National Inclusion Week: 'Each One, Reach One'

What is inclusion?

The action or state of including or being included within a group or structure.

What is Diversity?

Practicing mutual respect for qualities including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, age demographics, sexual orientations, class, educations, and abilities...to highlight a few.

What is happening in the world around us?

National Inclusion Week is an annual week of workplace activities and events that highlight the importance of inclusion across the UK. This year's theme for National Inclusion Week is 'Each One, Reach One' - this is a chance for all of us to set personal challenges and experience new ways of thinking to reach a new level of cultural awareness.

Everyone wants to feel valued and treated fairly.

Inclusion goes hand in hand with diversity and having both implemented in your working culture. Feeling valued in the workplace, and in our personal lives is something everyone wants, especially when most employees spend most of their days working. There have been times where we have all felt like people have not been over-welcoming or inclusive in our lives. Equally, we can agree there are other instances where someone has gone out of their way to support and include us in what is going on - asserting a positive difference in our lives.

At Thrive so far, we have got together on video chats, carried out quizzes and have activities planned throughout the week, we will be focussing on continuing to encourage discussions and feedback on inclusivity in meetings and will be making the most of our Thrive HQ employee app to encourage discussions and feedback on inclusivity by employees sharing their story, videos on what inclusion means to them, providing a space for employees to give feedback and suggestions and starting discussions on how important inclusion and respect is.

National Inclusion Week provides each person with a great opportunity to think about and identify what they can do to value one another and make the workplace more inclusive.

So, what can you do within your organisation for Inclusion Week 2020?

There are a lot of things your organisation can do for Inclusion Week 2020, here are some suggestions your company can experiment with this week, and continue to use throughout the year:

Virtual catch-ups with your organisation i.e. Virtual Mid-week Muffin's.
Regular quizzes.
Arrange company events - communicate with your employees to see what events they would like to be a part of organising or attend, i.e. 'LGBTIQ+ Pride Day'.
Encourage social activity within your organisation, encourage employees to share what they feel comfortable with about their interests and likes, i.e. sharing their stories and posting content on photo walls.
Hosting monthly webinars, i.e. 'Lunch and learn about colleagues'.
Sharing inclusion and inspirational stories, asking employees to share Vlogs, what does Inclusion mean to them, for example.
Provide a way for employees to give feedback and recommendations to make your workplace more inclusive.

There is a range of webinars and activities which you can use from external online sources if you don't have the resources available to organise your own internal events.

We can all play our part in making everyday inclusion a reality across all organisations - 'Each One, Reach one!'

You may want look to the upcoming months and begin to plan your organisation's activities and discussions. Here are some key dates to include;

Black History Month (October 2020)
Disability History Month (Nov-Dec 2020)
LGBTIQ+ History Month (Feb 2021)

We recommend visiting the Inclusive Employers website and signing up to see their great resources and ideas.

You may also be interested in reading our blog post on how Employee Communications Apps Drive a Diverse and Inclusive Culture