Friend of FAIRER interview: Kameka McLean

About Kameka McLean

Kameka McLean is Group Head of HR at financial services and wealth management company Walker Crips. With experience spanning global transformation programmes, including Workday implementation and performance framework redesign, she brings a regulatory, systemic lens to equity and culture. Kameka is focused on embedding inclusion into organisational infrastructure. Drawing on both professional insight and lived experience, she advocates for evidence-based, transparent, and sustainable approaches to building fairer workplaces.

Fairness is not about treating everyone the same

Kameka explains that to be truly fair, organisations must treat employees based on their individual needs rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach.

"As an Afro-Caribbean person, I’ve put fairness and organisational reality to the test. Fairness is often interpreted as treating everyone the same, but I believe it’s more than that. Individuals need to be treated individually for us to be able to even attempt to fairly assess their needs and how they fit within an organisation.

"With my own journey starting out in HR, I realised that I was being treated the same as everyone, but I shouldn’t have been treated the same because I’m neurodivergent. Historically, we didn’t have organisational cultures that supported individual needs. And I’m glad that we have evolved from the early 2000s in terms of what fairness looks like now.

"Fairness must be systemic, evidence-based and transparent. But in my experience, fairness consistently breaks down across eight critical points in the employee lifecycle: strategy, attraction, recruitment, onboarding, learning and development, reward and recognition, progression and performance, and retention or exit.

"These are the moments where manager discretion is needed. If there is any inconsistency with application of policy, this can create inequality. The reason for that is leaders often hesitate to intervene because it’s challenging – especially when it’s a long-standing power structure. It exposes gaps in their capabilities and it requires them to confront uncomfortable truths about their culture and their management skill.

"So my view is fairness falls where governance fails. To remediate that, we need to make sure that we have the right policies, processes, practises and training in place. This applies to performance, promotion and exits, because these are all interwoven and intertwined within behaviours, cultures, non-financial and financial misconduct."

Wellbeing, inclusion and the employee lifecycle

Kameka explains why you can't have inclusion without wellbeing, and why DEI needs to be present at all stages of the employee lifecycle.

"We can’t view wellbeing, DEI, and mental health in isolation. When it comes to building the right infrastructure within your target operational model, you can’t just focus on one thing. And that’s why I focus on the lifecycle of the employee, including the exit stage – we also need to create a positive experience for employees exiting the organisation.

"If you build a good target operational model that considers the emotional wellbeing and mental health of your employees, and the job that they do, that can streamline the the off-boarding process. Managers also need to be able to have difficult conversations in a more constructive and empathetic way.

"In my opinion, wellbeing is widely spread as a priority, but often not operationalised. The gap I see is between wellbeing as a narrative, and wellbeing as a workload capacity and leadership issue. It’s not a narrative. It’s a workload capacity and leadership issue. If your workload is too onerous, eventually you’re going to be unproductive. You’re not going to be motivated. I disagree with the mindset that 'the more you do, the more you’re recognised'.

"When I’ve redesigned target operational models with wellbeing in mind, burnout is reduced and retention is improved because workload fairness is actually about inclusion for everyone. We need to think about the bigger picture. You can’t have inclusion without wellbeing."

Consistency

"Consistency is one of the most critical behaviours in leadership. It’s not just about revenue, it's all the other things that you represent as a leader: consistency and fairness across the employee lifecycle, all while working alongside business targets."

Courage

"Leaders need courage to speak out when something is not working, and the curiosity to ask questions and be able to see things from others' perspectives."

Capacity management

"They also need the skill of capacity management, asking questions like 'If we continue on this momentum, will this cause burnout?' From my research, I've found that capacity is one of the biggest reasons people are stressed at work."

Accountability

"Leaders need to remain accountable. What culture are you creating within the organisation? Are you promoting a psychologically safe environment where managers can question and challenge? It’s about creating a culture where managers feel safe to say 'this isn’t working and this is why it isn’t working.'"

DEI fails when it's a slogan and it succeeds when it's a system

"The backlash against DEI has created hesitation for everyone – not because leaders oppose fairness, but because they fear being misrepresented or criticised. The truth is, this backlash exists because DEI is too often approached as a compliance activity rather than a strategic discipline. If organisations don’t think about long-term strategy, risk, and organisational ramifications, their DEI efforts will fail every single time.

"Building a truly inclusive organisation isn’t quick, and it certainly isn’t performative. It takes years of consistent work. You have to begin with education – helping managers understand why you’re doing this, what it means for them, and securing their buy-in. Without that foundation, nothing sticks.

"I focus on the simple things because simple things matter. For example, anonymising CVs or asking, ‘Is this the right pronunciation of your name?’ These micro-actions seem small, but they signal respect, psychological safety, and belonging. They’re the difference between DEI as a slogan and DEI as lived experience.

"When I think about whose voices are missing, it’s often employees who experience inequality but don’t feel safe enough to speak up. And it’s also leaders – leaders who genuinely want to do the right thing but lack the capability, confidence, or support to act. Inclusion fails when either group is silent.

"In an inclusive organisation, no one is you – and that is your power. This idea reminds leaders that every employee brings irreplaceable insight, lived experience and capability.

"Additionally, I live by the idea that 'impossible means I’m possible', which reframes organisational barriers as system issues, not people issues. DEI, wellbeing and culture work only feel 'impossible' when leaders lack capability or confidence. With education, support and long-term strategy, organisations can make progress possible – for individuals, for leaders, and for the culture itself.

"Together, these principles reinforce a single message: inclusion becomes real when organisations recognise the power of individual difference and remove the barriers that make progress feel out of reach."

A word from Laura

Laura Drakeford, Inclusion Partner at FAIRER, shares her key takeaways from Kameka's interview.

Fairness is not about treating everyone the same; it's about giving people what they need to succeed. While consistency matters, true fairness recognises that individuals have different circumstances, strengths, and barriers, and systems should be designed to support those differences. Additionally, wellbeing is a leadership and organisational design issue, not just an individual responsibility. Rather than focusing solely on resilience programmes, organisations should examine workload, capacity, and ways of working to ensure employees can perform sustainably without burning out.
Together, these ideas highlight the importance of designing workplaces around people, not assumptions.

If you would like to be considered for an expert interview, or want to further discuss any of the themes covered in Kameka's interview, please get in touch.