Currencycloud, part of Visa, is a rapidly growing global Fintech with over 500 employees worldwide. Their EDI steering group consists of employees who are passionate about the core pillars they own. They are notably proactive about pushing the agenda internally - predominantly through the engagement of relevant speakers. The problem the EDI team had was the lack of confidence in their expertise and understanding of EDI as a whole, which in turn limited their voice and thinking of the bigger picture.
Our conversation started when we were talking about how we could get Currencycloud involved in mentoring school children through our School Together Equal Programme. It became clear very quickly that there was a greater opportunity here. Through our workshops, Together Equal could help Currencycloud develop a sustainable EDI strategy. It was also through the workshops that:Currencycloud would be funding one of our 10 week programmes in a Primary School.
The first question to discuss was: what defines a ‘sustainable strategy’? To date, the Currencycloud team had been great at organising one-off workshops and talks facilitated by third parties with lived experience. These coincided with national events such as Pride, Mental Health Awareness Week and Black History Month. As mentioned previously, while the team were keen to do more internally, they were struggling with the fact they didn’t feel knowledgeable enough about their core pillars to be able to facilitate internal workshops.
This is where TogetherEqual was able to help.
We developed a bespoke programme, led by experts, where we immersed ourselves in key themes to really help the team understand the how, why, where, what and who of what they’re trying to do. Each session was built to educate on a specific core subject and then train attendees to facilitate their own workshops. That’s the sustainable part. By empowering Currencycloud employees to run their own workshop and train other employees, they’re able to maintain awareness, interest and engagement, long term and cost effectively.
Workshops include:
Find Your Voice: Presentation Skills and Speaking Online
Intersectionality & Allyship
Microaggressions & Unconscious Bias
Social Mobility & Representation
So far we’ve run the Find Your Voice, Intersectionality & Allyship modules. Everyone is really happy with the results!
Find your voice
Research shows that women speak less frequently than men in the workplace. We believe that to kick off any diversity training it’s important to make sure all members of the steering committee are confident about speaking up. This is why we started with the ‘Find Your Voice’ workshop.
After the workshop 100% of participants reported feeling more confident about presenting and communicating with other people.
Intersectionality & Allyship
Before this workshop, a third of attendees didn’t understand intersectionality and how it impacts on the workplace, and two thirds of attendees only had a basic understanding.
After the workshop 100% of attendees reported they were able to confidently articulate intersectionality and intersectional inclusion to their team.
100% of attendees felt they were able to lead their own Allyship and Intersectionality workshop within the company. This is vital for engaging the whole business in a sustainable conversation about diversity.
67% of attendees felt that after the workshop they had clear, actionable steps to implement a meaningful, impactful Allyship strategy.
Verbatims
‘I have a better understanding of intersectionality and how to deal with people who dismiss the need for an equality team.’
‘My key action point from the workshop is to become an advocate for others.’
‘Since the training I have thought about how to make our gender pillar events and initiatives more inclusive, and how to be a better ally to other populations.’
Andrew A. Milne, the EVP and EDI lead at Currencycloud says of working with us:
‘Working with Together Equal has really helped us to move our EDI initiatives further than we imagined possible. I can’t recommend them highly enough.’
To find out more about how we can help you, email us on betogetherequal@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
Notes:
Currencycloud EDI steering committee sub groups include:
LGBTQia
Social Mobility and CSR
Gender
Multiculturalism
Mental Health & Neurodiversity
Health & Accessibility
