Workforce Diversity
The Code for Sports Governance requirement of Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans has bought diversity in leadership to the fore of everyone’s minds. Much needed, but for me, workforce diversity is about a whole system approach. We need to know who isn’t represented and why. We need to consider how we ensure that barriers are broken down to volunteering, coaching, instructing, teaching, officiating and employment in the sport, leisure, fitness and physical activity sector.
Why is this important and relevant? 3 simple reasons to get you thinking!
-
Representation is important. For minority groups, we know that seeing someone like themselves is a key enabler to participation and it can make someone feel more confident that their needs will be met.
-
Diversity of thought and skill. A diverse workforce brings different lived experiences, skills, perspectives and opinions. This can assist organisations to be innovative, solve problems and find new ways of working, all of which can help organisations to be more successful and sustainable.
-
An untapped resource. Workforce shortages, struggle to find volunteers etc. Widening our reach and finding solutions to barriers enables us to widen our talent search for brilliant people.
I have been fortunate to be able to work with many disabled people over the years. These colleagues have shown me the added resource they bring, for example, skills of resilience, problem-solving and empathy. What organisation wouldn’t want these skills in their team?
When I worked at Nottinghamshire County Council in the 2000s, we delivered a groundbreaking project, Sport Direct. Sport Direct aimed to increase the employability and skills of disabled people through coach education and development. We supported nearly 200 disabled people, and we faced many hurdles to overcome along the way. More recently we have been working with Aspire Leisure on their Employability Leisure initiative. This followed their successful Instructability programme, training and employing hundreds of disabled people in the fitness sector. Over the course of the last 18 months, we have been supporting the Employability Leisure initiative with awareness workshops and deep dive support for 5 organisations. It has been fantastic to work through the thought process of individuals and organisations and have a solution-led research-driven resource to support organisations to change their policies and practices to be more inclusive. Leisure Sector unites to launch EmployAbility leisure guidance | Aspire.
In Club Matters, we have worked with Sported to proactively search for, recruit, and support a more diverse tutor workforce. Why? Because we know they bring new practical examples as we embed a greater range of inclusive and community engagement examples and experiences into learning and development.
Along the way, I have heard about many potential organisations' barriers to workforce diversity…. Readiness, capacity, time, extra resource, more challenging etc. Think it is time to change the narrative and see the opportunities of having a more diverse approach to people.
Senior Consultancy Manager
Click Here to find out more about Rebecca!
Related Services
Find out more about Developing People in Sport!