What is the Dignity at Work and Study policy? Mhairi Taylor, Deputy Director for EDI at the University of Dundee explains and discusses other aspects of her role.

(Recording duration 19 minutes and 16 seconds)

Transcript

LC: Hello, I’m Louise Campbell, and you’re listening to EDI conversations from the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law at the University of Dundee. Today I’m joined by Mhairi Taylor, who’s the university’s deputy director for Equality, Diversity and inclusion. Welcome, Mhairi.  I wonder if we could start off with you telling us a little bit about your pathway to joining us here at Dundee and maybe something about your day-to-day activities that are involved with your role as Deputy Director for ED and I.

MT: So I’ve joined the University of Dundee fairly recently. I’ve been here for six months now.  And previously I was at the University of Glasgow. I was there for 18 years and although I had three different roles in my substantive time there, I started off on a European funded project that looked at the academic glass ceiling and how we get more women into more senior positions. And then the university set up an equality and diversity unit, and I had the officer role. And then I had a manager role and then I had a head of ED and I role. I got to a point where I felt that it was time to move on and have a new challenge. So that’s when I applied for this role at the University of Dundee as Deputy Director of ED and I. My position here is quite similar to the position I had in Glasgow as in I’m responsible for supporting the implementation of all of the Equality Act and the public sector equality duties. And although the team sits within the People Directorate, we have responsibility for staff and for students, so we can look at a range of things from policy reviews, revisions, formations, data, data analytics, how we take forward policy and strategy based on our intelligence from data to delivery of training, talking about best practise around ED and I, to supporting staff or students who may feel like they’ve experienced harassment or bullying or even other areas around that such as gender based violence, racism, homophobia, etcetera. So it’s a very broad remit and one of the reasons I like the area I work in is that you get to support people, build a better workplace and study environment, but also there’s never two days that are the same. It’s always different and it’s always changing.

LC: What would you say are the main priorities for the university in terms of commitment to ED and I and why?

MT: I think there’s been an acknowledgement by the university in the last few years post a review by an external organisation that they would like to invest more within this area, so there’s been a sort of strengthening of the recruitment around the ED and I team, bringing in my position, but also bringing in other posts within that area to support more strategic work. So I think there is a range of things that are coming across my desk that we’d like to review and a big one’s around data and making sure our data is accurate and current and suitably accessible. I’d say there’s a big focus on doing a more holistic policy review that’s both looking at specific policies and identifying gaps in policies and that’s both on the student and the staff side. I think there is a commitment towards thinking about where do we have training and development opportunities for staff in particular. And then there’s work around existing work relating to Athena Swan and the Race Equality Charter and other kite marks that we might be interested in. In bringing in a high-profile team, the institution will want to see specific results and there’s been in development an EDI strategy that’s kind of already developed before I arrived that will be launched really soon that focuses on 4 main areas. It allows the institution to be a bit more specific around how we’re focusing on various elements of those within that time frame. So I think there’s a sense of some freedom for the team to focus in on the bits that are most pressing or most urgent, but I think we just generally a sense that it’s been very necessary to get somebody in at our level to focus on this more strategically rather than as an add on to anybody else’s workload.

LC: So could you explain the importance of the Racial Equality Charter and the Athena Swan Charter? What do they mean for us as an institution? What do they mean for us in schools?

MT: So let’s start with Athena Swan because I’m most familiar with that one. I would say that what it brings to the organisation is a real sense of focus on where your attrition points are happening across your pipeline, be that with men or with women, because obviously it’s different if you’re looking at Nursing, say, compared to if you’re looking at Engineering and actually it means that you can pinpoint your support and be more systemic in how you support those areas. I think that really helps academic institutions because talking about women’s career development, as an example, can be quite a nebulous idea. Of actually saying, OK, so we lose all of our women at between grade 8-9 in this School. Have we spoken to those people that have lost? What have they explained to us? What could we have done to keep them? And being more pinpointed and targeted – is it about the benefits we offer? Is it because when they come back from a period of maternity leave, we don’t put in offerings of support? And you can make sure that you’re tailoring what you need to make sure that it’s very specific. Now I know there’s a lot of criticism of some of the charter marks because take a lot of work and you need a lot of information for them, but they are a real catalyst, I feel, that helps you delve into information and look at in a really strategic, developmental way. Now Race Equality Charter I’m less familiar with. I think what it does is it helps you again, not just focus on the staff journey, but also really a big focus on the student journey at institutional level, about systemically, how are we addressing racism on campus, which we know exists because the HRC did an inquiry into it in 2019 and it exists all across the British Isles and all campuses, all students and staff had experienced it. And it’s really about if we want to be a diverse, global, international institution that brings students and staff into our campus, then we need to have the most welcoming campus we can and address those issues where we can. The other thing that both the charter marks give you is a benchmark across the sector and obviously they support what has been traditionally quite – it’s very hierarchical, HE. Although it likes to think of itself as like a meritocracy and egalitarian, it is actually based on lots of hierarchy and at the top of the hierarchy for a very long time is have been white men and it gives us a benchmarking exercise to go look across the organisation to decide where you want to go. So ultimately it’ll end up benefiting people because people will choose whether or not they want to go to a particular institution based on Oh, they have an Athena Swan Gold award, or they’re active in the REC, or they’re not, so it’ll actually inform people’s movements across the sector. I suspect mostly staff rather than students because it’s these concepts are probably quite difficult for some students, particularly if you’re just out of school when you’re probably thinking about other things. But actually I think it’ll become or has become a bit of a recruitment tool as well to show that we’re on that journey and what we’re doing about that journey.

LC: Let’s move on to talk about the Dignity at Work and Study policy, which, amongst those of us who see it on a regular basis, is known as the DAWS policy. One of your early actions when you came into your role was to revise it. I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about why that was. Maybe tell us a little bit about the purpose of the policy, why the changes were necessary and something about what you see as being the role of the DAWS policy in amongst everything else that we’re doing at the university.

 MT: Dignity at Work and Study policy is essentially your policy that looks at harassment for staff and for students, so if you feel you’re being harassed or bullied by a colleague or a fellow peer or student or student on staff or staff on a student, it’s the framework for original resolution for those issues.  So the previous policy had embedded within it an investigation process. And what that meant was there was an investigation. If you’re a member of staff. And you had experienced harassment or bullying from a fellow member of staff, you went through a DAWS investigation, which was quite a lengthy process with the formal investigation manager, and a report and recommendations that came out. And an appeals process as well from either party and if that did not finalise the resolution, you could then take out a grievance and then you would have a grievance, an investigating manager for a grievance and there would be another investigation and that would come out in another outcome. So basically it was doubling the investigation process. It was taking a very long time and because in something like the grievance policy, because there’s employment legislation that scaffolds around it, there’s a lot more rights and protections for all the parties involved there and understanding around what happens. It also meant that if something was to go wrong in all of that process and you ended up at an employment tribunal, you would end up having to look at your DAWS investigation followed by your grievance investigation and then the outcome before all of that happened. For some people, the DAWS policy and the investigation worked, but for many people it didn’t, and it took an awful long time before resolutions were put in place. The motivation behind changing the policy was to make it slicker, shorter and to put an emphasis on informal resolution rather than formal resolutions and lengthy investigations. So the main changes to the policy are that we’ve just taken out that investigation, it’s very much focused on how do you resolve informally. Support is there around informal resolution and if informal resolution doesn’t work, the formal process is then grievance for staff on staff or if it’s more serious, it could go straight to staff discipline. For students, it would either be a referral into a complaints procedure if it’s a more to do with a service provision, or to student discipline if it’s student on student. And hopefully that will resolve things early that need to be resolved, place the emphasis more on early resolution and support around early resolution, but also then move things into the appropriate formal process afterwards, should that become necessary or it’s already at that stage anyway. The policy was about 30 pages long, and now it’s about 5 or 6. It’s got appendices within it that define types of discrimination, as you’d see in the in the Equality Act, like direct, indirect, victimisation, harassment and it also has examples of harassing or bullying behaviours. Harassment is defined in the Equality Act but bullying isn’t so we’ve kind of taken a definition from ACAS. It’s just it’s shorter, slicker and with more of an emphasis on informal resolution.

LC: In the process of developing the new policy, did you draw on other perspectives, other voices from around the university?

MT: So we consulted, as you would expect with all of our trade union partners, and got feedback from them around what would be helpful and what we could use within it. We also consulted with the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which includes representation from our staff networks and from our student union.
And it was also taken to the Education Committee as well. So we’ve had quite a broad committee and trade union and official body feedback within the process. Some of the feedback that we got includes things like could we have a process map because it is quite confusing as to which policy you’re referring to, whether you’re staff or student. We also had feedback on what we could build around the policy to support it, because there’s sometimes no point in just putting a policy on the web and then letting everybody deal with it anyway they can. So what we’ve done is we’ve built a toolkit that sits around the policy and this includes the process map I’ve just mentioned. Advice on how to report an incident because obviously one of the motivations is to support people to report. And then what support systems are in place for people, who you might want to report something but in the short term, if you’re a student, you might also want to reach out to the harassment advisors network or get in touch with student counselling services or speak to the early disputes resolution service or one of those other services that already exists. So we’ve got advice for that for both staff and for students. We’ve got guidance for staff supporting a student, guidance for staff supporting staff. We’ve obviously put out raised the profile of what bullying and harassment can and cannot look like. We’ve also put in place guidance around supporting responding parties so someone who’s been accused of harassment or bullying, like what should they think about? How do they reflect? Because as an employer and an educator, we have a duty of care to both parties within those disputes. So it’s really important that we support them as well. And finally, with within the toolkit, we’ve also put out guidance on just how to support healthy working and learning environment generally because actually having a policy that focuses on informal resolution and nipping things early in the bud is often about how do we address things from the outset. How do you create the culture that you want to work within or study within? And that relies upon you having the skills and the understanding to set that tone early on in the relationships.

LC: So that sounds from the way you’re describing it there, that sounds as though everybody’s involved in this. This isn’t something that just sits within a particular role or within one person’s remit. It sounds like it’s something for everyone to engage with.

MT: Absolutely. We’re all responsible for our own behaviour at work or at study. And therefore we all have a responsibility to act in a respectful, trusting, supportive manner. That’s not to say that some people don’t have bad days. Everybody has a bad day. I have a bad day. We sometimes we do just, you know, we’re a bit short with someone or we’re we say something in a tone that we don’t really mean and that’s OK. But sometimes, but sometimes it’s good to know that you’ve done that and recognise that. And then apologise for that behaviour, even if you’re not in, don’t see at that point in time, or more importantly, if someone comes to you and says you use this tone. Had I done something wrong? You can actively reflect on your behaviour and then approach it. Most people don’t go out with the intention of harassing and bullying their colleagues. Most people want to work in a happy, productive environment and have a good sense when they go home from work every day that they’ve contributed meaningfully to what they’re doing, and they’ve gotten the reward and recognition beyond their salary back for that, and that’s often about the relationships you build and develop with your work and the creativity that comes out of that. So everybody’s responsible for their own behaviours and everybody’s responsible for ensuring that the behaviours are supporting and inclusive and welcoming culture where they work, so yes, everybody can contribute meaningfully within that. And everybody can support when they’ve maybe reflected in that self-reflection phase. If they feel that they’ve, for whatever reason, they may be not managed to maintain that for a day because that’s OK and that’s one of the important things about the policy is that it’s about that informal resolution means that if you were to come to me, Louise and say, Mhairi, you’re just a bit snippy there and I didn’t really understand why, that rather than me going defensive – I was not. That did not happen – I go. ‘Oh right, maybe it was. I didn’t really mean that. I’m sorry. I was a little bit short there. I didn’t mean that. I apologise.’ And that’s really powerful in a working environment. The power of apology is huge, especially from someone in a leadership position. It can be phenomenally powerful.

LC: Just in wrapping up today, I’ve got 3 little quick-fire questions for you. What’s your favourite snack food?


MT: Probably, if I was to be really specific, Co-op’s own brand salt and Chardonnay vinegar crisps.

LC: What’s your favourite place to be?

MT: Probably the mountains. I love hill walking and I don’t get enough time to do it now, but I if I can just be up on a hill. Yes, I find it very meditative.

LC: And last but not least, who do you admire?

MT: There’s so many people that I admire – that’s really difficult. Someone who can be bold and strong, and articulate what they mean and what they think and are skilled within that, and creative and no longer here, but I always admired her, was Nina Simone. Just what a phenomenal woman. I was very privileged to get to see her live when I was at University of Liverpool. Such talent and such an advocate, and never ever lost her nerve in the face of masses of adversity.

LC: Thank you so much. It’s been great speaking to you today, Mhairi.

MT: Thank you.