Case Study - Camden Council

The death of George Floyd and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 highlighted a need to further the commitment and actions at Camden Council to becoming a truly inclusive organisation. Therefore, as part of their larger Race Equality Action (REA) Plan, Camden engaged IDC to develop and deliver an organisation-wide learning offer that aimed to educate all employees and inform the structural changes required to combat systemic racism. The objectives included creating a psychologically safe workplace for everyone, understanding the impact of racism, and learning to be an active bystander and ally.

Description of work:

IDC created a comprehensive anti-racism learning offer (ARLO) underpinned by social and behavioural psychology principles and focused on behaviours, habits, and team learning. This offer was designed as a series of sessions including education sessions, manager sessions, and reflection sessions. The education sessions worked as a foundation of understanding for all employees within Camden Council, whilst the manager sessions helped managers exclusively to grow the skills to lead with anti-racist allyship mindsets. Finally, the reflection sessions, which took place 6 weeks after the education sessions, worked as a refresher session for the ways in which employees can maintain their motivation in practicing anti-racist allyship.

Additionally, IDC facilitators trained a group of Camden facilitators to conduct the Education, Manager and Reflection sessions along with them and in the future. This ensured continuity of the programme and increased the reach to the frontline workers, thus covering all employees of the council.

Finally, IDC supported the internal communications team at Camden to ensure that the learning is being backed by the right messaging. The communication pieces such as videos, webinars and podcasts prompted the right conversations between employees even outside of the learning sessions, which helped change behaviours and mindsets towards anti-racism.

Results

By implementing ARLO, IDC was able to:

1. Build a common understanding of the purpose of the anti-racism agenda and the relationship between this and daily interactions with colleagues and customers

2. Increase awareness and commitment to the messages around anti-racism

3. Create a positive change in employee and manager behaviour through commitments of habits evidencing active allyship – shared ownership was established between managers and employees to hold each other accountable when they see or hear instances of racism within the workplace

4. Increase employee performance, engagement, and motivation for all employees, but particularly for marginalised groups

5. Decrease staff turnover, sickness absences and grievances and disciplinary for all employees, but particularly for marginalised groups

6.Employees incorporate anti-racism within the work that they do (e.g., the procurement team incorporated anti-racist requirements for their suppliers)

About the company:

Camden London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Camden in Greater London, England. It is a London Borough Council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. It is also known as the ‘rebellious borough’.