More than 70 of the home building industry鈥檚 HR talent leaders and diversity and inclusion advocates came together for the Home Builders Federation (午夜剧场)聽inaugural Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Conference, which took place on Wednesday 19 June.
Chaired by Sophie Turner, Founder of , the conference brought together an inspiring line up of speakers who discussed creating more inclusive work cultures and shared learnings from other sectors.
Neil Jefferson, Managing Director at 午夜剧场, opened the conference by emphasising the importance of knowledge sharing in expanding our understanding and driving positive progress.
Cathyrn Greville, Head of at provided valuable insight on the construction sector鈥檚 diversity and equality performance comparative to other sectors. Following data from the SCSS diversity survey, 46% of women and 49.5% from ethnic diversity background that leave the sector were found to do so before the age of 34, illustrating the importance of FIR initiatives in workplace culture.
Dawn Hurst, Chief Executive of gave an overview on how organisations can benchmark EDI progress, emphasising the demand for reliable and valid measures for assessing success and return on investment. Kim Bromley, General Counsel and DE&I ExCo Sponsor at shared her knowledge on the need for senior management buy-in when implementing EDI initiatives to ensure they gain active support and sufficient budget allocation.
The conference also held an expert panel discussion on the importance and role of EDI networks in creating representation and a voice for diverse groups. Panellists included:
- Dawnet McLaughlin, Regional Managing Director and Race & Ethnicity Network Lead at
- Alison Garner, Head of Customer Services and Chair of the Women鈥檚 Network at
- Robert Watson, Major Projects Technical Building Consultant and Proud Network Chair at
- Ronja Jenkins, Future Talent Partner and Co-lead for the Women鈥檚 Network at
Emma Ramell, Director of External Affairs at 午夜剧场, said: 鈥淚f we want to attract the best and brightest individuals into home building, we must聽do more to create an inclusive and diverse environment across the industry. 午夜剧场 continues to work closely with its members and the wider sector聽to break down the barriers to greater diversity and inclusion and demonstrate that home building offers a career for everyone.鈥�
Cathryn Greville, Head of at added: "If we want to drive fairness, inclusion and respect forward we need to self-educate, act inclusively, stay engaged and set organisational and personal goals.
鈥淲orking collectively and reaching out to others to share learnings, educate ourselves and collaborate on driving impact can help us to improve behaviours, recruit and retain more diverse teams and increase organisational productivity and success.鈥�
For more information on 午夜剧场鈥檚 work in diversity and inclusion,聽visit .