We’re delighted to announce that Empower has been named a finalist for the below categories at the Shift People Awards:

• Most Engaged and Inclusive Hiring Process
• Set up for Success Onboarding Process
• Most Inclusive at Heart Workplace Awards

As a BCorp and values-driven agency, committed to a people-centred culture, it’s exciting to get recognition of the efforts we’re all making as a team to be a safe, inclusive and progressive workplace.

The inaugural Shift People Awards were designed to celebrate the people, organisations, and campaigns that take progressive workplaces to the next level, and showcase what outstanding places to work look like, in the hope of inspiring other organisations to find their way forward with new ways of working.

It was also great to see that some of the actions Empower have taken to become an inclusive workplace were featured in the accompanying guide, called “Powering and Retaining Progressive Teams”.

Here’s the extract that looks at how Empower has become an Inclusive at Heart workplace:

• Invested in values-aligned HR and DEI support to advise us at challenging moments
• Run DEI recruitment surveys, to understand the diversity in our pool of candidates
• Established an anonymised, transparent recruitment process which includes sharing questions ahead of time, paying interviewees for their time, etc
• Established progressive HR policies such as equal parental leave, adoption, child bereavement, infertility, menopause, reproductive health, miscarriage, and gender reassignment
• Became “Disability Confident” Committed

Here are Empower’s insights into what makes for an engaged and inclusive hiring process:

We have introduced an anonymised recruitment process to mitigate against the unconscious biases we all have, whereby identifiable information such as names, ages, genders, photos, geographical locations and university education are removed from the applications before they are reviewed for shortlisting. 

Lived experience, values and core competencies are much more important to us. 

We put together some guidance outlining how we do recruitment at Empower so candidates know what to expect, and this is linked and easily accessible in every job advert we post online.

Empower’s onboarding process – featuring our Manual of Me exercise – was also highlighted in the guide. Each new team member authors their own ‘manual’, where they share highly personalised insights about how we can best support them to bring their best selves to work. 

From their preferred communication styles to what gets them out of bed in the morning, these are simple, yet extremely powerful tools for normalising inclusivity and acceptance.

Catherine Raboteur, our HR and Operations Manager, said: 

“Our nomination as finalists at the Shift People Awards reflects the united dedication of our team in sustaining an environment where individuals from all walks of life can excel. We’ve established specific key performance indicators for our leadership to foster an inclusive culture, and we’re committed to regularly reviewing and enhancing our methods to embed this in Empower’s culture.”

For further insights into our diversity and inclusivity initiatives, visit our dedicated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion page.

Empower believe that living our values and empowering our team are integral to our success, learn more about our approach in our 2023 B Corp Impact Report.