Diversity Assured Recruitment
First nationally supported equality standard for UK Professionals

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Boston Fieldgate Property Consultants

"We made the Birmingham Professional DiverCity pledge in 2003 and were one of the first 50 companies in the area to support this excellent initiative. Our commitment remains strong, reinforced by the enthusiasm and support of the DiverCity team. In our view taking full advantage of the opportunity afforded by the City's changing diversity and ethnic mix is a no choice option for any business wishing to thrive. The support, encouragement and interest in our business shown by the DiverCity team is at the highest level and spurs us on as they make it easier to create and forge links between like minded individuals and businesses from across the ethnic groups in the city. We have no doubt new business will flow form our proactive participation in this programme. We look forward to working with the DiverCity team as we go forward"

Charles Smith - Managing Partner
Boston Fieldgate Property Consultants

Eversheds

As a direct result of the intervention of Birmingham Professional DiverCity we have undertaken various new initiatives that will support us increasing our diversity and we hope to reap the benefits in the medium and long term

As a result of the diagnostic one of the things we have done is to look wider than the traditional red brick universities when recruiting for trainee solicitors. This is not something we had considered in the past and hope this will support us in achieving more diverse recruitment.

We are now involved in the University of Central England Mentoring Scheme, directly as a result of our work with DiverCity and this is enabling us to meet with students from diverse backgrounds and non-red brick universities and we also encourage applications from those students for trainee solicitor posts

To support Eversheds in raising our profile in the African-Caribbean community we have with the help of DiverCity held an event specially targeted at young African-Caribbean boys. This was on the 27th October 2007. This was through a voluntary Christian led organisation known as Black Boys Can. We provided the venue and food for the annual awards ceremony of the local small heath branch. We also provided one of our lawyers to speak to the young people about law and becoming a lawyer.

We are also involved in the Windsor Fellowship Graduate Programme which we were introduced to my DiverCity. Through this programme we will support young graduates from ethnic minority backgrounds gain work experience whilst at the same time this will support us in introducing Eversheds to a new recruitment pool.

On the 21 March 2007 in conjunction with two other law firms in the city, we hosted DiverCity Chances on the 21 March 2007. This was an event organised jointly by Birmingham Professional DiverCity and GTI Chances. At this event some 60 ethnic minority students from old and new universities, interested in becoming solicitors were introduced to the law and given application and interview support as well as information on working in a law firm. We hope to see a real increase in applicants as a direct result of this event.

We were involved in a careers day at Holt School in Lozells on 9 March 2007. This school has a mainly Asian and African-Caribbean intake. We provided two of our trainee solicitors to talk about law to the students and again this has supported us in raising our profile in diverse communities.

We have found the support of BPD invaluable and were disappointed to find that similar bodies do not exist in Leeds, Manchester and London where we hold our other offices.

Chindo Chahal - HR Centre Advisor
Eversheds

Plum Personnel - Recruitment Agency

We have made many changes to our procedures and processes as a result of our work with Birmingham Professional DiverCity. These include changes to how we communicate with our clients and to how we communicate with our customers. These changes include putting a commitment to diversity in all our communications including job adverts. We have also made changes to some of our internal documents so that they are more in line with the commitment we espouse.

The most significant change within our organisation resulting from our work with Birmingham Professional DiverCity, has been the growth in confidence of our agency around diversity. We are now much more confident about the benefits of a diverse workforce and about selling the benefits of this to our clients; for example we will now suggest to clients that they consider job share to fill a post that might otherwise be difficult to fulfill whereas in the past we may have been unable to fill the post. Taking this broader view of recruitment has enabled us to give added value to our clients and customers and ultimately to fill jobs. We as individuals have benefited because we feel more confident talking about diversity but we have also seen direct business benefit from the support and advice given by DiverCity.

This confidence has extended to my putting forward a suggested bill to my local MP around working parents and flexible working. The proposed bill has been approved for its second reading in parliament in October of this year. I don't think this is something I would have done if it were not for our work with DiverCity.

Throughout our time working with Birmingham Professional DiverCity we have felt very supported by them and we have always felt that we have been working in partnership rather than them looking over what we do. We have always felt that we have been advised by them rather than being told. Where suggestions have been made as to how we can improve our diversity activity the suggestions have always been considered alongside our business needs. DiverCity have never used a stick approach. DiverCity also engender a culture were you feel able to ask questions and where your not afraid of making mistakes. It is this approach which has enabled us I think to benefit as much as we have from our work with them.

We have been supported in better understanding diversity and in better utilising it whilst at the same time been able to retain our corporate identity. Working with DiverCity does not mean that we all end up carbon cut outs of all diversity pledgees. This means we can promote a commitment to diversity but still retain the essence of our organisation within that.

Susan Ankrett - Director
Plum Personnel - Recruitment Agency

Sky Blue Solutions

Originally we became involved with Birmingham Professional DiverCity as we wanted to check our own diversity practices against their recommended practice. Their diversity check contributed to giving us a better understanding of diversity and of what is good practice which in turn has resulted in our making changes to our practices and procedures. We have now revised many of our documents, for example we have a guide to working with SkyBlue for new workers to which we have added a section on diversity and what we expect from workers engaged through SkyBlue. We have also added a diversity element to our 3 day induction and the induction itself is now more detailed so that we can really get across who we are and ensure all our staff understand this. We will now also include diversity activity/CSR activity as part of our pack that will go with all public sector tendering bids.

More significant than the internal changes we have made has been the new doors that have been opened into other organisations as a direct result of our work with DiverCity. One example of this is our work with Fair Cities. We worked with Fair Cities to undertake a pilot in Birmingham to recruit more diversity in terms of the people we train up to work in the rail industry. The Fair Cities programme has supported us to recruit 20 people from ethnic minority backgrounds where traditionally they have been under represented in this area. This relationship has enabled up to fill posts that we were struggling to fill and at the same time supported us being able to provide our clients with a more diverse pool of contractors, which is something we were also struggling to do. And we are now able to offer real jobs in the rail industry to people who were previously out of work.

Our relationship with DiverCity has also enabled us to be one of the first companies to take part in the REC diversity accreditation. This is significant as it will support us in positioning ourselves as industry leaders in the area of diversity. Although we have always been aware of the influence that the recruitment industry has, working with DiverCity and the REC accreditation has helped to show us just how much influence we have and how we can use that influence. As master vendors we have been able to ask our own suppliers to undertake the REC accreditation.

We are also now much more aware of need to work smarter in relation to diversity. As a consequence we are now looking at how we market to, and work with organisations supporting diversity including Remploy, Jobcentre Plus and Shaw Trust. We are now working with these organisations to see how we can better market within these organisations and this has now extended to supporting these organisations by sharing our own good practice.

Since working with DiverCity we have for the first time appointed a diversity specialist to be responsible for diversity activity throughout the company. This will support us in rationalising and co-ordinating all our activities throughout the UK.

To support us further in diversity we have had all our managers to undertake training in diversity with an external agency identified by DiverCity.

To further cement our commitment to diversity we will now hold annual conferences for all our staff (200 people in total) and this years' theme will be diversity.

Working with DiverCity has made us realise that diversity cannot be an add on for us and that we want to achieve as much as we can.

Fay Cavey - Marketing & Communications Manager
Sky Blue Solutions