Our overarching mission, as an emerging talent management consultancy, is to support and develop the UK’s best and most diverse digital talent. We’re committed to understanding Grayce’s employees’ lived experiences and fostering actionable changes, which spurred us to create the EveryOneEmpowered initiative. As part of this, a reverse mentoring scheme, ‘Walk a Mile’, was launched to encourage junior talent to ‘mentor-up’ Grayce’s Senior Leadership team, cultivating diverse thought and awareness around Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI). By welcoming mentors from multiple ethnicities, religions, sexual and gender orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds, Grayce could foster honest, upfront dialogue around the invisible difficulties marginalised individuals face in their daily lives and workplaces.

Another initiative created within the EveryOneEmpowered initiative is our ‘Pride Workstream’, where a group meets fortnightly and provides an open forum for LGBTQ+ employees and allies to discuss topics important to them, network, socialise and plan events, for example, seminars for the wider company. The team took advantage of Pride Month to help organise a range of activities that allowed Grayce’s community to come together and speak openly about what pride meant to them, open up about their LGBTQ+ experiences in the workplace, and more. We’re also marching at Manchester Pride to show our support and celebrate our community.

Several policies and organisational changes have taken place off our initiative, such as updating our policies around gender-neutral language, including menopause, maternity, paternity, etc. We’ve now got gender-neutral toilets in both our Manchester and London hubs. We’ve updated our email signatures and LinkedIn profile to include the use of pronouns. We’re also considering a transition at work policy.

For us, all the employee differences in our organisation contribute to a true diversity of thought. Without it, Grayce wouldn’t be able to help people from diverse backgrounds start their careers or continue to develop services for its clients.