Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan
You can use this plan to identify what you need to do to take action for diversity and inclusion.
You can download a copy to use as a starting point for your plan by clicking on the ‘Excel’ button.
You can filter the plan on the ‘Pillars’ by clicking on the word ‘Pillar’ and choosing the pillar(s) you want to see.
| Number | Action | Detail | Notes | Pillar | Stakeholders example | Measure example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Engage your board and leadership Team | Deliver an engagement session for your board and top team | Having the backing of your board and leadership Team is essential for the success of your D&I plan. We recommend you deliver a session for them as a priority | Strategy and planning | Exec Team / Board / HR | Board and Exec Team commitment |
| 2 | Create and agree your strategy | Create a D&I strategy that aligns with your organisaitonal strategy | To demonstrate D&I as a priority and how it aligns with your organisation strategy it's helpful to create a D&I strategy and agree it with your Board and Executive Teams. | Strategy and planning | Exec Team / Board / HR / Services | Communication internally and externally |
| 3 | Agree your priorities | Tailor this plan | We have created this template project plan that consists of the know acitons requried for any D&I plan. You will need to tailor the plan to your prioritie and resources. | Strategy and planning | Exec Team,/ All divisional leads | Communication of key priorities internally and externally |
| 4 | Create a data informed project plan | Use your diversity and inclusion data to create a project plan specific to your challenges and requirements | This template focuses on general D&I actions. Your D&I data will help you create a plan specific to your needs. If you are just beginning to collect D&I data we recommend that this action takes place 1 year after you have started collecting diversity data. | Strategy and planning | HR / Services / Divisional Leads | Identifaction of priority actions |
| 5 | Agree targets | Agree reasonable yearly internal and external targets | Once you have collected your diversity and inclusion data you may wish to set annual targets. | Strategy and planning | Exec Team / Board / HR / Services | Targets communicated internall and externally |
| 6 | Collect internal diversity data | Collect diversity data from employees and volunteers | Collecting diversity data is a complex project. Our guide provides recommendations and templates to help you on your journey. | Data and measurement | Legal / informaiton governance / HR / IT | Diversity disclosure rates |
| 7 | Collect external diversity data | Collect diversity data from donors, service providers and service users | Data and measurement | Legal / informaiton governance / Services / IT | Diversity disclosure rates | |
| 8 | Create diversity dashboards | Create quarterly D&I dashboards for internal and external diversity data. Communcate and store the dashboards and ensure appropriate ownership of the data. | Creating dashboards will ensure that your diversity data is regularly reviewed and understood and drives action | Data and measurement | HR / Services / Recruitment | Creation |
| 9 | Understand your internal diversity data | Cross reference your diversity data with other internal people data to understand what's driving it | In order to create an action plan specific to your needs you will need to understand what is driving your diversity data and this is done by cross-referencing it with other internal data such as performance, recruitment and exits. | Data and measurement | HR / Recruitment / L&D | Creation |
| 10 | Understand your external diversity data | Cross reference your diversity data with other external data to understand what's driving it | To understand what's driving the diversity of your reach you will need to understand what your specific barriers are. For example, whether you are attracting diverse service users or loosing them somewhere along the way. | Data and measurement | Services | Creation |
| 11 | Collect internal inclusion data | Collect inclusion data from candidates, employees and volunteers | Collecting inclusion data from all levels of your employees and volutneers will help you understand what's driving your diversity data. You will also want to ask candidates how inclusive they have found your recruitment process to understand why you may not be attracting diversity. | Data and measurement | HR / Leadership Team | Participation rates |
| 12 | Collect external inclusion data | Collect inclusion data from service users | Collecting inclusion data from your existing service users is important to understand and compare the inclusivity of different services. | Data and measurement | Services / Service user invovlement / Operations | Participation rates |
| 13 | Collect inclusion data from non service users | Collect inclusion data from non service users | More imporant that collecting inclusion data from service users is asking non services. That will enable to you to understand what's driving the diversity of your services. | Data and measurement | Services / Service user invovlement / Operations | Participation rates |
| 14 | Create inclusion dashboards | Creat quarterly D&I dashboards for internal and external inclusion data. Communcate and store the dashboards and ensure appropriate ownership of the data. | It's helpful to communicate inclusion dashbaords along side your diversity dashbaords to enable your people to understand their diversity data and what they need to do differently to increase the diversity of their divisions. | Data and measurement | HR / Services / Recruitment | Creation |
| 15 | Create an Internal comms page | Create a page where your people can find all information, tools and resources related to D&I | Where you host your D&I page has to be right for you. But options include your intranet or your internal social media site | Communications | Internal communications, Volunteer engagement, Employer brand, organisatinal development | Page views in comparison to other internal pages |
| 16 | Create and share D&I plans | Share a high level view of your D&I plans so that your people know what you're up to and can hold you to account. Continue to update your people as your plans progress. | You can do all the work on your D&I plan but if people aren't aware of what you're up to it won't have as much of an effect | Communications | Internal communications, Volunteer engagement, Employer brand, Senior leadership teams | Page / email views in comparison to other communications |
| 17 | Create and share an Inclusion calendar | Create a D&I calendar with information and practical tips for colleagues, managers and service users | You can use our template D&I calendar and sign up to our MailDrops to get the right information at the right time and send it to your people on a platform that works for you. | Communications | Internal communications, volunteer engagement, employer brand, service user involvement | Page views in comparison to other internal pages |
| 18 | Inclusion calendar - key campaigns | Select key campaigns from your D&I calendar to celebrate days most relevant to you. | There may be key D&I calendar days that correspond with your D&I priorities. You can use them to raise awareness of specific diversity groups or just to create a feeling of inclusion across your organisation. For example Deaf Awareness Week or International Men's Day. | Communications | Internal communications, Volunteer engagement, Employer brand, Senior leadership teams | Page views/ likes attendance / engagement in comparison to other internal pages |
| 19 | D&I plan campaigns | Create campaigns specific to your D&I plan | As well as communicating what you're up to with your D&I plan you can help support it with specific campagins. The more your people understand, the more engaged and supportive they'll be. For example what inclusion means to you, why diversity data is imporant and what to do with it, or how to recruit diverse volunteers. | Communications | Dependent upon your priorities | Page views/ likes attendance / engagement in comparison to other internal pages |
| 20 | Create diversity specific campaigns | Create diversity specific campaigns | For example, if your data is telling you that you are not reaching service users with disabilities, you will want to create a campaign that raises awareness of this fact, educates people on disability and what it means to you, and how to be more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities. | Communications | Dependent on your priorities | Page views/ likes attendance / engagement in comparison to other internal pages |
| 21 | Create and publish an External comms page | Create a page where people outside your organisation can find all information, tools and resources related to D&I | Where you host your D&I page has to be right for you. But it's key that the page is easily locatable from different sections of your website, not lost among the careers site. | Communications | External communications / marketing, recruitment, Employer brand, Services / Operations | Page views in relation to other external pages |
| 22 | Share D&I plans externally | Share a high level view of your D&I plans so that people outside your organisation know what you're up to. Continue to update externally e as your plans progress. | Sharing your plans externally will help you organisation commit to them as well as ensuring that people externally know that D&I is important to you. | Communications | External communications / marketing, recruitment Employer brand, Senior leadership teams | Page views in relation to other external pages |
| 23 | Inclusion calendar - key campaigns | Select key campaigns from your D&I calendar to celebrate days externally that are most relevant to you. | Aligning with your internal key campaigns you may want to share your activity externally as well as delivering external events. This will help raise your profile with certain groups but will also provide an opportunity to talk to people about how to make your organisation more inclusive for them. For example Pride parades, Mela festivals, International Day for People with Disabilities. | Communications | External communications / marketing, recruitment, Employer brand, Services / Operations | Page views / likes, attendance / engagement in comparison to other external pages |
| 24 | D&I plan campaigns | Create campaigns specific to your D&I plan | As well as communicating what you're up to with your D&I plan you can help support it with specific campagins. The more your service users, donors and potential employees and volunteers understand, the more engaged and supportive they'll be. For example why D&I is important for your specific cause and if some groups are more effected than others. | Communications | External communications / marketing, recruitment, Employer brand, Services / Operations | Page views / likes, attendance / engagement in comparison to other external pages |
| 25 | External D&I partnerships | Form D&I partnerships with targtted external Diversity organisations and host shared events and communications | identify diversity groups where you need greater inclusion and understanding and reach out to appropirate organistations. For example Sikh Council UK, Intercharity LGBT Network, Black Thrive. | Communications | External communications / marketing, recruitment, Employer brand, Services / Operations | Increase in communications, services and recruitment from diverse communicites |
| 26 | Social media activity | Identify and engage targetted social media groups in line with local diversity needs | Identify diversity groups where you need greater understanding and inclusion and use socail media to understand and engage. Start by joining appropriate social media groups to understand and build trust. Only once trust is built begin asking for volunteers to help educate you and volunteer in your charity. | Communications | External communications / marketing, digital recruitment, Employer brand, Services / Operations | Social media followers from diverse communciites, likes and shares. |
| 27 | Share D&I personal stories | Use diverse volunteer, employee, donor and service user stories to showcase inclusion in your organisation externally. | Sharing stories of your volunteers, employees and service users experiences will help provide role models for diverse groups and showcase your inclusion. | Communications | External communications / marketing, digital recruitment, Employer brand, Services / Operations | Page views / likes, engagement in comparison to other external pages |
| 28 | Identify your D&I learning needs | Use training needs analysis (TNA) to identify your educational gaps specific to your orgnaisaiton. | Align your TNA to your diversity data so that you can also support people to include and support diversity groups that you are under-representing. | Education | L&D / HR Business parters / Services | Completion |
| 29 | D&I for Executives and Boards | Engage your board and excutive team as key stakeholders for your D&I journey. Provide them with the skills and tools to reole model inclusion and lead the agenda | We recommend implementing your inclusive leadershp assessment before their development session. This will provide key areas to work on and provide a pre and post metric. | Education | L&D / Exec Team / Board | Inclusive leadership assessments |
| 30 | D&I for leaders | Provide all your leaders inclusive leadership training | It's important that inclusive leadership is consistent across your leadership team. We therefore recommend that this training is mandator for all of your leaders. Your inclusive leadership assessment may help identfy specific areas of development. | Education | L&D / Exec Team / Leadership team | Inclusive leadership assessments |
| 31 | D&I for managers | Offer all managers inclusive management training | Managers are essential to making sure that people feel included and you can reach diversity internally and externally. Ideally inclusive management should be embedded in your existing management training or an inclusive management module is created. | Education | L&D / HR Business Partners | Inclusive management assessment |
| 32 | D&I basics module | Ensure all of your people understand their basic equality, diversity and inclusion responsibilities | We recommend using a tailored module that uses divisonal case studies so that everyone understand why ED& is important to their role. | Education | L&D / HR Business Partners | Inclusion survey |
| 33 | Induction | Embed inclusion in your induction programme | To ensure that all new starters are aware of the D&I responsibilities and the support available we recommend embedding D&I within your induction programme | Education | L&D / HR | Inclusion survey |
| 34 | D&I for recruitment | Embed D&I in your recruitment training for volunteers and employees | Rather than having a separate D&I module for recruitment, embed D&I in your employee and volunteer recruitment training. Then it is part of the way you recruit, not an added extra. | Education | L&D / Recruitment | Diversity / recruitment statistics / candidate inclusion survey |
| 35 | D&I for performance management | Embed D&I in your performance management training | By embedding inclusion in your performance management training you are making it an essential part of management, not an added extra. | Education | L&D / HR / OD | Diversity of perfromance data |
| 36 | Diversity specific training | Training to create awareness and competency around specific groups. For example caring for older LGBT+ people or being an anti-racism ally. | Your diversity data will help inform you of the diversity specific training you need to prioritise. For example if you are not reaching people of the Muslim faith, specific diversity training on religions may help. | Education | L&D / Services | Diversity data / Inclusion survey |
| 37 | D&I ownership and governance | Ensure that a specific role is held accountable for D&I plans and progress and this is communicated internally and externally | A single person should be internally and externally responsible for your D&I commitments to ensure that it is given the attention and responsibility reuqired for progress. | Embedding | Exec team / HR / Services | Completion |
| 38 | Grievance process | Define a process for reporting grievances and D&I related incidents and communciate to all employees, volutneers and service uers | Embedding | HR / Policy / Legal / Services | Completion | |
| 39 | D&I policy | Create an internal D&I policiy and communicate it to all employees, volunteers and service users | Having a clear D&I policy will enable people to understand their D&I responsibilities. We recommend making it available internally and externally. | Embedding | HR / Policy / Legal / Services | Inclusion survey |
| 40 | Reasonable Adjustment Policy | Create and communicate a robust reasonable adjusmtnets policy and process | Having a robust and inclusive readonable adjsutment sprocess is essential for attracting and retaining people with disablities internally and externally. | Embedding | HR / Policy / Legal / Services | Disability diversity statistics |
| 41 | Embed inclusion with all of your people policies | Including recruitment, performance management, parental leave, sick leave, holiday | Your D&I principles and language should be woven through all of your HR policies so that inclusion is embedded within the way you work | Embedding | HR / Policy | Employee and volunteer inclusion survey |
| 42 | Embed inclusion with all of your service policies | Including individual service policies, and equality impact assessments where required | Your D&I principles and language should be woven through all of your service policies so that inclusion is embedded within the way you work | Embedding | Services | Service user inclusion survey |
| 43 | Embed inclusion within L&D practcies and processes | Including accessibility, reasonable adjustments, inclusive examples | Inclusion should thread through all of your learning internally and externally. Example standards include accessibility and diverse examples / case studies. | Embedding | L&D / Services | Diversity of learning uptake |
| 44 | Embed inclusion into your IT practices and processes | Including accessibility and reasonable adjustments | Inclusive and accessible IT platforms are essential specifically for people with disabilities. By setting standards around the platforms you use you will attract and retain more diverse people and service users. | Embedding | IT / HR | Disability diversity statistics |
| 45 | Embed inclusion into your facilities practices | Creat inclusive standards for your buildings | Inclusive facilities are about more than just accessible buildings. For example it's also important to consider the temperature you keep your offices and services and having wellbeing spaces for prauer and mental health. | Embedding | HR / Facilities | Disability diversity statistics |
| 46 | Embed inclusion into your marketing and communciation practices | Create inclusive standards for your internal and external communcation practices | The way you communciate with people, the images and the words you use can unconsciously be attracting certain communities and not others. By having inclusive standards you are more likely to reach everyone with your services. | Embedding | Marketing / Communications / HR | External diversity statistics |
| 47 | Gender pay gap review | Complete and communicate your gender pay gap review | Although only organisations with more than 250 employees are required to complete a Gender Pay Gap report, we recommend that all orgnaisaitons complete the review and publish the report externally. This will help you plan to address the gap, and show true committement. | Embedding | HR / Finance | Completion |
| 48 | Ethnicity pay gap review | Complete and communciate your ethnicty pay gap review | Although ethnicity pay gap reporting is not yet mandatory we recommend that all orgnaisaitons complete the review and publish the report externally. This will help you plan to address the gap, and show true committement. | Embedding | HR / Finance | |
| 49 | Embed inclusion within your benefits and rewards practices | Ensure you have the right rewards and benefits to attract and retain the right people. This will be informed by your diversity data. | Not all rewards and benefits have to cost the earth but can really help you retain and attract diversity. For example if your data is telling you do not hire enough people with disabilities then introducing disability related paid leave may help. | Embedding | HR / legal / finance / policy | Recruitment diversity statistics |
| 50 | Embed inclusion within your recruitment and attraction practives | Share diverse volunteer and employee stories on your careers page | Showcasing the diversity that you already have internally will help you attract more diverse applications | Embedding | Recruitment / comms | Recruitment diversity statistics |
| 51 | Embed reasonable adjustments | Embed reasonable adjustments within your recruitment process | Having a clear reasonable adjustments process for recruitment will help you attract and select more volunteers and employees with disabilities. | Embedding | Recruitment / HR | Recruitment diversity statistics |
| 52 | Create inclusive templates for job descriptions and adverts | Create inclusive templates for job descriptions and adverts | Having inclusive job descriptions and adverts is essential for attracting diverse applications. For example ensuring inclusive language, required criteria only and having an inclusion statement. | Embedding | Recruitment | Recruitment diversity statistics |
| 53 | Create an inclusive application process | Create an inclusive application process | Having an inclusive application process is vital to recruiting diversity. For example avoiding cover letters and remoging names from applications. | Embedding | Recruitment | Recruitment diversity statistics |
| 54 | Create an inclusive interverview process | Create an inclusive interverview process | Ensuring that every candidate has an inclusive interview will enable you to recruit more diversity. For example providing hiring managers guides on bias free interviewing and having diverse panels. | Embedding | Recruitment | Recruitment diversity statistics |
| 55 | Diversify where you advertise | Diversify where you advertise | If you continue to advertise volunteer and employee roles in the same places, you will likely get the same level of diverse applications. Your diversity data will help you understand your diversity gaps and our Guide to inclusive recruitment will give you ideas as to where you can advertise to increase diverse applications. | Embedding | Recruitment / finance | Recruitment diversity statistics |