In 2021 we became the first organisation in the world to be awarded the International ISO standard for Diversity and Inclusion (ISO 30415:2021: Human Resource Management – Diversity and Inclusion).
The achievement and maintenance of the standard demonstrates our team’s continued commitment to living the values of diversity and inclusivity.
The assessment process scrutinises how well diversity and inclusion is established and practiced at all levels in the organisation. It encourages employers to not only to improve on their internal practice, but to extend the principles of diversity and inclusion to the organisation’s interactions with clients, customers, suppliers, and communities.
Those who have been assessed for ISO standards will know that a commitment to these values isn’t enough on its own; training, developing objectives, practices and processes are needed to ensure a robust and consistent application of valuing diversity and inclusion.
What does assessment for ISO 30415 involve?
Our assessment for the ISO included having conversations centred around culture, internal and external processes and the consistency of their application alongside continuous improvement. We’re proud to have demonstrated an established culture of valuing diversity and inclusivity across all levels of the organisation and extending this to our clients, suppliers and communities. Training was high on the agenda, with our learning team regularly delivering team training on unconscious bias and dignity at work.
The process is deservedly extensive, but delivered flexibly and with a level of informality that made those in these conversations comfortable and open.
We then received a report from the assessor which highlighted the best of our practices and, because the standard has a continuous improvement focus, recommendations for further development.
An annual review takes place with an assessor to ensure the standard is being maintained and enable any actions to take place prior to our next full assessment in 2024.
Many clients became interested in the accreditation following our success, and so we also invested in one of our team to be trained as an assessor for the standard. This wasn’t to undertake assessments, but to get a good understanding of what the assessors look for and therefore how best we can help our clients work with the framework if they wish to work towards accreditation.
Our Head of HR, Diversity & Inclusion Services, Yvonne Saxon had this to say about the experience:
“The ISO International Standard for Diversity and Inclusion provided us with a great framework for developing our inclusive practices. Whilst the guidance is extensive, we found it to be far more flexible and practical than other ISO standards. Our team actually enjoyed going through the assessment process and we were all so proud to share our culture and values with the assessor. Job candidates often comment on the attainment of the standard being something which attracted them to Vista, and making reference to having achieved the standard is very powerful in tender processes which increasingly want to know about a supplier’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
How we can help
Vista can provide an in depth audit of your current diversity and inclusion practices, to prepare your organisation for ISO 30415 accreditation. Or if you aren’t there yet, we can also provide a ‘soft assessment’ – more on what that looks like here.
Either way, if your end goal is just to improve your diversity and inclusion practices the ISO Standard provides a great framework to work from. If you’d like an informal chat about how we can help, drop the team a line here.
