HS2 makes BAME commitment

24/07/2020

HS2 makes commitment to better employment for BAME workers.

The controversial high speed rail project in the UK has made a commitment to embedding the principles of diversity in a charter. In signing the charter, HS” has made a clear commitment to

  • Appointing an executive sponsor for race
  • Capturing data for publicising progress
  • Ensuring zero tolerance of harassment and bullying
  • Making equality in the work place the responsibity of all leaders and managers
  • Taking action that supports ethnic minority career progression

The charter was created using the 2017 Mcgregor smith-Smith review “race in the workplace” which also highlighted the needs for responsible recruitment and implementing ethical practices.

The high speed project is set to support around 30,000 people at its peak, HS2 ltd Non-Executive board member Judith Hackitt has been appointed as the board diversity champion o scrutinize HS2s equality, diversity and inclusion performance.

With the main construction work set to start this summer, HS2 is currently recruiting for hundreds of roles and encouraging people from different backgrounds to apply.

Judish Hackitt said “We have an amazing opportunity here to set the standards across the UK’s construction and rail engineering sectors.

“HS2’s supply chain will extend out to thousands of British businesses over the next decade, so this is a genuine opportunity for us to play a leading role in the implementation of measures that truly ensure BAME employees are fairly represented and have equality of opportunity to thrive in the workplace.”

This was followed by Mark Lomas, HS2 head of equality, diversity and inclusion, who said  “We’ve worked hard at HS2 to embed inclusive practices into everything we do and it’s an honour to be recognised for that.

“There is always more that businesses can do, and we’re committed to further developing our approach to ensure that HS2 is a workplace that attracts, invests and champions opportunities for BAME employees.”

At Ohcul jobs, we promote diversity within the workplace through removing the opportunity for people’s unconscious bias to reflect in the recruitment process. Ohcul has been found on the basis of responsible recruitment and looks to remove structural racism out of the recruitment process.

Employee diversity provides a number of benefits to any organisation (large and small). Ethnically diverse companies perform 35% better than their industry median and gender diverse companies are 15% more likely to haver returns above the industry median. With the national customer base becoming more diverse, it is important that a company is representative to fully understand its clients’ needs and, according to the latest research, 67% of employees cite a diverse workforce is a key factor when looking at a role.

At Ohcul, we remove the opportunity for hidden bias from a CV review stage. Our unique tool removes identifying data from a clients CV allowing a recruiter to progress the best candidates.

If you would like some more information you can contact us on info@ohcul.com or visit the web site www.ohcul.com