Pride at Goodlord is always a highlight of our awareness calendar. We aim to be inclusive at all times, but Pride month is a great opportunity to really raise awareness for all Goodlordians on the best ways to promote inclusivity, with this annual celebration of diversity.
As in previous years, the Diversity and Culture Club highlighted an excellent charity that's very much needed in the LGBTQA+ space - akt, which supports young people into safe homes and employment, education or training, while celebrating LGBTQA+ identities - and urged our colleagues to donate.
We also focused on integrating LGBTQA+ knowledge into our everyday lives. We kicked off the campaign with a short and snappy "lunch and learn", where we went over Pride's history, its need, and the success of akt.
My fellow member of the Diversity and Culture Club and Goodlord Referencing Executive, Art Hyrst, also created and released a fact sheet on inclusive language and pronouns, which you can see below - and shared some informative and entertaining book recommendations!
The point was to highlight that it should be easy to be an ally in your everyday life, and to enjoy the successes, as well as be aware of the struggles associated with the LGBTQA+ space and individuals within it.
This is the second time I've contributed to a large-scale Diversity and Culture Club campaign at Goodlord, and I had a great time.
It's sparked unlikely and enjoyable collaborations and conversations that we would not have had otherwise, which is always the goal.
We're very proud of our company values, which we use in our recruitment process to make sure that all Goodlordians embody them in their work and home lives. These values - such as being an open book and bringing your whole self to work - allow us to be who we want to be, and make sure that everyone feels accepted.
As a group we kept coming back to Goodlord's values throughout the campaign to build on an already warm, transparent, and inclusive atmosphere. In line with this, we encouraged everyone at Goodlord to take a couple of simple actions that will make a difference.
We asked everyone to try to read, watch, or listen to one Pride resource on Learnerbly, our education hub, and to share any feedback on what Goodlord's doing well - and, even better, where we can improve so we can act on it!
We had a few suggestions, and we're now looking at how to implement them as quickly as possible to make sure that, come this time next year, Goodlord and its Goodlordians have an even more inclusive and open mindset.