Why is Race Equality Week important?
It’s an opportunity to amplify our organisations promises on being anti-racist and improving quality of opportunity in the workplace. Whilst there has been a shift on diversity and inclusion in the workplace for many organisations in the last couple of years, there is still much meaningful progress to be made to address barriers and the race inequality that People of Colour face daily. We have to continue to acknowledge how racism is still present in many institutions and systems. So race equality week gives us the opportunity to check back in on our progress towards meaningful and sustainable change. It’s vital for organisations to fully embrace anti-racist values, behaviours, and policies to change our cultures and the way we do business. If we don’t, we will not only fail the customers we serve, but the employees too.
What are the MTVH's plans for Race Equality Week?
Our ethnicity colleague network group Rise aims to accelerate race equality and inclusion with leadership, allyship and participation. And demonstrable leadership on race equality is essential. So we’re spotlighting some of our senior leaders including allies and asking them to share what race equality means to them in #actionnotjustwords. We’ll also be sharing educational content throughout the week to help stimulate meaningful day to day conversations about race equality amongst colleagues.
What do you hope to achieve as a result?
It’s an opportunity to pause and reflect on how much progress we’ve made the last two years. We hope to empower and amplify the voices of employees of colour and re-energise the whole organisation from top to bottom about our commitment to being an anti-racist organisation.
Why is this year’s Race Equality Week theme #ActionNotJustWords so important?
It’s no longer enough to know what needs to be done. We must act. Advancing racial equality depends on us all making moment-by-moment decisions and actions that support progress.