Squash for Leonard Cheshire

Objective

We worked alongside the leads of the Women’s Network at Leonard Cheshire in organising a workshop to mark the launch of the network. The objective was to engage colleagues in the network’s mission and to provide practical ways they could begin to recognise and respond to gender bias in the organisation.

Process

We used a three-part Case Study to highlight some of the ways that gender bias shows up:

• We saw a team meeting to see some of the problems in action (microaggressions, assumptions, gender stereotypes, unfair processes.)

• We then spoke one-on-one with one of the team member to hear how she felt and how she’s been impacted by the behaviour of her colleagues.

• We then saw a conversation between two of her colleagues in which one calls-in the behaviour of another colleague.

We used this Case-Study to facilitate a conversation on how these behaviours show up in Leonard Cheshire. We looked at practical ways participants could respond and discussed which of these they were most likely to implement. We also shared resources including some Bias Interrupters and a guide to Calling-In harmful behaviour.

This resulted in feedback showing 100% of responders felt more confident in taking action to challenge gender bias in their organisation.

Feedback

“Rachel warmly set the tone of this workshop as safe and inclusive. Thought provoking realistic scenarios encouraged me to think about gender bias and increased my understanding and awareness of where I encounter it and how best to challenge it.

The workshop was expertly run without judgement, it offered useful tools and accountability measures for a more inclusive workspace. The workshop was engaging and informative. I’m looking forward to the follow up!”  - Lora Tanner, Co-Chair of Women’s Network.

“Very informative and eye opening with lots of takeaways and changes we can all introduce to reduce gender bias.” - Jon Forde, Executive Director of People at Leonard Cheshire.