Diversity award for trend-setting scheme

Shaw Trust’s ground-breaking ethnic employment scheme, which helped to earn the national charity a coveted diversity award, looks like being a trend setter.

The two-pilot Careers Visits innovation, which doubled Black Minority Ethnic (BME) applicants at a stroke, is to be rolled out as a nationwide provision, and other organisations are watching with interest.

“We have tried every which way to engage more fully with the BME community, including the usual routes of advertising, but the Careers Visits’ scheme, where people were invited in to see what we do and the sort of projects and jobs on offer, were a resounding success,” said Di Barber, National Equality & Diversity Adviser for Shaw Trust.

“We are the the leading provider of employment and independence services for people disadvantaged in the labour market by disability, ill health or social circumstance - so naturally we want to ensure that our own employment doors are wide open to everyone.”

Shaw Trust, which has also recently been named as one of Britain’s Top Employers, has just received a QED/JCP award for employer diversity. The QED-UK's Employer Diversity Project, endorsed by Jobcentre Plus, and sponsored by Bradford and Bingley, establishes Shaw Trust as achieving the highest standards of good practise in terms of diversity management. Some 250 businesses from public, private and voluntary sectors are registered on the QED/JobCentre Plus benchmark, but only 27 gained an award.

“What was once unique in diversity management is now ubiquitous, and so we wanted a challenging benchmark for our own employment practices,” said Di. “The JobCentre Plus/QED Employer Diversity benchmark provided this and we are very proud indeed to be singled out for special mention in terms of our Equality and Diversity Action Plan.”