LifeSearch's Fairness and Diversity Squad

Aziza - Hello!

Angus - Hi Aziza. How you doing?

Aziza - Hi. How are you?

Angus - I'm alright. Hi Andrew.

Aziza - Here he is.

Andrew - I've gone with as many cushions and things as I can to try and muffle things.

Aziza - Me too! I've got cushions I've got blankets. I've got everything. 

Andrew - Leon's always got a blanket.

Angus - Hi Leon.

Leon - Am I sounding ok?

Angus - Erm beautiful as ever Leon. Good to have you with us. Welcome to Searching for Elephants. It's that LifeSearch podcast you love to listen to. Ah Melvyn. Good to see you. How are you doing? 

Melvyn - All good. All good. 

Andrew - You're through to Andrew at Barclays. How can I help today? I'm feeling really call centre-y right now. 

Angus - That'll definitely go in the podcast.

Andrew - I'll do my Dale Winton Supermarket Sweep. If you're lucky. 

Angus - Sounds fantastic. We're waiting for we're waiting for Darren, aren't we?

Andrew - He's always protecting a family somewhere. Which is a perfectly reasonable reason to be late.

Angus - How's the start to 2021 been?

Leon - It's been OK. It's like I said to my team this is typically the time in the year no one goes out anyway.

Angus - Yeah, absolutely.

Melvyn - I've been telling my friends that they're not gonna see my son till he's probably two. It's not great. And I think we need to keep communicating to keep the levels of positivity and motivation up. 

Angus - Aziza, How you doing?

Aziza - Yeah, I'm good. I think very similar to what Melvyn said. I think it's a case of trying to keep positive and like what Leon said, as well. I think we all expected this in some way, shape, or form. 

Angus - Hey Darren.

Darren - Hey guys sorry about that.

Aziza - Hey Darren.  Yeah, I think it's just a case of getting on with things.

Angus - Yeah, completely agree with you Aziza. But now that Darren has dialed in, today is Monday, the 18th of January 2021. Which in America is Martin Luther King Day, Dr. Martin Luther King that is. So what better day to have LifeSearch's Fairness and Diversity squad come and chat about what it is they do. Hi, everyone. Mentioned in this conversation a couple of times is Darren Sturdy's previous podcast. If you haven't heard it already, I would invite you to go and listen to that as well. It's the previous episode released in the Searching for Elephant series. But first question to you The Fairness and Diversity Squad, is what is the squad for?

Andrew - I'll take that one if I may, Angus. Hi, I'm Andrew Parker. And I'm the head of people and culture. I suppose if we go all the way back in a way to 2012. I won't tell the whole story. But that was when we agreed as a business what our five business values were going to be. That theme of kind of tolerance of diversity and fairness is always kind of run through our business. But in the light of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, we felt we needed to do more. So we brought together a group of seven of us from around the business from different backgrounds, really to help shape and review and influence the business's processes and philosophies, I suppose to ultimately make sure that none of them are structurally discriminatory in any way. And I think also part of the squad's remit really is to kind of educate and inform and challenge everybody in the business to kind of think, again, perhaps about, you know, the way they look at the world. So it started from there. And then the next step really was for our, our diversity survey that we did back in October. So that gave us a really kind of current view of what our business looks like. And in many areas, we did very well. But then in other areas, we're not quite yet 50/50. In terms of gender parity, our leadership team is whiter than the rest of the UK and whiter than the rest of LifeSearch. Our learning and development team have been rolling out some very interesting unconscious bias training to our leadership team, which is now going out across the whole business so powerful and so challenging did many of us find that. We've launched to movie clubs and book clubs, which have really kind of challenged people's kind of perceptions and added some kind of historical context to the conversations when we look at how the protection industry focuses on things like gender and race, how people are protected, the kinds of questions they're asked, you simply can only be male or female on most insurance applications that doesn't reflect the truth of people.  So yeah, there's a lot already that the score was achieved.

Angus - And just take it back to the film clubs, the book clubs. Can you guys tell me about any particularly interesting conversations that have happened within that

Darren - I can go on this one. I My name is Darren Sturdy. And I'm an advisor in the London office. And to be honest, a lot of the books are all to do with raising awareness and just making people think about things that they may not have necessarily otherwise thought about. So it's been quite interesting just to see the reaction of people who may not have otherwise thought that these issues were around. They may have thought they were around but they didn't know to kind of what extent. 

Angus - Do you think it's that shared experience of reading the book or watching the movie or whatever it is that helps to create create the conversation. 

Andrew - I think there's a lot of truth in that, I think there's something to be said about the shared experience. And the other thing I've really liked about the clubs is that, yeah, the bravery that people, when they've watched things like your Selma or 12 Years a Slave when people have just quite openly said, you know, goodness me seeing that person being tortured in that way, that really shook me to my foundations.

Aziza - I was just gonna say if I can add to that, I'm Aziza. I'm the client support leader in Leeds. A lot of us on here, probably because we're of a certain ethnicity, we make a conscious decision to read these kinds of books or watch these kind of films. And because you know, it, it resonates with us, whereas I think maybe with people not of color, it doesn't particularly resonate with them. So to have these kinds of clubs does open, you know, does open people's eyes up to what we've potentially some of, you know, what we know about what is part of our history, what's part of our culture.

Darren - I was just gonna add on to what Aziza mentioned, really there. I think, also, when a lot of people hear about racism, and that sort of thing. I think a lot of people look at the old videos and pictures of it, and they seem to think it's happened in the past. It's not something that's kind of happening now. Like, you know, it's a case of, you know, if you don't see it, it's not it's not happening. And that's why the George Floyd incident was massive, because everybody saw that, you know, everyone was able to see exactly what happened, again, it highlighted the fact that, you know, this is an ongoing issue, not just something that happens every now and again.

Melvyn - I'd also like to add something as well, I'm Melvyn I'm client support for franchise.

Angus - We've met you before Melvyn! 

Melvyn - Yeah too often.

Angus - Nah.

Melvyn - For me, I think one of the things that, that the the fairness and diversity squad has brought about is the conversations that I've started to have around the business with people, they they feel that they can't chime in, it's not their place to we're basically saying to people, it's everybody's pleased to say something when it's wrong, regardless of whether it's somebody's being, you know, racist, somebody's being the phobic, somebody's being sexist. All these things are wrong. It's everybody's place to actually call it out. 

Angus - Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Darren spoken up a couple of times already. He recorded that podcast with my dad in July 2020. Did that promote conversations within LifeSearch.

Melvyn - There are people in team briefings that I've had, who are actually quite upset and, and they hate the fact that this happens. One of my colleagues actually is Icelandic, and she left Iceland because she found even a family were a bit racist. And she came over here. And she's found that there's racism here as well. So it you know, these podcasts has sparked conversations, and they want to know why. And they want to know how to change it. And I suppose in one way, we were basically trying to rectify things by creating awareness. And, as I've said before, our route to curb racism is empathy and understanding, you know, people are can be the ignorant and through the ignorance, they have these prejudices, by educating them and getting empathy from them. Hopefully, these things will subside. But it's a work in progress.

Leon - Hi, this is Leon Golding. I'm a people and business leader in Leeds. Yeah to add to that Melvyn, I think I've had a few conversations with people around the business. One person in my team was, I suppose, really curious. To which we had a really, really sort of deep sort of conversations talking about, you know, what it's like to be a black man in England, things that I may see that they don't, the concerns I have maybe about going to a different city that I've never been to before. I would maybe ask my friends, you know, is it safe for me to go? Part of that would be in jest, but part of it would actually be serious. If I hadn't been there before, I would have a concern about am I going to go there and as such, because of how I look, be perceived differently to being in Leeds, which is a very cosmopolitan city. And I also had a really deep conversation with somebody who I used to work with in a team. And I think they felt or wanted to talk to me about a specific incident that they could remember when we had a conversation, which I didn't even remember, but I suppose Darren's podcast got them thinking about the language they use, and they wanted to clarify whether I felt offended by something I didn't, but I think that just shows that the impact that you can have is getting us to think about how we talk the language we use and the impact it can have on others. And that can only be a good thing.

Melvyn - I'd like to just just add on to that as well. I mean, we have this thing at the moment called canceled culture. So for instance, they cancel shows on the BBC, I can guarantee you that the black community or the minorities have not actually been asked whether these shows should be canceled or offensive. But by going ahead and just canceling those shows it then it then means some people feel quite aggrieved by that. So one of the things we have to make sure is that we're not here to stop canceling shoes. We're not here to stop doing things to make people feel aggrieved. We're here to make things fair. We're here to make some people feel included and inclusive. And if something doesn't offend somebody, we need to tell them no, if you asked me, How do I keep my hair like that? That's not a racist comments. You know, some people don't want to approach and don't want to talk to people at minority, they don't want to ask about their culture, because they think maybe asking about it is racist in some sort of way. So it's really, really important that we have a forum like this to show people out there that look, you know, we need to have conversation, we need to have understanding. And through that we'll stop the misunderstandings we'll stop people jumping on different parts of movements, and having those movements actually fail. Because it's been perceived as something else. And people feel threatened. So the movement doesn't go anywhere.

Andrew - And you're very right there, Melvyn to to use the word inclusive, because that as we've said, as a squad in these coming weeks and months, now we need to kind of broaden the squad out, they've even been very focused on issues of race and ethnicity up until now. But as I talked about in my earlier comments, yep, a whole bunch of different things come under here, fairness, and diversity. So I know next month, Angus, we're focusing on recording an LGBTQ plus podcast to focus on history month there. The number of people in our business that declare themselves as having a disability is about a third of the national rate. So we've got a lot of work to do there as to why we seem not to be attracting and supporting and offering careers to those kinds of people. So yeah, that whole inclusivity thing is absolutely vital. And that's where the squad goes next.

Angus - I just like to pick up on on Melvyn's point about about cancel culture. And, and it's it, I think you raise a really fantastic point in that 

Melvyn - If people don't feel offended by it, by doing that, and canceling those shows. All it does is it does the opposite of what you're trying to achieve, it's going to make people feel very threatened. And if they feel threatened, they wouldn't want to listen. And they'll think, Oh, you know, you're, you're you're trying, you're controlling me, and you changing me, there was no freedom of speech, no freedom of thought. And I don't understand, because the people who do this are quite intelligent. So why would you do the opposite of what you're trying to achieve? it? It doesn't make much sense to me.

Aziza - I was just going to say, I agree with what Melvyn said, I think at some point, it seems like we're trying to create some sort of utopian future where we want to kind of cancel out all of the, all of the negative all of the kind of discriminatory, discriminatory, which we know is never going to happen. And I think, you know, those of us who are genuinely kind of affected by these things are probably those of us who aren't actually offended. If I look at it myself. I think when I listen to Darren's podcast, you know, there was a part of it where, you know, you mentioned Darren, where we're told to behave a certain way, we're told to act a certain way to kind of, you know, not challenge anything, necessarily, you know, can we just agree and just be better than everybody else, because we have to prove ourselves more, because we have to do so much more than everybody else. But you know, going back to that is that a sort of, you know, first generation immigrant and thoughts and beliefs, which may not necessarily have the same sort of effect on a second generation, where in you know, we, we believe that we know, it is right to stand up for ourselves, it is right to kind of challenge this sort of culture that is right to challenge these kind of things. And it isn't necessarily you know, about proving yourself anymore, because we don't wake up every day thinking of our, you know I'm Asian or, you know I'm a different color we just think of themselves as, as ourselves. We don't we shouldn't necessarily have to prove ourselves because of our color, of our race, of our whatever, you know, background we have.

Andrew - Yeah, I just gonna say as these are I totally empathize with that as a gay dude. Yeah. And I was thinking back again, to Darren's podcast and conversations we've had where you've talked openly about almost having to put on a bit of a facade, you know, just to make sure that you don't get victimized in any way. And I can certainly empathize with that. You know starting new jobs and just kind of thinking, Okay, I better just kind of hold back a little bit. Or if I did the rare occasion where I may do something a little flamboyant, should we say I'm kind of just catching myself doing it and going oop no you better kind of wind that back in until you're a bit more comfortable or until they know you're gay. I think that's incredibly damaging for you, your mental health.

Melvyn - I was just going to touch on what Aziza said. Right, I have a son and he's he's 16 months now started walking by the way. He's 16 months. And it was really strange because it was only when the George Floyd thing happened, I actually realized, hang on a second, he's mixed race, he's gonna go to school, he might get the insult, he might get this, or I've got a black child, I'm gonna have to have a talk to him at some point. And that was only I just been going in my happy little word thinking, I've got a great son. And it was only that incident and it started, you know, bringing back all these, all these things from and I think that's when I, I, you know, spoke to Andrew a few times about, do we do something and Andrew wanted to he wanted to do and Tom wanted to do something. And lo and behold, everything started happening. These these things that happen, you know, across the world can have such a big, big influence on people and change people. I mean, I certainly had a massive effect on me. You know, I know Darren, you mean, the podcast, it was quite weird the experience that you've had, because I've had a sort of different type of experience. When I was quite young at school, there was obviously a lot of racism there because there were no other black people in the school. And, and what I actually had when I went to Manchester was I'd actually be stopped by police. But when I step out, and I start speaking, and they realize I'm well spoken, I'm not from around there, they do let me go. But there used to see a black guy in a car stopping but as soon I came out and I was able to speak, they actually let me go. So I don't know how to take that. It's a bit of a weird one.

Angus - Well, in that respect, is it maybe that you're, I mean, the policemen are judging you first on the color of your skin. And then by the tone of your voice, which still isn't right. I mean, obviously you've you've you sound okay to the policeman. So they're letting you go, which is fine for you in that moment. But on a wider level is not okay right?

Melvyn - It's not, it's wrong.

Leon - Yeah, I agree. I think as it as a child, I was someone who used to always run anywhere. So I recall my grandma saying go to dad's you need to go home. I always think I was Carl Lewis, and I want to run as fast as I can. Me too. Yeah, I was the running boy, I got to an age where I remember my dad sitting down and saying, you can't always run everywhere and maybe don't run at night and don't run so fast. Because you could be perceived as doing something wrong. And running away from somewhere I was like, Dad I've always run. And I remember being pulled over and there would ask what, you know what you're doing? And I was like, I'm just, I'm running. And they're like, well, while you running? And I was like, just cause I like to run? Just, that's just what I do. And he's like, are you sure and I was like, yeah, certainly. And you know, he asked where I lived, he asked, would I mind being taken home? And I was like, Well, if you want to take me home, that's completely fine. I remember my father asking why I've been taken home. And he got I remember him getting a bit upset, saying so he was running basically, is what you were saying? I think from I think from their viewpoint, they were just obviously they'd seen someone running their way to make sure that I was saying who I was, I wanted to ensure that I suppose, call my bluff if there was a bluff, and me going home and going to this house and stopping and my father speaking to them. But that was the first time of me maybe thinking, Okay, well, maybe it isn't right to run this out of time. Maybe I'll just walk if it's late at night, I'll just walk. And I'll choose when I when I when I run. But I think the ultimate experience is you know, when you just when you when you go to airports, me and my friends, if we if I go on holiday with my friends of ethnic heritage, we play a game and we'll say who will get pulled over? We know someone probably will do we make make fun of it. But when I've gone on holidays with my Caucasians friends or different backgrounds, it tends not to happen or if it does, it tends to be me. And which can be slightly embarrassing at times really.

Aziza - I've kind of had similar experiences of going on holiday, right at the height of the Trump administration when they had the Muslim ban. And we booked a trip to kind of go to America. And then you know, when it all set in, and then I'm thinking right, okay, well, we're going to go to America, you know, are they going to let me in first of all was my was my first thought because then I'm literally going to lose my holiday, I'm gonna lose my money because they can literally turn your at the airport without giving you any reasoning as to why. And I remember kind of having this discussion with one of my friends and them saying to me, well, you don't look overtly Muslim, so you'll be fine. And, and, you know, just and that's kind of coming from somebody who's who's Muslim as well. You know, these are things that we that we generally kind of have to deal with on a on a day to day basis. And that's the simplest thing as just getting through customs getting through, you know, I've been stopped before, but that anxiety all the way kind of going through. And just

Angus - The extra stress. Yeah.

Aziza - kind of getting on the airplane, you know, when you should really a holiday is an enjoyable experience. It should be an enjoyable experience, but the anxiety up until I got through when actually and you know he said, right okay that's fine, you can go. And yeah, it's, I suppose unfair really.

Angus - And so just changing the slightly subject slightly. Darren, since you since you made the podcast, have things changed in the last six to eight months for you as a man of color for any of you as people of colour? Obviously, obviously, I do accept that it's difficult to tell because we're all stuck inside. So.

Darren - So I would like to say things have changed a lot. I think a lot of the stuff on TV now has, I think that's changed quite a lot from the stuff that I'm seeing, you know, still seeing footballers, you know, in the Premier League taking a knee before games, they've had good discussions about you know, race and football, that sort of thing. So that's still happening. I think a lot of the TV programs have actually tried to, you know, looking at including more black and ethnic people in them. I don't know if anyone's seen that show Bridgerton. Yes it's like a 50/50 mix. And how often do you see that? You know, you don't see that often, when you look at TV? No, exactly, exactly. And so I think things are starting to change, I think people are starting to come a bit more bit more aware of this sort of thing. But I can think of one incident I did have where I walked out to do my kind of daily exercise, this is the middle of the day, we're talking, you know, it's kind of summertime, about three, four in the afternoon, that sort of thing, just to stretch my legs and walk out. I was just walking behind someone, I wasn't obviously next to the next to the lady, but I was quite far behind her. I had my headphones in and I was walking up the hill, she obviously heard me walking, took one look at me and immediately crossed the road. I knew why she crossed the road, you know, she didn't have to spell it out because the look was written all over her face at the time. But just the way she kind of acted was when I wasn't, you know, it wasn't threatening, I wasn't menacing didn't my hood up, it wasn't the middle of the night, you know, any of that sort of things that, you know, stereotypical people would think that, you know, I'm going cross the road, you know, even you know myself if I if I'm, if I'm walking down the road late at night, and there's a group of lads or group of anyone, whoever it is, and I'm on my own, you do kind of you know, you are getting your antennas are gonna go up, it's gonna happen. But middle of the day three in the afternoon, she kind of looked at me, you know, and saw what I looked like or what she perceived that I looked like and immediately decided to cross the road. So, yeah, in some ways, yes. in other ways, maybe not so much.

Leon - I was going to say, if I can add to that, I think you probably have hit the nail on the head, when I think of like the Black Lives movement. Or people taking the knee? Or the christmas adverts. There are things that are changing. But I suppose it'd be foolhardy not to say that there's maybe a slight undercurrent of some people wanting to know why things are changing. And all of those people are happy to see Kevin the carrot and resonate with that. But when there was a black family celebrating Christmas.

Melvyn - The Sainsbury's Advert.

Leon - They were saying that that didn't represent them. So, yes, I'd like to say things are changing, but equally, I think this is why it's really important that people understand why things are changing, or why people have different groups of people have been being represented. If they don't understand there's always gonna be resistance, and there's always going to be Us vs Them. That's what I'm keen to ensure that, especially when licensing doesn't happen. People are involved with what's happening, why we're doing things. And we're educating and we're informing, and it's not about us v them, it's all of us, and how do we all inclusive.

Andrew - On that point, as you may know, in the second culture roadshows that we're doing we're bringing in an external kind of guest to help kind of shape our thinking about tolerance and diversity. A lady called Jo Arscott. So she's going to be working with us on these 14 workshops. And some of the content is going to be about how do you if you think, I don't need to change? I'm fine. I'm progressive, I'm liberal minded. I don't have any views like that. Is that really true? And and how do you how do we start to kind of have conversations with those people? And through the first workshops that Paula and I did, where we started to talk about tolerance, and yeah, a few people have felt uncomfortable about it. And in a way, I think that's a good thing. I think a bit of personal discomfort is what should kind of spur you into kind of just thinking again or trying to kind of learn trying to grow so I think that that's a really positive place for us to be.

Melvyn - The hardest thing about the group is the active engagement of people who think everything is okay, and just wants to go about their daily lives. Not not that they don't care, but they're just happy to go about their daily business and unfortunately that's like 70 to 80% of people.

Andrew - And I think the second round workshops are really going to give everybody a real, we're a little project just to kind of just just to think, again, and do some self introspection,

Aziza - I think going back to kind of what we're saying as well. And what Leon was saying I mean how many people have potentially kind of just seen this as a phase. And I think a lot of people kind of, initially when something like that happens, or when something like the George Floyd incedent when it happened, you know, there's a lot of positive movement, and there's a lot of kind of want to change, there's a lot of will to change, that kind of the follow up movement after that, that's very, very important in terms of keeping that momentum going. But I think you know, as a business for us, I think it's important to you can really sort of identify that this isn't just a phase that this is something that we're really keen to follow through on.

Melvyn - I think I had an interesting conversation with Andrew, if you remember about painting doing a master painting, and when we know that that master painting is finished, you know, every brushstroke we make every everything you do. So you start off with a blank canvas, and you keep putting the strokes in there. But when is it finished? We don't know. But we still keep painting, we still keep trying. And that's what this is.

Angus - And actually, because life is what life is people keep being born. And for every person that's born, you've got an opportunity to either educate them and help them become a an open minded and welcoming person, or you've had a chance to not educate that person.

Melvyn - I think, I think Darren hit the nail on the head a while ago down you basically was it Leon, you know, our generation has pretty much failed, we, we have not been able to get the progress that we needed to get to be where we are with with, you know, fairness and diversity and racism. So it's really, really important to make sure that people coming up, don't follow in our footsteps. Because if they just do what we're doing, it would just be the same result. They have to do things differently. But it's there aren't that, you know, I know, I know, our youth are what's going to change, change things, it doesn't mean we should just give up and not try, we're always going to try. But we sort of had our say, you know, I'm 46. And I don't think we're gonna rock the world in my next 40 years. But I definitely want to make sure my son does.

Leon - Never say Melvyn, never say never.

Melvyn - I will try. I'm here. I'm here. I'm gonna keep trying. That's they way I'm built.

Aziza - Yeah, I think that's where we need to take more social responsibility when it comes to educating our own, I think there is still an element of Yes, you have to work harder than everybody else. Because yes, you have to kind of you know, prove yourself more so. But in terms of standing up for yourself in terms of, you know, standing up for what's right, in terms of not necessarily having to toe the line just because you're of a particular skin color. I think that's why we need to be responsible and educate our own as well, in terms of, you know, challenging that sort of bigotry, I suppose

Melvyn - Self worth self worth is what I think a lot of minorities are lacking. So yes, they can be at a disadvantage, but they feel disadvantaged themselves. So they don't actually project as much as they can project. So if we can make sure that our kids have that self worth, I think that's going to help the situation as well.

Angus - But I would like to just add into that that no baby is born thinking I'm rubbish. That is that is given to them by in my, in my view, the state and the world that they grew up in. I'm reminded of Small Axe, if you haven't seen Small Axe go and what Small Axe Steve McQueen, the film director has made five fantastic films. The the final one is called education. And it's just it's all about how one boy in a school is just crushed. But he gets helped out by some by some clever ladies. And I think that's a true story. I'm not sure. We have to wrap this up in about three minutes. So are there any final things that you guys want to say? The floor is yours.

Darren - I think it is about keeping, keeping this going and keeping the conversation out there because I could probably guarantee at least 80% of the companies or people that I spoke too aren't kind of continuing on whereas we are we're still having the conversation still meeting every couple of weeks. So and that's just a testament to the company that we work for that we still able to do this sort of thing and, and still have a voice. So yeah, I think it's just about really the main things was about keeping the keeping the conversation going.

Andrew - And I think important to note on that point to you, the Chiefs have very much driving this. So we are now signatories to the race at work charter we and that gives us formal obligations to act and report. And Paula is named as the kind of director responsible for that several times now, I've dialed into the Chiefs meetings for specific conversations around diversity, and what the squad are doing. So it's being taken very seriously and very energetically at all levels of the business.

Melvyn - I have to say, my sister's, the company she works for have started a fairness and diversity group. And one of my friends, I actually told him about what we were doing, he went to this company, and now his company have started a fairness and diversity group as well and they're a tech company, as well. So..

Andrew - Maybe we shouldn't work in with them and share initiatives.

Angus - It's just people talking, isn't it? Thank you all so much for doing this with me. This has been another episode of Searching for Elephants. Hope you found it interesting. And I think it's important to say that if you if you would like to join the fairness and diversity squad, then it's open to members, no matter who you are race, color or creed. That's right, isn't it?

Andrew - Yeah. And especially and especially with our growing focus on issues around disability and LGBTQ plus issues, certainly searchers with experience there more than happy to get involved. Give us a shout.

Angus - Fantastic. All right. Thanks so much, guys. Have a have a good day. Lots of love, LifeSearch.