Diversity Working Group

The Diversity Working Group was created as a way for Society staff to meet regularly and contribute to discussions around diversity, and shape our work moving forward.

The Group's overarching aim is to maintain, introduce and improve inclusivity across the business, and includes our Diversity Champion, Oddfellows CEO Jane Nelson.

Its current focus is to discuss and drive improvements in the following, on a rotational basis:

• Gender
• Carers and carers’ responsibilities
• Religion
• Race and cultural background
• Sex and sexual orientation
• Gender reassignment
• Disability
• Age
• Socioeconomics

To date, some of the outcomes of the Diversity Working Group have included:

• Creating a multi-faith prayer room at the Society’s Manchester office
• Formalising the Society’s stance on a number of issues, including flexible working, maternity and paternity leave and the drafting of a Menopause Policy.
• Making large print documentation available for all Society members and customers
• Undertaking a Society Diversity Survey every September to monitor our development
• Ensuring recruitment processes are name-anonymised, where possible
• Including non-gendered titles within the Society’s membership database and, where possible, the Society’s application forms
• Introducing Equality and Diversity in the Workplace and Unconscious Bias CBTs (staff training modules), as well as specialised CBTs for managers.

If you have any questions about our Diversity Working Group, please email diversity@oddfellows.co.uk or call 0161 214 4645 and ask to speak with Daniel Bowdler.

Return to the Society's Promoting Diversity section.