Race Equality Matters is pleased to announce that Heathrow have been awarded #MyNameIs solution Trailblazer status!

Race Equality Matters’ #MyNameIs is a simple but highly impactful solution to ensure everyone pronounces people’s names correctly. The campaign calls to normalise phonetic spelling in your email signature, meetings, name badges and more. In a 2022 poll, 73% of respondents from more than 100 organisations said they had their names mispronounced. They told us it made them feel ‘not valued or important,’ ‘disrespected’ and ‘that they didn’t belong.’ 88% of respondents thought a phonetic name spelling campaign would help tackle race inequality.

Heathrow’s adoption and implementation of the #MyNameIs campaign is making genuine steps towards racial inequality in the organisation. The panel of independent judges – all of whom are ethnically diverse – unanimously agreed that Heathrow had successfully run the initiative and voted for them to become a Trailblazer. This is in addition to them being awarded the Tea Break solution status too! Through this, other organisations can learn and implement this fantastic solution within their workplace.

#MyNameIs

Heathrow’s en-haNCE Network first launched the #MyNameIs campaign in February 2022 with a coffee morning/Tea Break session and again in February 2023 to coincide with Race Equality Week. The Network initially raised awareness of the solution with its members and the following year led a month-long campaign and a business-wide drive to champion the #MyNameIs campaign across all areas of Heathrow.

The first event in 2022 invited colleagues to attend and listen to/share their experiences of their names being misspelt or mispronounced. The en- haNCE Network suggested to colleagues to use the phonetic spelling solution in their email signatures and elsewhere, which received a positive response and was adopted by several network members.

Increasing Buy-In – Marketing and Communications

In 2023, the Network worked with the Branding team to formalise the phonetic spelling of names in Heathrow’s email signature format and with the Communications team to produce videos featuring colleagues sharing their names and their experiences. These videos were released internally and externally.

The en-haNCE Network’s vision is to create a working environment in which colleagues feel their culture, ethnicity and race is one of their greatest assets to themselves and Heathrow. They chose to run #MyNameIs because the network steering group became increasingly aware that when having conversations with members and colleagues and race, culture and ethnicity, the mispronunciation of names and misspelling of names was a common experience for many of their ethnically diverse colleagues.

Impact

Despite some hesitations and concerns around people being unwilling to speak up about race issues and their experiences, Heathrow’s coffee morning in 2022 was well-received and saw an increase in participation 2023. The coffee morning sparked a line-up of several blog posts from colleagues around the business sharing their name, what it means and why it’s important to pronounce it correctly, which received an “overwhelmingly positive response”. This feedback came from both ethnically diverse colleagues and allies, such as: “Colleagues being able to pronounce my last name correctly makes me feel respected as an individual and as a professional!”

Our Trailblazer judges were most impressed by the buy-in from employees across the organisation, including senior leadership, Heathrow’s “good, detailed answers with qualitative data and demonstration of impact” as well as additional evidence, and commented that their en-haNCE Network was strong.

Follow Heathrow’s Lead: Become a Trailblazer

If your organisation is driving change for race equality and you can demonstrate impact, endorsement from ethnic background employees and share future plans; register your interest for the next round of Trailblazers on our website.