workplace.
The importance of keeping the conversation open and listening to disabled people in order to move things towards true disability inclusion is paramount. It’s just as important to recognise when we don’t get it right and continue forward in our processes.
In the UK, the government set out a National Disability Strategy in 2021, which was ultimately ruled unlawful by the High Court and received a mixed reaction from disabled charities. A New Disability Action Plan, due to be published later this year, will set out “practical action ministers across government will take over the next two years to improve disabled people’s lives,” addressing some of the strategy’s flaws.
In the Spring Budget 2023, the government announced further work to strengthen disability inclusion. The Health and Disability White Paper looks to help more disabled people start, stay and succeed in work, by investing in employment support and changing the benefits system. These are all systems that employers should stay abreast of and include the voices of disabled people within your own organisations to inform best practice.
You can start by using our Disability Recruitment Practices Guide to make sure you are keeping disability inclusion a live and dynamic process in your workplace right from the point of recruitment. Using our tips for disability inclusion at work with our training and consultancy support will help towards creating a workplace where everyone can accept and honour each person’s uniqueness and promote visibility and mainstream awareness of positive pride felt by people with disabilities.
Subverting the white gaze: the importance of storytelling for inclusion
South Asian Heritage Month is just around the corner, and with this year’s theme “Stories to Tell”, it’s a time to make space for those of South Asian heritage to be able to consider and share their stories: what moments in your life have shaped who you are today? What experiences have taught you valuable lessons?
It is also the time for others to listen, learn (you can start with our factsheet here) and allow these stories to broaden their worldview. Understanding people’s stories through their own lens, allows us to challenge and change our own.
It’s therefore an opportune moment to explore the role of the white gaze here. The white gaze has historically enforced the lens through not only how people of South Asian heritage are viewed, but all people of colour. Critically acclaimed writer Toni Morrison defined the white gaze as how whiteness influences how we think and operate in society, including the workplace. The white gaze can happen through people, systems, practices, and the literal gaze.
It operates under the assumption that the default reader, audience, or observer is white and how someone behaves, identifies, or presents themselves should be tailored to white perspectives. The white gaze also distorts the portrayal of the experiences of people of colour by applying a white perspective that takes away from lived experiences. In simpler terms, it views and describe people of colour through the lens of whiteness and pushes people of colour to accommodate the lens of whiteness.
In the workplace, the white gaze is imposed through the prioritization of Eurocentric standards (i.e. biased views that favor western cultures over non-western ones) that define team member experiences and an organisation’s culture, norms, and expectations.
We see this through dress codes, organisational policies, expectations around interpersonal interactions, and leadership perceptions which often overlook the experiences of non-white team members. The implications of the white gaze is that often minorities are trapped by white ethnocentrism (the evaluation of other cultures as inferior to one’s own).
The white gaze can lead to discriminatory practices being deeply rooted in organisational systems and processes that severely impact colleagues who are people of colour. It can hinder growth, impact one’s inclusion strategy and goals, as well as create a workplace culture that feels exclusionary. Now more than ever, it is important for us to acknowledge the white gaze in the workplace and act on decentering whiteness in the workplace.
Decentring whiteness throughout an organisation is a complex issue that will take many forms of long-term actions. Start by listening to the stories of your colleagues, and use the momentum of South Asian Heritage month to speak to your account manager who will be able to further support you to engage in learning interventions that are tailored for you.