At Hestia, we are committed to ensuring Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and anti-racism (AR) are embedded into all aspects of how we work, behave and operate as an organisation. However, we accept that to make our ambition a reality, we must address the organisational impacts of systemic racism, and how it forms barriers for people from ethnically diverse backgrounds at work. We aspire to establish an environment where everyone including our colleagues from ethnically diverse communities feel a sense of belonging, safety and equity of opportunity to succeed in Hestia.
Our overall ambition is for Hestia to become an anti-racist organisation by 2029. The principles and aims below will form the foundation to assist us in our journey towards becoming an anti-racist organisation by 2029.
We aim to hold ourselves accountable and safeguard our commitment towards becoming an anti-racist organisation.
We aim to increase our representation of staff from ethnically diverse backgrounds at our most senior levels.
We aim to build an inclusive culture where everyone can bring their authentic and whole selves to work.
We are committed to:
Strengthening our leadership commitment by ensuring our leaders are fully supportive and accountable for the delivery of Hestia's EDI/AR strategy.
Enhancing our data competence by increasing the regularity of EDI data collection, analysis and insight to improve EDI data awareness, transparency, assist decision making and help us measure the impact of our interventions.
Benchmarking and quality assessing our practices and progress by making sure we are consistently reflecting and improving our policies and practices to align with EDI/AR best practice.
Embedding inclusive recruitment practices by increasing fair recruitment actions and reduce any bias that may be present in our internal and external recruitment processes.
Developing diverse talent by introducing targeted positive action talent and leadership programmes and actions to identify and develop our talented colleagues from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
Creating dedicated safe spaces across the organisation to enable staff to have courageous conversations about their lived experience and working in Hestia.
Adopting a resolution framework to reduce bullying, harassment, discrimination and microaggressions in Hestia and instead adopt an empathetic resolution framework that effectively and fairly resolves occurrences and build better understanding and acceptance of difference.
Training and education provided to all staff to build their understanding, commitment and daily application of AR practices broader protected characteristics and contribution towards dismantling any systemic and cultural inequalities in Hestia.
Growing influential staff diversity networks by growing the number of staff diversity networks and building the influence of existing staff diversity networks in Hestia.
Introducing EDI/AR champions to champion our EDI and AR principles within individual services.
Please check back for more updates on the implementation of our EDI strategy.