Questions from Community Care – Bring on the Champions

Bring on the champions

By Blair McPherson

* How would you go about moving from a steering group of nominated representatives to a network of equality champions?
* How do you get people to recognise the common equality threads running through issues of race and gender?
* Senior management in their desire to demonstrate the organisation’s commitment to equality adopt policies like balanced interview panels or mentoring schemes for under represented groups. Such initiatives can be seen by front-line staff as evidence of a lack of confidence in managers and by staff as preferential treatment. How can such initiatives to address inequality be introduced without causing an unintended backlash?
* Behaviour that in a male manager would be considered assertive and decisive can be seen as aggressive and domineering in a female or black manager. How do we challenge these double standard and negative labels?

GUIDE TIME FOR DISCUSSION: 20 minutes per question