OBJECTIVES

Nesta’s vision was to build a culture where all groups in their organisation felt comfortable and actively engaged in conversations around race, ethnicity and diversity in all its forms.

They understood that of all the protected characteristics, race and ethnicity were the ones that most organisations were least willing to talk about openly — and they were looking for a solution on how to overcome this.

As the only analytics company in the market focused on racial equity, Nesta chose to partner with FLAIR to present employees with a safe platform to share their lived experiences while uncovering bias blindspots. In the words of Davina Majeethia, Senior Lead for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Nesta, "there's nothing else on the market that focuses on racial equity like this".

THE CHALLENGE

Across the organisation, Nesta were having lots of disparate conversations about racism and anti-racism. Through conversations and focus groups, they were able to gather a high volume of qualitative data. However, they were struggling to piece together this information to effectively understand how marginalised ethnic groups were experiencing Nesta and where they needed to improve.

THE SOLUTION

"If you're thinking of working with FLAIR I would highly recommend it. Don't be nervous about the results. It's really important to acknowledge a starting point before you are able to move forward on your journey to becoming an anti-racist organisation."

Davina Majeethia, Senior Lead for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, Nesta

Nesta deployed FLAIR across the organisation to provide a safe platform for all employees to share their experiences and understanding of racial bias anonymously. Using FLAIR’s specialist survey — which contains situational judgment analysis — Nesta was able to gather meaningful insights around inclusion barriers, racial awareness, racist behaviours and racial diversity.

These insights were then presented on FLAIR’s smart dashboard to visually highlight Nesta’s strengths and weaknesses. The data was viewable at a high level, whilst also providing the leadership team with the ability to understand the experiences across ethnic groups, departments and locations.

FLAIR’s smart algorithms then collated all of this data to provide Nesta with a Racial Equity Action Plan, bespoke to their pain points so they could overcome any gaps with targeted interventions. The FLAIR team worked closely with Nesta throughout the survey deployment, this included:

• Stakeholder communications to increase survey engagement

• An in-depth consultation to discuss implementing the Racial Equity Action Plan

• Quarterly check-ins post-survey with FLAIR’s customer success team to support Nesta’s progress towards racial equity

THE OUTCOMES

Working with FLAIR allowed Nesta to take the whole organisation on a journey towards racial equity, creating a safe space for employees of all ethnicities to talk about race in a way they'd never been able to before.

Key outcomes include:

• Increased confidence and engagement in conversations about race and ethnicity across the organisation

• A clear understanding of the experiences of different ethnic groups across the entire organisation

• Strategic recommendations provide clear next steps on how to take targeted actions to advance racial equity

• Benchmark data to measure progress year-on-year to measure and demonstrate the effectiveness of their racial equity strategy