{"id":1908,"date":"2018-05-27T12:25:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-27T12:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/?p=1908"},"modified":"2018-05-27T12:41:24","modified_gmt":"2018-05-27T12:41:24","slug":"playfair-and-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/2018\/05\/27\/playfair-and-win\/","title":{"rendered":"PlayFair and win"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1909\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1909\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/uhr.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1909\" src=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/uhr-300x205.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/uhr-300x205.png 300w, https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/uhr-768x524.png 768w, https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/uhr-1024x699.png 1024w, https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/05\/uhr.png 1485w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1909\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UniversitiesHR award for Excellence in Equality and Diversity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I am delighted to say that the <a href=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/playfair-steps\/\">PlayFair Steps<\/a> equality and diversity initiatives in Information Services Group at University of Edinburgh have been recognised as excellent by the judges at the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhr.ac.uk\/awards\/awards-2018\/\">Universities Human Resources<\/a> awards.<\/p>\n<p>Many organisations are now choosing to recognise Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) expertise as a significant area of\u00a0 valuable knowledge which contributes to the business advantage and has a direct and significant positive impact on reputation. \u00a0After two years this work is now able to show positive impact\u00a0 and report on metrics for improvement and use data driven decision-making for management practice.\u00a0The work brings us \u2018diversity advantage\u2019. Diversity advantage can be seen as the positive consequences which accrue to a business through diversity and inclusivity practices in the workplace.<\/p>\n<p>Increasingly EDI work\u00a0 in organisations can be seen as having\u00a0 a focus on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>improve the use of data in driving future developments<\/li>\n<li>a greater priority on communications<\/li>\n<li>more effective evaluation of policies and interventions<\/li>\n<li>a focus on &#8216;what works&#8217; underpinned by\u00a0a robust and systematic use of the evidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My work in ISG EDI is seen through leadership in innovative practice to recruit staff, develop colleagues\u2019 understanding of intersectionality and embed EDI into student employability programmes.\u00a0 I proactively recognise and reward staff with EDI expertise in my own teams. As well as identifying key people within the organisation to lead events in specific areas there are now 3 university of Edinburgh PhD students working as interns in ISG with specific remit to bring their academic expertise in gender studies and inclusion to contribute to our work.\u00a0 We have a <a href=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/2015\/08\/18\/phd-internship-placements\/\">Gender Equality Intern<\/a> ( Dominique) and <a href=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/2016\/03\/02\/1054\/\">Digital Marketing and Recruitment intern<\/a> ( Vicki) and an <a href=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/2017\/09\/25\/equalityintern\/\">Equality Images Intern<\/a> ( Francesca) These interns join my growing team (including our <a href=\"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/2017\/02\/20\/roi\/\">Wikimedian in Residence<\/a>) to ensure that EDI in ISG is visible and celebrated. The three interns work on EDI plans and programmes, innovative digital marketing for recruitment and within the University archives and collections to find quality equality images which can be digitised and used to promote stories from our University history and to be used in presentations and publications. I have also agreed to sponsor a year&#8217;s sabbatical for another of our team ( Jo) to pursue a Masters by Research to properly surface the real story of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edinburgh_Seven\">The Edinburgh Seven.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The PlayFair Steps has been successful in that it allows staff to look at diversity and equality in various ways and from various points of view, all of which contribute to improving ISG. The work began as an initiative around gender equality and has expanded to recognise that people\u2019s identities and social positions at work \u2013 particularly in the technology industry \u2013 are shaped by multiple and interconnected factors. I have developed a range of activities exploring how a person\u2019s age, disability status, race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and parent status contribute towards their specific experiences in and perspectives of our workplace. Using the local expertise of our academic colleagues and students, I seek to move beyond anecdote and create a more inclusive workplace with support from senior management for both top-down and bottom-up change.<\/p>\n<p>Our IT practice now benefits from a more nuanced understanding of the structural issues which lead to workplace improvement. It is not enough to just \u2018add women and stir\u2019. The PlayFair Steps programme (which draws its name for the idea of \u2018fair play\u2019 at work) focusses on ensuring that barriers and bias are addressed and a more inclusive workplace is experienced by all. \u00a0The PlayFair Steps is an initiative which improves our reputation and is of interest to central IT departments at other universities. The work is also being disseminated at relevant sector-wide conferences and recognised through being shortlisted by various national awards. Fingers crossed for more success and recognition of the value of this work in the future.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am delighted to say that the PlayFair Steps equality and diversity initiatives in Information Services Group at University of Edinburgh have been recognised as excellent by the judges at the recent Universities Human Resources awards. Many organisations are now choosing to recognise Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) expertise as a significant area of\u00a0 valuable &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[285,53,124,126,284,171,287,127,286],"class_list":["post-1908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning-teaching-and-web-services","tag-awards","tag-diversity","tag-equality","tag-fairplay","tag-inclusion","tag-leadership","tag-peer","tag-playfair","tag-recognition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1914,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions\/1914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}