Orbis and the GEC, part 2: Interview with GEC CoFounder Cat Wildman.

In our last blog we announced Orbis’s exciting partnership with the GEC. Our experience using their ground-breaking framework for establishing better equality in the workplace has been so effective that we think everybody needs to hear more about them.

To that end, this week Connects brings you an interview with Cat Wildman, Co-Founder and creator of the GEC app.

Let’s dive in.

In Conversation with Cat Wildman.

GEC Co-Founder Cat tells us all about their mission, the change they’ve seen, and what’s to come.

Recent social movements have inspired businesses and society as a whole to pick up conversations and review diversity and inclusion, from personal and professional perspectives.

What positive changes have you seen happen recently across workplaces?

In 2017 the #MeToo movement went global and the Government's Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative was announced and since then we have seen a steady increase in organisations taking diversity, equality and inclusion more seriously. I'll admit that I worried at the start of the pandemic that all the brilliant enthusiasm we'd seen for DE&I would be discarded, but George Floyd's murder in May 2020 and the global rise of #BlackLivesMatter kept it very firmly on the agenda. Out of that particular tragedy came a huge surge in support for anti-racism, self-directed education - and employees who were ready to stand up and demand action.

The organisations that choose to become GEC Members are the ones that aren't just paying lip service to DE&I or looking to tick a box or win an award. They want real data, to find real gaps, and to close them sustainably. That for us has been the most positive change we have seen.

What change would you still like to see happen, what’s GEC's mission?

I'd like to see more people standing up and confidently talking about their DE&I work without the need to qualify it with the phrase "I'm not an expert at DE&I".

For far too long it’s felt like doing great things in DE&I was only an option for those who could afford expensive consultancy - or a head of D&I.

We researched this and found that organisations and individuals had been completely disempowered from finding and closing their own gaps.

So our mission became to re-empower organisations - using their own data plus our ground-breaking framework and incredible collective of over 320 subject matter experts.

Nobody is more of an expert at running your organisation than you are; our role is simply to add the data, education and support you need to break your own new ground in DE&I.

What do you often identify within companies that they are poorly rated on? What are the most popular areas of improvement?

It varies with size, industry and age.

There's a theme emerging in some younger, more dynamic companies around balancing workload and recognition, inclusive banter and socialising.

There's also a theme emerging in some older, more established companies with progression and advancement, trust and psychological safety.

It differs between industries too - we tend to see really purpose-driven organisations that work closely with their end customers being more aware of wider societal DE&I context, and their drive to close gaps is more fuelled by the desire to create a fairer society.

In some B to B companies there's still strong motivation but for different reasons; they might be looking to better represent their customers or clients, or to be more competitive.

Again we can also apply the lens of looking at data between demographic groups; parents and non parents, different races and ethnicities, sexes and orientations. Interestingly when we see issues of internalised sexism in organisations, it tends to show up in males and females pretty much equally.

How can we encourage allyship in workplace communities?

I think this one is all about allowing employees to walk a mile in each other's shoes without placing the labour of making that happen onto marginalised colleagues.

After the murder or George Floyd, a lot of our Black collective members commented that it was their Black colleagues who seemed to be tasked with fixing the problem - by being asked to sit on panels and share their (very personal, often traumatic) stories with the whole organisation, answer questions and educate everyone on why they shouldn't be racist anymore.

We see this with lots of other marginalised groups; LGBTQ+, women, disabled, trans and those with gender variant identities. Whilst those employees might feel a strong drive to do something to help - actually it's not their day job and it shouldn't be automatically made their responsibility either (unless they expressly and enthusiastically volunteer for it). If they are happy to do it, great but it shouldn't be an expectation.

There are thousands of people in the country whose living it is to train organisations on these topics, either by sharing their own stories or educating on the topic more generally - usually both. We have 320+ of these people and I'd love to see organisations investing in professional speakers and trainers and relieving the pressure and expectations on their own employees, who came into the office to be an accountant or designer, not to educate their colleagues on how not to marginalise them.  

What are the most challenging areas of driving change and encouraging diversity? Do you notice any specific areas where people show some resistance to learning and changing?

One persistent challenge we see is recruitment and pipelines. Organisations are still finding it difficult to reach minoritised groups and convince them to join - which is understandable and will take time - but there are so many things they can still do to help speed this up.

There's still a lot of confusion about whether recruiting for diversity equals positive discrimination, whether quotas are helpful, whether blind CVs are helpful or just masking a deeper issue...I have a lot of evidence-based strong opinions on all of these topics but that's a post for another day!

There's also still a lot of work to do in terms of raising awareness of what D&I is for, and why everyone is talking about it. The stats are there, the case for D&I is crystal clear; so many demographic groups are suffering daily, missing out, dying at disproportionate rates, experiencing myriad barriers to opportunity - yet a lot of people still have their heads in the sand about it and feel like it's a fad.