It 's on us as leaders to empower people - MP tells Chamber conference

Recognising that individuals do not start out on an equal footing is crucial to helping them realise their full potential at work, according to a Birmingham MP.

Speaking at Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce 's Growth Through People conference, Yardley MP Jess Phillips called on business leaders to “hand over some of the privilege that we might have ” in order to empower people.

The virtual conference received nearly 400 views and its hasthtag - #GTP21 - reached 305,000 accounts on social media.

Ms Phillips (pictured), who delivered at keynote at the leadership and people management conference, spoke of inequalities across Birmingham - including in her own constituency - and how these can impact on the potential to forge a successful career.

She also discussed her own experiences of feeling unequal in the workplace and said organisations can “front out ” certain policies to remove barriers that are holding people back.

Ms Phillips said: “The first thing to recognise is we don 't start equal in the workplace. We don 't even come close.

“When people arrive in front of us as a new opportunity for us to employ or somebody we have employed, we should understand that their expectations of what 'good ' looks like, of what a career looks like, of what making a success of yourself looks like might be completely different to what we are expecting for ourselves.

“So, it is on leaders in this area to make sure that they are doing everything they can to allow people the tools that they may not have innate in them - as we have it innate in us - to do the very best and achieve very best for themselves and our businesses.

“What we have to do is actively seek out ways to ensure that we are letting people off the hook for the things they feel are their deficits and maybe holding them back.

“And so we have to front out family friendly policies - we have to write into the document.

“Don 't wait for people to have to ask for them because I wanted to ask what the maternity policy was in an interview and do you think I 'd have got that job?

“That should be fronted out from the very get-go. We should write down what we would do if somebody was a victim of violence who worked for us, we should write down what our sexual harassment or equality and diversity policies are so that the people who are constantly worrying have given up that bandwidth to do their jobs and don 't have to worry about all of those things in their workplace.

“If you are not on an equal footing, you are constantly recalibrating and constantly recalculating and constantly thinking about how to best appeal to the people in front of you.

“To bring out the potential in people, we need to hand over some of the privilege that we might have and seek out people whose potential is not being met and ask ourselves why their potential is not being met. Sometimes the answer will be us. ”

DIVERSITY IS CRITICAL

The Growth Through People conference, hosted by the Chamber 's chief strategy officer Henrietta Brealey and beamed live from Chamber House, began with a speech from British Chambers of Commerce president Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith.

Baroness McGregor-Smith spoke of how diversity and inclusivity are a critical part of business and also called for firms to foster inclusive work cultures.

She said organisations can display more role models to inspire young staff and implored that gender and ethnicity pay gaps must be closed quickly.

WORKING TOGETHER

Educators and industry must work together more to achieve inclusivity.

That was the view of a panel of experts, who presented their views on how firms can be more inclusive.

Panellists included Professor Monder Ram of Aston University, Sarah Cooper-Jones of NatWest, Pat Varvalho of BMet College and connector, community builder and consultant Mikayla Jones.

Monder commented that pledges on diversity and inclusion “aren 't enough ” and businesses must be more accountable for their actions.

Pat said that in order to nudge the agenda forward, staff should be reminded of biases at key moments, such as appraisals and recruitment, and organisations must look at processes and structures in order to reduce bias in decision making .

NatWest 's myriad of global inclusive and diversity practices were listed by Sarah, who also described how the bank is looking to focus more on gender, disability, ethnicity, LGBT+ and multi-generational workforce.

Mikayla said that inclusivity has a lot to do with “belonging ”, and making sure that folks feel celebrated and included as possible at work.

WORKING UP A SWEAT

Keith Ward, sports therapy lecturer at University College Birmingham, got virtual guests up and out of their seats with a “regrouping exercise ”, that urged attendees to stretch and relax.

DON 'T BE AN 'UMBRELLA LEADER '

Talking about her about experience of running agency EastVillage PR over the last year, founder and managing director Tara Tomes stressed that the biggest thing she's learnt is the importance of not being an "umbrella leader".

She explained that transparency is key when it comes to ensuring that everyone has equal understanding and responsibility for the strategic workings of the business.

East Village account director Hattie D'Souza added it has become even more essential for staff to have a clear understanding of their specific responsibilities within a company and being able to do that well from any environment.

CHANGED FOREVER

Dr Holly Birkett, of The Work and Inclusivity Research Centre at the University of Birmingham, explained that Covid has changed the way we manage people forever, particularly with regards to flexible working.

The university 's research on peoples experiences of working during the pandemic, both from an employer and employee perspective, found that managerial attitudes towards flexible working arrangements have considerably improved in the last year.

Holly also noted that one of the most effected groups during the shift to working from home has been women, experiencing the difficulties of managing unpaid domestic and childcare tasks alongside their work.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK

Stuart Bailey from Curium Solutions spoke about creating a more positive feedback culture in order to move towards better action and more balanced conversations about our performance at work.

He explained that many people hold negative connotations about receiving feedback, associated with our tendency to react emotionally to the dilemmas we face.

As a solution, Stuart encouraged employers to phrase the question “would you value some feedback? ” as a way of indicating that the process will be constructive.

Stuart said that companies have a task of remodelling that feedback structure if they want to drive awareness and connect employees with their work.

Growth Through People was sponsored by Aston University, BMet and the Work Inclusivity Research Centre at University of Birmingham.