Vanguard and Breakthough (UK)- Spring 2010 in Review

Employee engagement across working life

As companies struggle to meet the challenges of the recession, HR and business commentary is highlighting the importance of employee engagement; the key to business success is motivated employees within a supportive and inclusive culture - the theme of the recent Vanguard network meeting.

A key challenge of this recession, unlike previous recessions, is the position of young people in society who are suffering high levels of unemployment (this is a problem across Europe more generally), at the same time as a push by the Government(s) to encourage employers to retain and employ older workers.
Patrick Grattan MBE, founder of the Age and Employment Network (TAEN), led a discussion of the challenges for employers, and asked the question whether this was necessarily an either old or young situation? The reality is, it only becomes this if employers react to policy, rather than taking a longer term view and a ‘whole life’ approach.

Members also explored employee engagement from the perspective of employee network/affinity groups to support strategic business imperatives and how their role is evolving to meet a wider range of needs, including creating partnerships that cross geographic and other boundaries. The Nationwide also shared their efforts to engage employees and leaders to identify barriers to an inclusive culture for employees, which also brought greater understanding and engagement of customers. The next Vanguard network meeting is 17 June in London.
 

Perspectives on equalities!
 

Business Link London hosted the Breakthrough network meeting and was addressed by Mandy Wright of IDEA on the procurement requirements of the Equality Bill and its importance to the equalities agenda, not just from the legal/ compliance perspective but also its link to supplier diversity, and sustainability. Whilst attention tends to focus on the public sector, the bill has implications for those private sector organisations (an estimated 30% of private sector organisations) increasingly doing business in the public sector.
 

Jennifer Crook, Head of Diversity for the London Borough of Brent, shared her perspective on Brent’s ‘mature multiculturalism’. Brent has a ‘minority, majority’ population (55%) BMAE, the most diverse borough in London, which Jennifer argues is its strength. This diversity of difference and multiple identities presents a huge range of challenges in service provision, and requires understanding of nuances in culture and communities. Interestingly, Brent’s high volume diversity in a defined area has created more, rather than less cohesiveness- with communities working, and living together as a fact of life, in sharp contrast to the Northern Towns parallel lives experience. The next Breakthrough network meeting is 2 June in London.
 

Contact: Deirdre Golden deirdre.golden@orcww.com