Section head

Resources
- ON Sector Spotlights
- RfO Bridging the Gap Toolkit
- RfO Getting Started with Race Diversity
- RfO 5 Points for Progress
- RfO Ethnic Minority Regional and Sector Factsheets
- RfO Mentoring Circles
- RfO Migrant Workers
- RfO Recruitment Toolkit
- Generation Y
- Legislation
- Online Library
- Specialist Organisations
- ON Food for Thought Fact Sheets

Getting started on Race Equality

RfO are commited to helping organisations in the UK address race equality within the workplace. The below practical tips and advice are designed to aid organisations getting started on their race equality journey, focusing on RfO's key areas.

Leadership
People and Employees
Customers, Clients and Service Users
Community Involvement
Supplier Diversity

Leadership

Consider appointing a Diversity / Race Diversity Champion to lead on the race agenda within your organisation.
Develop a clear business case for working on race and link it to business objectives.
Develop an action plan on race and integrate it into the key performance indicators of your managers.

People and Employees

Tell your recruitment agencies, recruitment consultants and head-hunters that your organisation is committed to racial equality and ask them to send you lists containing diverse candidates.
Explicitly state in your recruitment marketing materials that individuals from diverse backgrounds are welcome in your organisation.
Monitor the ethnicity of your workforce and compare it to the local population.

Customers, Clients and Service Users

Ensure your marketing teams or policy makers are signed up to your organisation’s commitment to race equality.
Review your advertising and promotional material to ensure they reflect the diverse marketplace, both in the content and images used.
Consider including ethnic minorities in your focus groups and evaluation sessions for promotional or marketing campaigns.

Community Involvement

Review the community impact work being done by your organisation and check whether they impact on diverse communities.
As education and skills are the critical components of any workforce, consider partnering with a local school where ethnic minority children could benefit from increased educational attainment.
Develop links with local universities that have
relatively high proportions of ethnic minority students and offer work placements or experiences.

Supplier Diversity

Do an audit of your current suppliers to find out whether you have awarded any contracts to ethnic minority owned businesses.
Consider publishing clear guidance notes to help ethnic minority businesses tender for contracts with your organisation.
Send your procurement officers to local supplier events to raise their awareness of products and services available from local ethnic minority suppliers.