Last week the team at Marshall Wolfe took part in the ‘5 day challenge’ built by Race Equality Matters, as part of Race Equality Week 2023. At the end of the week, and on the 5th challenge we all made ‘the big promise’, which we each selected based on the following: being a board member, a senior leader, an ally, or an ethnically diverse employee.
Not only did these activities allow for self-reflection they also had impactful video clips further enforcing what we had just learned and read about. This included hearing from people talking about their lived experiences on the topic, for example, those who have experienced microaggressions as well as those whose names frequently get mispronounced. We speak to many candidates on a daily basis in our industry, so this really reinforced to us the importance a person’s name has on their identity and that when this is mispronounced, it can feel isolating and excluding. Although the challenges only take around 5 minutes to complete each day, it definitely gives you more to think about and how we can do better, individually and as a team in the workplace. Which is why we have all made the big promise.
With feedback from the team, some key learnings were:
- Microaggressions – a term that not everyone had heard of before, which not only taught us the definition and what this looks like in the day-to-day world but allowed us time for self-reflection.
- The act of being anti-racist – Psychologist John Amaechi articulates perfectly in the 3 minute video clip the difference between being not-racist and being anti-racist.
- Gained new insights and new perspectives.
The theme for Race Equality Week 2023 is #ItsEveryonesBusiness and for us at Marshall Wolfe, it was important that all colleagues and managers completed the 5 day challenge and made a promise so that we can take action, make our stance clear and help create a positive change.
Have you taken the 5 day challenge yet? We’d love to hear how our network is driving race equality forward within their companies.
