DEI expert interview: Rachel Billington

In the first of our expert series of interviews, FAIRER speaks to Rachel Billington, Director, People & Culture, Europe & India, at AECOM.

Q: What are you doing to tackle the backlash against DEI?

I’m holding my nerve and doing what we did previously. I think if we are not careful, we can react too much to things. That’s not to say we need to be naïve, but for a long time I’ve been saying that EDI needs to look at itself in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are doing things the right way. For too long, people haven’t felt comfortable to talk about EDI – if I had a pound for every white man who has said to me, “Obviously Rachel, I can’t talk about that because I’m a white male,” is it because they feel excluded from the conversation?  They are still in positions of power to make decisions and will have needs too.

Also, some voices are very noisy but not very representative. What I hear in my day-to-day experiences is not a backlash, but people asking, “We want this, we need this,” and we’re not doing enough. There might be a backlash in the media that is really ramped up and presses our buttons but is it representative of real life? There is a grain of truth, but I don’t buy into the ‘EDI is over’ rhetoric.

Q: Do we need to rebrand DEI?

Yes, I think we need to rebrand the narrative. If immediately the words you are using alienate some people or give the impression it’s something it’s not, then you would rebrand, wouldn’t you? Forget about what letters we use – I have heard all sorts being used in our community – let’s get behind the letters, which can be a bit exclusive. For example, I work across Europe and India and EDI doesn’t translate outside the UK. Let’s talk about the language and what it means rather than the letters.

Let’s talk about what EDI is about – it’s about wider culture, not necessarily about separate groups. It is about everybody feeling they belong, no matter who they are – that includes the majority as well. It is about things like employee engagement and wellbeing – EDI can’t be an island on its own. You need to embed EDI completely into organisational culture. You don’t keep it on its own as a piece – though there are times when certain elements need real attention – but what you do is change the narrative to make people understand it a little more.

Q: Where have you seen inclusion make the biggest business impact? 

Sadly, I’ve not seen many instances to be honest. I’ve seen where diversity has worked well, where good organisations power through in terms of difference and getting difference in. I see pockets of good practice but haven’t necessarily seen a brilliant approach to making everybody feel included. Very few organisations have really landed that. The test for me is, what do the people think who work there? How do they feel inclusion come to life?

I do, however, think that things are getting better. When I had my children 18 years ago, life then as a working parent was different – I’m not saying it was easier or harder. Just things like being able to work from home more and the fact it is now acceptable means we’ve had progression there. We can now talk about things like menopause and wellbeing – that wouldn’t have happened five or 10 years ago in the same way.

Q: Which industry do you believe is most successful at implementing DEI? Why?

I have been involved in both the public and private sector, and the public sector generally are trailblazers who set the tone. The legal requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty brought a compliance element that has not required the same focus from the private sector.

My background is policing, and, in that sector, there’s been good work done to bring in lots of difference. But do those people really feel included? I believe we need to be inclusion-led, not initiative-led. If you are initiative-led you focus on getting people in, but they will not stay if they do not feel they belong.

Q: What business area do you think is in most need of DEI training?

If HR as a profession understood the importance of EDI and how it links to HR operations – say, how diversity links to retention and recruitment et cetera – they in turn could partner with the organisation and help them understand EDI more. However, it is still often seen as an afterthought.

For a long time, EDI has been a forgotten part of the profession and I’m still not sure HR truly understands its value.

Q: Who do you think should drive DEI policy within an organisation?

I’m not bothered who drives it, quite frankly, as long as somebody does who is credible, influential and makes big decisions. For example, I’m not wedded to a chief diversity officer reporting into a CEO. It just needs a person who has a certain level of accountability, who is seen by the organisation as somebody who is credible and delivers. What it shouldn’t be is someone who has been given it as a portfolio item to look after, perhaps because of their personal protected characteristics – I’ve seen that happen a lot: “Oh, you know about EDI, you take this on.”

There’s a big debate about lived experience versus professional skills, and while lived experience can help, it isn’t the piece that means you will lead a successful change programme in terms of organisational culture.  

Q: What is your biggest hope for the DEI profession? 

My biggest hope is that we are still having these conversations and that they don’t stop because of the negativity around EDI now. The sad thing is what normally brings it back is some kind of trauma, so, for example, we are now coming out of the period that was prompted by things like MeToo, Covid and Black Lives Matter, and my biggest fear is that we have another one of those types of episodes.

My biggest hope is that the EDI community learns how to evolve, doesn’t hide away and doesn’t think that the big noises are right – because they are not representative – and that we truly stay together. There is a lot of polarisation and divisive groups within EDI at the moment who are doing a far better job than some of the anti-woke brigade out there, and I think we need to learn from our mistakes about what makes a good EDI professional and how we can bring an organisation with us. I hope we learn the right lessons and become even stronger. That would be a fantastic situation to be in.

What I generally hear from the majority is, “I’m not supporting EDI, not because I don’t care or think it is important – I really do – but it’s because I’m absolutely frightened to say the wrong thing. And I worry that I will be cancelled because of that, and I fear for the impact it could have on my career.”

Sometimes, I deliberately don’t get involved in a conversation because I’m not sure whether it’s the right environment to really bring about learning and growth because too often it’s just so toxic. For people looking in on that – why would you want to get involved in that? It’s about being tolerant of each other, and I just don’t think we are. My biggest hope is that cancel culture just goes away.

Q: What’s the one thing you feel has been most neglected in the world of DEI? 

That this is a culture change programme. This is a long-term systemic change programme that you need to manage like a project and like a change management piece. What we have done as a profession is we have looked for the quick fixes, the shiny things, which are easier and what we have neglected is that this is about long-term change, and we need to bring people with us.

If you want to take an organisation from A to B, you use change management principles, and I think we’ve neglected that by giving EDI to one person and expecting them to deliver on that and make generations' worth of change. 

Q: If you could mandate one thing for organisations’ DEI policy, what would it be? 

I struggled with this as, for me, EDI is not about policy. Policy is basic and is extremely easy – you can probably put a request into ChatGPT and it would spit one out for you. The one mandate for me is that you go beyond the policy.

So – how do you really bring about inclusion? How do your people feel included? If there was one mandate, it would be that you almost don’t need a policy because your people can articulate what EDI means in terms of your organisation, in terms of inclusion. Look far more broadly than the protected characteristics, the single groups, and think about this as an absolute collective, not just about ‘What are you doing for X?’

Q: What do you think the future holds for DEI?

We will be fine if we hold our nerve. I know things are very difficult at the moment and there will always be a reason for that but none of us came into this profession thinking it would be easy and if we did we should probably leave the profession quite quickly, because we’re not going to have the tenacity to see it through.

It absolutely must evolve, and this sharp shock might help that happen. It might shake things up a little bit to the point where we do start to really think about that far broader piece. I only need to speak to my early careers people to know that EDI is extremely important to them and what can’t be changed is employees have a much higher expectation of their employers.

For example, an employee asked us what support we would give following the Supreme Court ruling, as they have a transgender child. We are now in a situation where not only do employees expect support when it’s affecting them, they’re expecting it when it is their families involved, as well. They are coming to employers expecting that support. That won’t change.

But what the future does need to hold, is that change of narrative where we could move away from the single agenda cancel culture environment and truly create an inclusive environment for everyone, and that includes the majority, as well.