At the FAIRER Conference, Hannah Pearsall, Head of Wellbeing at Hays, answers some of our most pressing questions about the DEI landscape. Watch or read her interview below.
An inclusive leader is somebody who recognises the need to be – at the core – human, and I think a truly inclusive leader is someone who balances both people and profit with the same amount of consideration for both.
A DE&I strategy, firstly and foremostly, must be specific to an organisation, because I think the challenges that every organisation faces are different. I also think it's imperative that it sits alongside, and is integrated with, a wellbeing strategy. Clearly, my role as Head of Wellbeing is very much about that. I see wellbeing and DE&I as both complementary and supplementary to one another because, ultimately, if people do not feel like they can be themselves, they are unlikely to gain any sense of belonging, and, of course, that feeds directly into wellbeing. So, for me, it's absolutely imperative that wellbeing and DE&I are intertwined.
Budget. I think that there's a huge amount of pressure on businesses in all industry sectors at the moment. Sadly, whenever a business looks at what it needs to prioritise, a lot of the time it does come down to resource – whether that's financial or people –which, ultimately, is the same thing. So I think, whilst we can continue to make sure that leaders are aware of the business benefits of continuing to focus on DE&I and wellbeing, it will always be competing with so many other priorities.
What I'd like to see is continue on the trajectory that we've been on in the last 10 years. Specifically, from a wellbeing perspective, I very much see wellbeing as five years behind DE&I, and so I think we're slowly catching up and organisations are slowly recognising that wellbeing is as important as DE&I. I think for me, success in the next five to 10 years will be seeing all big organisations have someone who has the remit to be responsible for wellbeing alongside DE&I.