At Acorn by Synergie, EDI is very important to us; both as an employer and a recruitment business. 

We wholeheartedly embrace EDI and work closely with employers to make sure our recruitment methods reach the most diverse range of potential applicants, and appointments are based on non-biased selection.

 

We achieve this in the following ways:

 

Top Level Commitment

Our approach to EDI is driven from the top and one of our 5 core values is Respect. At Acorn by Synergie, EDI is all about treating people with respect and acknowledging and valuing our differences. Our Equality & Diversity Policy is reviewed regularly and is signed and driven by our top-level directors. This then filters through to our employees which has created a culture that employees themselves describe as ‘inclusive’.

 

Training & Raising Awareness

All of our employees are required to undergo EDI and Inclusive Recruitment training. This ensures that our internal working environment is free from discrimination, harassment, victimisation and unconscious bias and provides our Recruiters with all the knowledge and tools they need to make our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible. We raise awareness of EDI matters by encouraging our employees to share their experiences via blogs and interviews; these can send a really powerful and inspiring message. We also support EDI awareness campaigns and provide regular updates via our staff intranet.

 

EDI Working Group

Our EDI Working Group meets on a monthly basis to drive the EDI agenda, continually improve our EDI processes, benchmark our EDI data and develop partnerships. The group includes representatives from all over the company who play a key role in ensuring that EDI is at the forefront of what we do.

 

Candidate Attraction & Accessibility

We attract candidates via a variety of different methods including; online job boards, social media, LinkedIn, jobs fairs and the JobCentre. We also partner with local colleges and organisations that support underrepresented groups in the workplace. We make our registration process as accessible as possible and although digital, wherever possible we offer candidates the ability to attend a face-to-face appointment. We use technology to ensure that adverts that we place do not inadvertently contain any unconscious bias. As a Disability Confident Committed company, we are committed to making the reasonable adjustments required to ensure that our services are accessible to all.

 

Partnerships

Developing external partnerships is important to encourage applications from under-represented groups. We have developed some successful partnerships with organisations that support the homeless, refugees and ex-offenders and these partnerships can be illustrated via the case studies below. We also work in partnership with our clients to ensure that the best candidates are selected for roles, based on knowledge, skills and experience. We have also worked successfully with clients to run targeted recruitment campaigns; to specifically recruit candidates in under-represented groups.