Quarterly update: Diversity and Inclusion

At the end of 2021, we knew that internal recruitment at Apsida was going to be a core focus for us moving into 2022. However, we were also aware that we weren’t considering Diversity and Inclusion as much as we probably should have been – so wanted to take actionable change and hold ourselves accountable.

To recap, we put together a comprehensive survey that measured us across four key areas: Our culture, our training, our leadership, and our D&I efforts.

Our results showed that we could be doing more when looking at D&I (which we weren’t surprised by) and we immediately actioned this. We changed a few of our incentives, and since the survey results we have also rolled out DE&I training for all of our Business Managers.

“Jenny provided an amazing workshop for our senior leadership team. It really opened our eyes to DEI both in and out of the workplace. Educating or team is really important to us and working with Jenny is certainly a step in the right direction.” – Jamie Salmon, Co-Founder of Apsida Life Science

Long term, we will look to roll this training out to others at Apsida, but we purposefully chose to keep it to our leadership team so they can emulate the right behaviours and pass this knowledge down to other consultants in their team. 

Gender diversity has also been a focus for us

Recruitment has notoriously been a male-dominated industry, so creating an environment and workforce that is gender-balanced has been a focus for us.

Since January 2022, we have hired 11 Males into the business and 6 Females, giving us a 65/35% split. We are looking to achieve a 50/50 split as our ultimate long-term goal, and we are hoping to get closer to this by the end of 2022. However, this is still at a junior level, so another focus for us moving into Q1 2023 will be looking at the progression trajectory of our female consultants to ensure a better split at senior levels: from senior consultants through to board level.

This is still a progression point for the whole of the recruitment industry, so it’s down to us to ensure that we are working towards better balance across all “layers” at Apsida. 

“Gender diversity was one of the first discussions Director, Jamie Salmon and I had when I stepped into the role of Talent Acquisition Manager here at Apsida. It had been something the Directors had wanted to improve on in their initial hiring, but they didn’t know how to approach it. As it was the early stages of our D&I journey as a company, we wanted to make small but meaningful steps and agreed that gender diversity within the company was a great place to start.

Organisations from multinational companies to small start-ups have made conscious DE&I commitments after growing demand, and a diverse workplace is no longer optional but critical to both the growth and sustainability of a company. We wanted to be sure that we were doing what we could to mirror this to create a successful future for Apsida. Since our gender diversity has increased, we have seen a positive shift in the dynamic within the office and have seen a huge benefit from more balanced views when approaching problems, and appreciate the value of different viewpoints and perspectives in decision-making.

As we continue to increase our male-to-female ratio, we feel like this will put us in a good place to focus on other elements of our D&I strategy. Effective leadership is imperative when implementing changes and the three Directors have been a driving force behind this change since the get go.” – Charlotte Phillips, Talent Acquisition Manager

Incentives and Culture

Since our last quarterly survey, we received feedback about different incentives to make them more inclusive.

We wanted to ensure that incentives were varied, from sports activities through to cooking classes or a trip to a spa. It’s important that as we grow, our incentives and rewards schemes are appealing to all employees at Apsida, as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to how individuals like to feel appreciated.

We also implemented an early finish incentive (because let’s be honest, everybody loves the idea of finishing work a little earlier!).

Training and development

We are incredibly happy to announce that we have hired an external trainer to help with the development of our consultants from junior through to leadership level at Apsida. They will be a core part of our team and will ensure that we are upskilling each consultant to the best of their abilities, whilst also allowing us to scale sustainably as we have sufficient resources to cover our needs.

Our survey highlighted the need for more training elements to be explored, so we have listened to this feedback and also provided clarity on certain areas of the business such as reporting grievances.

Hiring

We are currently in the process of looking into an internship programme called “1000 black interns” – where individuals from minority groups are offered internships for additional experience.

We are looking at the feasibility of this within Apsida alongside our growth plans, and hope to engage with 1000 black interns or an alternative organisation with similar views and values to support us on our D&I strategy, as well as the long-term diversity and hiring at Apsida.