Within this section, we cover inclusive recruitment practices including best practice of personal data collection during the recruitment process. This section also covers inclusive working culture and inclusive volunteering.
Inclusive recruitment
When thinking about recruitment, it is important to consider the way in which you collect personal information, where it is stored, and how you are using it to encourage those who are otherwise not involved in the sector to become included. CEMVO Scotland have created a Diversity Data Collection Analysis Toolkit that answers these questions and provides further insights into aspects of recruitment that you may not have thought of.
We recommend that you watch WWF Scotland & CEMVO Scotland’s workshop on inclusive recruitment as part of the EDI Fortnight 2023 and read the Inclusive Working Culture section below before you post advertisements for roles (both work and volunteering) to gain insight into barriers in joining the environmental sector. The recording and slides can be found under EDI Fortnight 2023 materials.
A great resource to aid this is the New to Nature Inclusive Recruitment Guide that provides guidance on how to attract young people (aged 18-25) from ethnically diverse backgrounds, disabled, and/or economically disadvantaged backgrounds into working or volunteering at your organisation.
Another great resource is the Racial Equity in Nature Toolkit that focuses on inclusive and equitable approaches to the recruitment and retention of early career talent, with a particular focus on young people aged 18-25 from ethnically diverse communities.
When advertising your roles, you can consider joining Black Professionals Scotland to post via their website, posting on GoodMoves, and through the Ethnic Minority Environmental Network- if you have joined the Race Equality Environmental Programme.
The Scottish Refugee Council also provided talks on recruiting, the recruitment process, rights to work, and rights to volunteer for asylum seekers and refugees as part of the EDI Fortnight 2024. You can find the information under EDI Fortnight 2024 materials. Within this session, they note the importance of understanding cultural differences. For example, some countries will have different practices and certain things that are common knowledge to a person that has lived in the UK a long time, may need to be explained further to those who have not (e.g., maternity leave, bereavement leave etc).
Template equal opportunities form
Inclusive working culture
To be an organisation that is truly inclusive, your organisation must have its cultural values stated on its website, advertising, and any other forms of media. Below are some excellent examples from our member organisations!
National Trust for Scotland – Love What You Do
Soil Association – Culture and Beliefs
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy by WWF
CIEEM – Breaking Down Barriers to Inclusion
The Wildlife Trust – Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
As you can see from the above, some have more detailed information and others have inclusion or value statements. Big or small, as long as you are stating that you are inclusive and holding yourself accountable to those values, you are doing great!
You may also have noticed that some of the above organisations have pledged to certain things to show that they are implementing an inclusive working culture at their workplace for their current staff and prospective staff. There are multiple pledges and schemes such as:
- Disability Confident
- Living Wage Employer
- CEMVO Scotland’s Diversity Data Collection Analysis Toolkit
- Submitting data to the RACE report
- Diversity Employment Pledge
- Stonewall’s Equality Index
- Gender Pay Gap
- Force of Nature
Some of the schemes are completely free of cost (for example, Disability Confident, CEMVO Scotland, RACE report, Gender Pay Gap), whereas others will vary in cost.
We also highly recommend that organisations monitor their EDI journey by collecting EDI data (e.g., from staff, volunteers, and membership etc) and then compare it year by year- this is known as benchmarking your data. This could be by monitoring the equal opportunities statistics from new and current staff, or by sending out an annual survey to staff, members, and beneficiaries of your organisation. By doing so, you will see where your strengths are and where there are gaps that need to be examined further.
If you are lacking in a demographic or understanding of why certain groups of people are not engaging in your work/organisation/mission, we also highly recommend contacting those communities to gain insight. The Scottish Wildlife Trust have a brilliant example of this through their Oceans of Value project.
Inclusive volunteering
To be an organisation that is truly inclusive, your organisation must have its cultural values stated on its website, advertising, and any other forms of media. Below are some excellent examples from our member organisations!
The Wildlife Trust – Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
You may also have noticed that some of the above organisations have pledged to certain things to show that they are implementing an inclusive working culture at their workplace for their current staff and prospective staff. There are multiple pledges and schemes such as:
We highly recommend that you read Volunteer Scotland and Make Your Mark resources that specifically focus on volunteer engagement and inclusivity- particularly on the importance of budgeting for volunteers.
- Make Your Mark – Inclusive Volunteering Toolkit
- Make Your Mark – Budgeting for Inclusion
- Volunteer Scotland – Guidance and Resources
- Make Your Mark – Resources
- Make Your Mark – Volunteer Inclusion
- Investing in Volunteers – 6 Quality Areas
- Volunteer Wiki – Equality and Diversity in Volunteering
If you are lacking in a demographic or understanding of why certain groups of people are not engaging in your work/organisation/mission, we also highly recommend contacting those communities to gain insight. The Scottish Wildlife Trust have a brilliant example of this through their Oceans of Value project.
Another way to demonstrate inclusion and inclusive practices for volunteers is setting up groups for underrepresented groups. For example, the Marine Conservation Society have a Youth Ocean Network, and CIEEM have STEM- Inspiring the Next Generation.
If you are interested in recruiting asylum seekers or refugees to volunteer at your organisation, you can post advertisements in the Scottish Refugee Council newsletter. For further information on this, see EDI Fortnight 2024 materials.
Support Network - Scottish Environment EDI Network
We are in the process of setting up a support/networking EDI pilot project called Scottish Environment EDI Network (SEEN). The aim is to have a Scottish environment sector-wide dialogue around equality, diversity and inclusion. We hope in sharing information, events, and areas of good practice this will support us all on our EDI journey. The project will run for 12 months with bi-monthly meetings and be directed by your needs and aspirations wherever possible. Please contact Leigh if you are interested in joining leigh@scotlink.org.