Embracing diversity

We believe that by embracing diversity in all forms we encourage original and collaborative thinking.

We want to encourage lots of different perspectives. Doing so will allow us to deliver the best results.

We are committed to achieving a working environment which provides equality of opportunity and freedom from unlawful discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, pregnancy and maternity, marital status, gender, disability, religion or beliefs, age or sexual orientation.

Our Equality and Diversity Policy aims to remove unfair and discriminatory practices within the Company and to encourage full contribution from its diverse community.

We are committed to actively opposing all forms of discrimination and ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in any part of our business or within our supply chains.

Esken believes that all employees and clients are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. Our Equality and Diversity Policy aims to:

  • prevent, reduce and stop all forms of unlawful discrimination in line with the Equality Act 2010; and
  • ensure that recruitment, promotion, training, development, assessment, benefits, pay, terms and conditions of employment, redundancy and dismissals are determined on the basis of capability, qualifications, experience, skills and productivity.

We are committed to achieving a recruitment process and working environment which provides equality of opportunity for all and freedom from unlawful discrimination or harassment on the grounds of race, sex, pregnancy and maternity, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, disability, religion or beliefs, age or sexual orientation. We therefore utilise blind screening to select candidates for shortlisting and interview.

As part of our three-year People Strategy we are progressing our diversity and inclusion plan. We will assess and monitor the success of any campaigns and our strategy over time through setting clear objectives, reporting annually on our progress and maintaining our commitment to diversity and inclusion at all levels.

Since 2018 we have been working towards having a more representative gender split across our workforce and specifically for a minimum of 33% female representation in leadership roles by 2020.

We have made good progress and our female leadership population now accounts for 24% of this group. To support our ability to attract wider and more diverse talent into our business, we launched an Agile Working Policy in 2020 which will allow carers and working parents in particular to achieve a better work/life integration.

To enable us to further understand the diversity that exists within our workforce, we launched wider reporting categories in our HR system so we can actively monitor and better attract underrepresented groups in the communities we work within. These categories include clearer ethnicity and nationality groups, as well as widening our gender category to include transgender and non-binary employees.