Kainos celebrates Pride as part of our wider commitment to our LGBTQ+ colleagues

You’ll notice a change in our website and social channels this month as our logo switches to rainbow in celebration of Pride. We are delighted to join together with organisations around the world in recognition of our amazing LGBTQ+-identifying colleagues and the wider LGBTQ+ community.

We have enjoyed taking part in Pride parades in Belfast, Birmingham, London and beyond over the past few years, but we’re very aware that simply supporting Pride isn’t enough. Our commitment to our LGBTQ+ colleagues is broader than that, and similarly our efforts to increase diversity and inclusion within our workplace also have to be.

To ensure that this commitment is honoured throughout the year,  we’ve taken a two-pronged approach.

Firstly, we have a formal Diversity and Inclusion Team, whose job it is to ensure that our strategic approach to this important area is cohesive and effective.

Secondly, we have an Employee Network Group, Xpression, made up of LGBTQ+ people and allies who represent our LGBTQ+ colleagues in projects ranging from long-term business planning to social events celebrating Pride and beyond.

Over the past year, these two groups have undertaken some really important work in support of our diversity goals. As co-chair of Xpression, I’m delighted to take you through just a few of the highlights.

Updating personal data

Making sure that our organisation is truly inclusive has to start with getting a really clear picture of the current situation. We asked our staff to update their personal details in Workday to reflect their own identities, ensuring that available pronouns, genders and sexualities were available (as well as a “prefer not to disclose” option). This will help us to track diversity within our organisation, allowing us to identify any gaps as well as giving us the important data needed to ensure we are doing all we can to support our LGBTQ+ team members.

Normalising pronoun declarations

We believe all our colleagues deserve to have their gender identity respected at all times and ensuring correct pronoun usage is a small step towards this goal. That’s why we introduced an optional field within our internal and external email signatures to allow colleagues to identify their chosen pronouns and have encouraged all those who feel comfortable doing so to utilise this option. A large proportion of our staff have chosen to do so, normalising this practice within our organisation and helping our trans and non-binary colleagues to comfortably declare their pronouns.

Educating and informing

Xpression celebrated LGBTQ+ History Month with a series of articles about our LGBTQ+ heroes, ranging from Chris Bryant, the first MP to celebrate his civil partnership in the Palace of Westminster, to our colleagues’ own family members and friends. We have also campaigned tirelessly around issues such as the banning of conversion therapy, hosting open discussions and continuing to encourage our people to support causes championing the safety and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ people around the world.

Fundraising and donating

Through a mixture of online fundraisers, social events, and donation drives, our amazing people have raised money for a variety of LGBTQ+ causes this year, including the National Aids Trust, NotaPhase.org, the Belfast Rainbow Project, UK Black Pride and Kampania Przeciw Homofobii (Campaign Against Homphobia).

Celebrating diversity

Pride month isn’t our only big celebration at Kainos! Xpression have also held internal events and shared videos and posts to mark international and national days of celebration like Lesbian Visibility Day, Agender Pride Day and Trans Visibility Day. Importantly, all our events were organised by LGBTQ+ employees and for LGBTQ+ employees and allies, so our colleagues were able to share their stories and having fun in a safe space catered for them.

All in all, it’s been an incredibly busy year for our Diversity and Inclusion Team and our Xpression Employee Network Group – and the work doesn’t stop here! Throughout June we’ll be bringing you more insights into the work we’re doing to increase LGBTQ+ representation at Kainos and ensure that our LGBTQ+ colleagues feel safe, accepted and valued for everything that we are.