How EDI Can Move Beyond Optics to Deliver Real Impact

What happens when inclusion efforts stall at awareness?

In this compelling episode, Toby Mildon sits down with experienced EDI practitioner Emma Underwood to explore why equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is facing what Emma calls a “global earthquake.” Together, they unpack the current challenges in the sector, the ethical tensions at play, and the need for a more skilled, credible EDI profession.

Emma draws from her varied background in public policy, students’ unions, and consultancy to outline the critical difference between performative allyship and meaningful change. She also tackles the need for professional standards in EDI roles and explains how legal developments are reshaping the field.

Key takeaways include:

• Why awareness without action benefits only the ally.
• The need for professional standards and regulation in EDI roles.
• How to navigate the clash between legal rulings and ethical convictions.
• Practical ways to keep progressing despite political and economic pushback.

Guest highlights:

 Emma Underwood – EDI Practitioner

Connect with Emma on LinkedIn

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Transcript

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Welcome to The Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon. Future-proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace. Hey there, thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of The Inclusive Growth Podcast. I'm Toby Mildon, and today I'm joined by Emma Underwood, and I met Emma a few weeks ago at a conference that we were both presenting at or facilitating, and Emma gave a phenomenal opening keynote speech at the conference. So I kind of tapped her on the shoulder at the conference saying, I would love to get you along to the podcast because I think her message has to be heard by a wider audience beyond this conference that was in Manchester in the UK. So it's great that Emma is able to join us today. So Emma, thanks ever so much for joining us. It's lovely to see you. Thank you so much for having me, Toby. It was really great to meet you at the conference. You also gave an excellent speech, and hello to everyone listening today. Yeah, absolutely. So as you said, Toby, my name is Emma Underwood. I am an EDI practitioner. I've been working in this space for about a decade now, I would say. But generally, the theme has not necessarily focused on EDI work. It's focused on change-making and change-making within the equality sphere more broadly. So I've worked in students' unions. I've worked in public policy. I've worked in lobbying and campaigning. And then I've also worked in-house EDI roles and then a bunch of consultancy work, public speaking work, keynote speaking engagements, that sort of thing. So I've been around the block for a while now. But yeah, excited to be moving the career into lots of different spaces, lots of exciting ways. Excellent. So when I heard your speech, there was a key word that really jumped out at me. You described the current state of EDI as facing a global earthquake. What do you see as the biggest threat to progress right now? Why did you describe it as a global earthquake? So for me, the biggest threat as it stands has to be around the optics of EDI, the way that it's viewed not just by ourselves as practitioners of EDI but externally. Whenever I see a news article or a headline or some opinion piece about EDI and where it's going and which organization is stripping their workforce of EDI provisions next, it always comes back to a fundamental misunderstanding of what EDI is and how it serves people. I think what we need to do when thinking about those challenges is how do we see EDI and how do we get other people to see EDI in the same way that we do? Absolutely. And something else you said in your speech was that you said that awareness without action only benefits the ally and never the person who actually needs the support. So what do you think needs to change in how organizations approach inclusion or indeed how they even talk about allyship and they're developing allies within the organization? So I think this might be one of my more controversial points. Those who know me coming into conferences and engaging with speakers know that I don't really hold back on the way I see EDI and its purpose. And it sort of goes back a little bit to the question that we've just discussed. What is the purpose of the work that we do? And if our answer to that is to help allies to gain self-actualization, I think we're coming at it from completely the wrong angle. The thing that we should be focusing on every step of the way is ensuring that there are better outcomes for marginalized communities by righting historical injustices. That has to be our answer, surely. So when I talk about awareness only ever benefiting allies, I don't necessarily say that as a bad thing because self-actualization and self-development is a good thing for anyone. I do it all the time, right? I like to think of myself as an ally for lots of marginalized communities. But if I'm just aware of things, if I'm just understanding the historical precedent or the ongoing situations but do absolutely nothing to help those individuals and those communities, if I sit by and do my reading and listen to speakers but then don't act on any of it when I'm called on, then I'm never benefiting anyone. I'm only ever giving myself talking points at a dinner table. And that doesn't seem right to me. What I look for when I go and deliver training sessions is I will never call my training sessions awareness sessions. Because when awareness is the only aim, you are not delivering on any kind of responsibility that we talked about right at the start of this question, about improving lives of marginalized communities, marginalized individuals. There has to be action behind it. There has to be a next step. There has to be, how do you put that knowledge into practice? What do you do about it? Yes, I agree with you. I'm not sure it is controversial, Emma, to be honest. I think we're on the same page. I feel the same way whenever I've developed or delivered workshops myself. Sometimes when I'm particularly in a bad mood, afterwards I feel like, have I just delivered something that's entertaining for a bunch of people? Is it actually making a difference? Are people going to leave that training session and going to take real tangible steps to create a better work environment for people, particularly those people who are often overlooked or undermined because of those systemic injustices that we've developed in our society? So yeah, I'm totally on the same page with you. And I think the thing around allyship is that allyship is about being proactive, isn't it? It's not just about changing the logo on your website for instance, Pride Month. It's about actually sometimes putting your neck above the parapet and being prepared to stand up for what you feel is right and actually taking bold steps to try and level the playing field. Yeah, and you've hit on something really interesting there and one that I've kind of not really thought much about, and this might be a bit of a niche talking point, but for those of you in the audience who are EDI practitioners yourselves or you go and deliver talks or trainings, where does that line between being entertaining and being right stop and end? Because I think you have to have both, right? When I go and deliver talks, the message won't sink in unless I'm engaging with the audience. I've got a bit of a drama background, a theatre background, so I used to do a lot of youth theatre work. And so a lot of that has translated over. And I remember an old colleague of mine, we're talking about training and about our approaches to it, and his thought process was, when you're delivering a training session, you're essentially on stage performing in front of an audience, trying to get them to buy into your message. And obviously the message has to be right, and it has to be useful and deliverable, but it also has to be digestible, and it has to stick in their brains. And that's where that kind of entertainment factor comes in sometimes. Definitely. It is a skill that we need as influencers to be able to get the message across. So yeah, you do need to draw on those skills that you've got from your drama days to really engage audiences. There was a really other important point that you made in your speech at the conference, looking around kind of lived experiences and competence. A lot of people start working in the EDI sector because they've got some sort of personal lived experience of a particular characteristic or identity. They might feel particularly passionate around EDI, but actually they don't necessarily have the skills needed to really drive change that's needed within organizations. So we think about just skills around change management, project management, commercial skills, mindset, that kind of thing. So to your mind, what would you say a more professional EDI sector looks like? Because at the moment, there's no real kind of real accreditation to becoming an EDI specialist, is there? You know, there's not like a degree that you take or a technical certification or anything like that. Yeah, I think it's a really tough one because I think it would have to involve the reimagining the sector as we know it. And perhaps that's coming. I'm not unconvinced that the way that we see EDI changing in response to kind of this global earthquake that we described earlier is a more robust way of training up EDI professionals. So when I talk about lived experience in a lot of my talks and in the conference that we were at, I talk about it as a really useful driver, an inciting moment for a lot of people, as you said, it's their own lived experience that can drive them towards pursuing a career in EDI. And everybody has to start somewhere. But then it's important that those people gain the necessary skills, as you've mentioned, change management, project management, data analysis, the ability to analyze complex legal documents, all of these things are really critical skills. So I think there's been a couple of really solid attempts at this. So CMI have got a level seven in strategic equality, diversity and inclusion, which I've been on. It's really good. I'd really recommend it. I'm not sponsored. I just recommend it. Atlantic Ventil Dew has started creating a bit of a longer EDI course taking process, which I think is really interesting. I've not looked into it massively since I first heard about it, but her initial pitch was really good. And it involves compounding a lot of those key skills that we just mentioned into testable courses. But the issue is, is recognition. That, I think, is the thing that might hold a lot of these courses back is, well, how many people know about this CMI level seven in strategic EDI? How many people know about this skills course? How many people, how widely are they recognized? And for those that aren't widely known, what's stopping people from going on a really low quality course that just has EDI in the title and using that for a form of credentials? So I wonder if at some point the EDI becomes a bit more regulated, if it becomes a little bit more standardized, if there is a, possibly not a government line, because I don't think that, based on the way the HRC is going at the moment, I'm not sure I'd be willing to advocate for that. But some kind of third party that analyzes these courses, that assigns them a credibility rating, and then can publicize that information and spread it out to employers. I agree. I think as an industry, we need to move towards something like how accountants operate. So, for example, you've got the ACCA for accountants. It's carefully monitored and regulated, and accountants have got their qualifications that they have to complete, and they have to keep up with regular professional learning credits and things like that every year. So I personally would like to see EDI move towards that because there are a lot of people working in this space who do have that lived experience and that passion. But if we do need to drive meaningful change, we need to know skills like influencing and persuasion and commercial management and things like that. One of the things I've been thinking quite a lot about at the moment is about legal regulation and about legal process. And we'll maybe come on to that in some more detail later. But I think it is also important to remember that there is a legal element to EDI, that public sector equality duty, the Equality Act 2010, workplace health and safety regulations, all of these things are coming underneath EDI, and EDI professionals are often asked to give thoughts and opinions on them. And I could probably count on one hand the number of EDI professionals that I know with a legal qualification. And I'm not one of them. So maybe I'm a little bit speaking a little bit hypocritical here. But I wonder when we're coming up in EDI discussions and talking about legal matters or giving advice to our employers about how to navigate a certain HR issue, how often are we falling foul of the lack of knowledge of the law? And how do we then rectify that? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Talking for the law, one of the things that you also talked about in your speech was what happens when there's this kind of clash between legalities and ethics. And I was wondering if you could just explain that a bit more. And particularly, I think this was partly inspired by, at the time of the conference, it was just after the clarity in the UK legislation around the definition of sex and gender, wasn't it, in the UK and under the Equality Act. And obviously, there was quite a lot of backlash and debate in the press. Can you kind of just explain that a bit more for us? Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start off by explaining the context behind it and the Supreme Court judgment. So a few months ago, the Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the UK, heard a case from an organization called For Women Scotland, who are a group that represents gender-critical individuals in Scotland, For Women Scotland Against Scottish Ministers. The reason this case came to tribunal was because the Scottish government wanted to include transgender women within their definition of women when it came to the Equality Act specifically, but more broadly, or more specifically even more, on things like women's-only shortlist, equal pay reporting, and I think importantly for this case, representation on boards of directors. After having lost in multiple courts, For Women Scotland appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, stating that sex as it is defined in the Equality Act relates to and has always related to biological sex, sex assigned at birth, meaning for the purposes of the Equality Act, all transgender women are biologically male, all transgender men are biologically female, and all non-binary people are biologically their assigned sex at birth. The judgment itself only related to the Equality Act, and in my view, was an enormous blow on everybody's understanding of the Equality Act for a decade, a decade plus, since it had been released. And in fact, multiple people who contributed towards the Equality Act helped write it have expressed their concern at this decision, and have not acted appropriately. The next set of issues come into place then when EHRC, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is the arms length government body watchdog for equalities issues, published on a Friday night after hours some interim guidance on how employers should interpret this judgment. Now that guidance is not law, it only explains what their interpretation of the law is. And in that guidance, they suggested that no trans person should be able to use what they would describe as single sex facilities. So no transgender woman would be able to use the women's bathroom or changing rooms or hospital wards, domestic violence shelters or anything along that lines. And the same is true for transgender men. They also clarified that if a person could cause reasonable distress because they presented as and appeared as their chosen or acquired gender, they could also be excluded from the services attributed to their sex at birth. So for a transgender man, for instance, who "passes as a man", could be barred from both the men's bathroom and the women's bathroom, leaving a huge question mark over, well, where do they now use the bathroom? So that brings us on to the actual question that you asked. So what do we do when... Yeah, that was really useful background and context, by the way, because I think there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what's really been going on. Yeah, that's absolutely fair. And I think it's totally understandable that people are confused because you've got two different parties saying... You've got three different parties saying three different things. And it's also, it's very emotionally charged. And I think there's been a lot of misinterpreted information that's been put out by the press as well. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people are rightfully terrified that their rights are being stripped away. A lot of people are celebrating this idea that they are now more protected, although I would innately disagree with that statement. And you have got a lot of government officials stating that actually we've got a lot of clarity now, but I could not disagree with that more because I don't feel like this brings any clarity to the situation whatsoever, which is again illustrated by this odd interim guidance the AHRC has brought out and the issues that have come out of the consultation as well, which is currently ongoing. So when it comes to what do EDI professionals do when legality clashes with ethics, and your mileage may vary on how much you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court judgment and the following guidance, but I think it's fair to say that this is not a situation that is going to exist in isolation. There will be more instances like this that will come up in future, especially under subsequent governments that may be significantly less keen on EDI initiatives. I don't feel like it's unfair for me to say that the Reform Party manifesto itself has talked about stripping out EDI initiatives from government, let alone things like the NHS and private services. So these conversations are coming, whether we like it or not as an industry. So my advice to EDI professionals is use every tool you have. And as an EDI professional, your tool is change making. Your tool is change management. Use that tool to enforce change at the highest level you possibly can. So that might be your organization, but it also is more likely to be government. Consultations open all the time. You can write to your MP, not just as an individual, but as a business or as an organization. You can form part of lobbying processes. You can and should nail your flag to the post of the ethics and morality that you believe in. We've seen lots of organizations do this. We saw Lush take an enormously pro-trans stance in the wake of the Supreme Court judgment. They are perfectly within their rights to do that. They're a private business. We've seen politicians do the same. We've seen business leaders do the same. People absolutely committing to their values of EDI in whatever way they can. So when legality clashes with ethics, make it so they don't have to clash. Find a way to make your voice heard so that when you are asked the question by politicians, by lawmakers, by decision makers, how you think that change will affect you, answer them with the righteousness and the certainty that is afforded to you by the virtue of your position as an EDI professional. Brilliant. Thanks for that, Emma. So you actually ended your speech with a sense of collective purpose. If somebody listening is feeling disheartened right now about working in EDI because there are lots of issues going on, there's the policies coming out of the White House and everything that Donald Trump has got to say about EDI. We've seen the popularity of reform and some of their policies as well that, as you say, might come towards us further down the line. Lots of organizations are struggling commercially, so they're making lots of cutbacks and redundancies and they're kind of putting EDI on the back burner because they've got other things to contend with. What is your advice if somebody is in that situation? What is it that you would urge them to do next? So I'm going to break this answer down into two. One is around how people feel and one is around how people can do something. In terms of how people feel, remember that the path towards equality is not a linear line going from discriminated against to fully equal. It is full of pits and troughs and peaks and lows. There is no one straightforward line and there's no getting around this. We're in a trough right now. We have dipped. There are a number of communities that are suffering right now in a way that they weren't suffering 10 years ago. Things are worse for a lot of people and that can be really disheartening, especially if you're only looking at it within the window of the last 10 to 20 years or so. What you need to do is widen your lens, look at the progression, look at how far we've come, look at the work that we've achieved so far and understand that, well actually we have come a long way and we're continuing on that upward progression. That trend is only going upwards. So we keep on that, we ride out this current downward turn and things will come back around again. But that's where the second part of this comes in because that bar chart doesn't, oh sorry, that line graph doesn't go up automatically. It goes up because people, businesses and organisations push it that way and you have to be part of pushing that. If you are worried about the future of EDI then you need to be a champion for it. You need to be part of the people pushing it forwards and we do that by evidencing how well we've done and about the benefits that we've made. Now sometimes that comes from a morality standpoint, some of that comes from a profits and business standpoint, some of that comes from a legality standpoint and our legal requirements. But combining those three things together you can ensure that your organisation does what is right, not just morally but what makes sense for it as a business. That is my recommendation of how people should feel and how people should do. Brilliant. Now, the question I ask everybody when they come on this podcast with me is what does inclusive growth mean for you? So for me, I think inclusive growth is around ensuring that everybody is brought along on the same journey, is looking at the way in which we are progressing towards equality and being inclusive within our workspaces and wherever we are, and making sure that as we grow, we're doing so together. People come to EDI from all different backgrounds or different walks of life. When I go into a training, and Toby, I'm sure you'll feel the same when you go into a training, there's as many different understandings of EDI as there are people in the room. So when we're growing and when we're encouraging other people to grow, we have to understand that people are coming from different areas and people are coming with different thoughts and different opinions. And that's a good thing that we can bring people along with us by tailoring the way that we grow and that we are delivering messaging that accounts for all of those different backgrounds and ideas. Brilliant. Thanks for sharing that. And finally, if the person listening to us right now would like to follow your work, look at the content that you create, maybe have a conversation with you offline about anything you've talked about today, what's the best way of doing that? Yeah, absolutely. So hi, person listening. If you would like to get in touch with me, go via my LinkedIn, which is Emma Underwood, it should be reasonably easy to find, or you can email me at emaunderwood517@gmail.com. I'd be more than happy to connect for any of your EDI needs. Brilliant. Well, Emma, thanks ever so much for joining me today. It's been lovely to catch up with you after the conference and just dive a bit deeper into the fantastic speech that you gave, which was just for me, it was just really moving and just gave me so much food for thought. So thanks for that. No, thank you so much for having me. It's been likewise, it's been really lovely catching up with you as well, and really lovely to get to discuss some of the finer points of EDI that we don't often get to discuss if it's quite an insular place that we work in. Absolutely. Thanks, Emma. Thank you. And thank you for tuning into this episode with Emma and myself. Hopefully you've taken away some real inspiration from what Emma has had to say. She certainly inspired me when she gave the speech at the conference that we were both part of. And as Emma says, if there's anything that you would like to discuss further with her, then feel free to reach out through LinkedIn or indeed email. And until next time, I look forward to seeing you on this podcast when the next episode will be coming out very soon. Until then, take care. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website @milden.co.uk.