More than 1,200 members of staff attended a special virtual Stop the Clock conference focused on issues of diversity, including the Black Lives Matter movement.
The event, held on 23 October, was organised in response to the tragic killing of George Floyd in the US, which sparked protests and demonstrations around the world.
It allowed colleagues to join together with external speakers to discuss a wide range of topics around racial equality.
This is an important part of our culture as an organisation and will help us better understand the experiences of our BAME colleagues and residents.
Talks on the day included “Reframing Stereotypes and Archetypes”, “The Power of Networks” and “How to be an Active Ally”.
Wasiu Fadahunsi, director-level lead for improving diversity, said: “It was great to see that creating a truly inclusive and equal work culture is important to our staff at all levels. We welcomed many inspirational and uplifting speakers and I want to say thank you to them all.
But this is just the start; we are committed to working together over the coming weeks, months and beyond to learn from, educate and challenge each other about discrimination faced by many colleagues whether at work or outside.
In the lead-up to the conference, teams across Notting Hill Genesis took part in ‘Our Big Conversation’, structured conversations to talk about ethnicity and race across our organisation. Those discussions, along with the outputs of the conference will inform what we do as an organisation to support and educate our staff, as well as better understand how our services impact different groups of residents and give them the opportunity to input into our initiatives in this area.
We will continue to work closely with our BAME staff network and have signed a pledge with our partners in the G15 group of housing associations to ensure our organisation reflects the communities we work in when it comes to diversity, especially at senior managements, leadership and board level.
Please keep on eye on this site and future editions of Connections, our resident newsletter, to find out how we are making progress.