1. Tea Break creates the space for courageous conversations.
2. Our evidence indicates that within the hour, colleagues’ thoughts and feelings become apparent and expressed in the cohort.
3. Tea Break gives organisations and their senior management insight into internal issues, granting them the opportunity to address such concerns.
4. Tea Break can help an organisation move from words to meaningful and necessary action towards race equality.

Tea Break creates the opportunity for valuable conversations that allow ethnically diverse employees to have a voice and for senior leaders to better understand their employees.

Why is this important?

Race Equality Matters conducted research to identify the barriers and solutions to race inequality in the workplace. It included over 70 in-depth interviews that included a wide range of companies, race networks, D&I experts, employees, allies, and 150 race-related conversations.

The research uncovered:

• Ethnically diverse employees typically have little or no voice in an organisation compared to their colleagues.
• Senior leaders and Board members typically overlook or ignore race as an issue that demands action.
• Organisations have found it difficult to reach out to their ethnically diverse colleagues during these ongoing, challenging times to provide support and understand the different issues involved.
• Negative experiences for employees can be exacerbated through ‘activity and conversations’ conducted in their organisation that lack the correct supportive framework.

We recommend that you download the Tea Break ‘How to Do It Right Guide’ (you will find this below).

It will give you the framework to:

1. Ensure psychological safety and employee support.
2. Identify your Tea Break lead, gain senior endorsement, and create a working group.
3. Identify the theme for discussion and the structure of each session.
4. Promote your Tea Break.
5. Run your Tea Break and allow for discussions to flow.
6. Monitor progress and lessons learnt.