Inclusive Welcome Survey

Please fill out our short survey, which aims to find out what an ‘inclusive welcome’ by front of house staff would look like in a museum, gallery or visitor attraction spaces, for as wide a swathe of the public as possible.

An inclusive welcome can be defined as feeling included, invited, and that you belong in the spaces mentioned, irrespective of your background, or how you identify.

We estimate that it will take around 5 to 10 minutes to fill in. Please write as much or as little as you like.

Survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/J9QWG6L 

Survey closing deadline: Friday 10th of May 2024.

 

Thank you for your time and effort and please pass on this survey to anyone you like.

Any further questions contact us at: info@pilaa.co.uk

 

How the soft life can inspire the workplace

Written by B.J Woodstein, PhD

The phrase “the soft life” sounds wonderful to many people. When you hear it, you might imagine folks lounging about on velvet sofas, eating chocolate, while listening to string quartets, or perhaps you’re envisioning people sleeping late, then going for a gentle swim, followed by a scrumptious lunch buffet and an afternoon of board games. Whatever you might picture, it probably is something relaxing and pleasurable. It may also feel completely out of reach for you. You might shake your head and say your life is nowhere near soft; on the contrary, it feels pretty hard, with long hours at work, rushed lunches at your desk, pointless meetings, and not enough time with your relatives and friends.

But did you know that the soft life is actually achievable? And it’s also compatible with work? The concept of it can actually inspire the workplace and make everyone a little happier. Maybe we can all reach a point of, if not very soft lives, then perhaps medium-firm ones rather than hard.

A recent article in the Guardian noted that millennials in particular are leaving traditional careers and opting out of standard career paths in favour of the soft life. What’s meant by the idea of a soft life, however, is not a room full of young people reading novels or scrolling on their phones all day, even if you might get that impression from a headline that pairs “millennials” with “quitting the rat race”. Instead, it’s about more balance in their lives, and a recognition that as important as work is, there are better and worse ways to go about engaging in the world of work.

In the Guardian article, people talk about the stressful jobs they had, which didn’t even always pay enough to cover their bills or enable them to enter the property market or have children. They were exhausted from spending countless hours in an office and had no energy when they got home for anything else so that they ended up just crashing. 

Some of these people found that their managers just kept pushing them, rather than showing any empathy. Rather than managers trying to adapt the jobs to the individuals, the managers here seemed to expect the individuals to adapt themselves to the jobs and to make the jobs the centre of their lives. Heading towards burn-out, the people in the article chose to give up their jobs and change their lives entirely. Some moved back in with their parents, while others left the high rents of the city for the country. Some left the field they’d been working in and chose lower-paid and/or part-time work instead.

Interestingly, the examples in the article are all women. That might be a clear sign that females in particular feel pressured by the idea of “having it all” and that it is not sustainable to work 40 or more hours a week while also having relationships with friends and family, raising children, exercising, staying healthy and developing hobbies. Even though this concept may be particularly relevant to women, the learnings that we can take from it will help everyone in our society, no matter their gender or personal situation.

So how can we learn from all these people rushing towards the door to leave the hard life in search of a softer one?

 

To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.

Missed Connections

Written by B.J Woodstein, PhD

Have you ever seen someone across the room or on a bus and wanted to speak to them? You didn’t know them, but there was something that pulled you to them, and you felt a connection of some kind. Then the person leaves the room or disembarks from the bus and the moment ends and you never get to know them. Or perhaps you heard someone you didn’t know say something really interesting and you wanted to join the conversation, but you were too shy and you didn’t have the courage. Then the conversation moved on and you didn’t ever take part in it.

Similarly, at work, have you ever felt like you wanted to get to know a colleague and maybe work on a project together or even become friends but you didn’t know how to start the conversation? Or have you thought about how you had a skill that you knew would contribute to a task, but you were afraid of bragging about yourself? Or have you been in a meeting and wanted to speak up about an important issue, but couldn’t quite formulate the right words at the time? Later, you might mentally kick yourself and think you should have been brave enough to talk, to suggest, to question. But the moment is gone.

Or is it? Is that moment of possible connection truly past?

Well, we’d argue that it isn’t. In the world beyond the workplace, the concept of missed connections has long been a popular one. Sometimes people have felt a spark between themselves and someone else, whether romantically or otherwise, and didn’t act on it at the time, but later realised that they didn’t want to let it go. So they put an advert in a newspaper or online or they asked for help from friends, and they managed to connect with the person after all. Sure, in some cases, nothing came of it; maybe the other person didn’t feel what the person placing the ad felt, or perhaps there was no real spark after all. But sometimes it did lead on to something more: a creative partnership, a beautiful friendship, a short-term relationship, even marriage and kids.

If we’re willing to accept the idea of rectifying missed connections outside the workplace, then why not within a place of employment too? Maybe we can call this the “keep calm and speak up” approach; in other words, don’t assume you wasted the opportunity and that your chance is now over forever. Take some time, think about what you want to accomplish, and make it happen. How you do that, however, will depend in part on what the scenario is. We’ll cover a few common “missed workplace connections” in what follows.

 

To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.

10 Women Who Have Inspired Inclusion

Today is International Women’s Day, falling on the 8th of March each year. The annual observation encourages people to recognise and strive for better rights for girls and women around the world, and build a more inclusive and equitable society. There are a lot of important women who have made a difference or who continue to do so today, and at PILAA, we thought we’d mention a few who have inspired us. As difficult as this was to round it down to ten, we had great fun coming together as a team and bringing you these names:

 

Caroline Criado Perez (1984-) – The 2019 book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez has been very influential in making people aware of how women have been ignored or disregarded in research, policy and more generally in society. There is an Invisible Women podcast and newsletter, which continues this advocacy work.

Gloria Steinem (1934-) – Activist and writer Gloria Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine and has been an important figure in feminism, reminding people that the world will not be equitable or safe until all humans are treated with respect and fairness.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (1959-) – In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw came up with the concept of “intersectionality”, which she used to explain that people are never just one thing (for example, their gender or educational level), but instead sit at the intersection of many different characteristics. How they are treated and how they feel about themselves depends on their own unique combination, and in EDI work, we need to remember that there are no homogenous groups. We’re all invidivuals and need to be treated as such.

Judy Singer (1951-) – Sociologist Judy Singer coined the term “neurodiversity,” which reflects the idea that all human brains work differently and that one type of brain is no better than another. She has been a pioneer in the disability-positive movement, particularly for her work on autism spectrum disorder.

Rosie Jones (1990-) – British comedian, writer and presenter is a staunch disability advocate. Being a woman with cerebral palsy, she incorporates this part of her identity into her stand-up comedy, thereby raising awareness about the condition. In 2023 she took the brave step to make a documentary based on the abusive language and the slur words used to describe disabled people. Her feelings of continuously being poked like a bear, due to peoples’ words, outweighed the controversy around her use of the ‘R-Word’ slur. 

Sirimavo Bandaranaike (1916-2000) and Golda Meir (1898-1978) – Politicians Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Golda Meir were some of the first female leaders of contemporary times. Bandaranaike was the prime minister of Sri Lanka for three non-successive terms, while Meir was the first female head of state in the Middle East, serving as prime minister of Israel and then later as the country’s the secretary of labour and housing. While neither leader was without controversy, their strength and knowledge inspired other women.

India Willougby (1965-) – Broadcaster, Journalist and the World’s 1st Trans Newsreader, Willoughby was also the co-host Loose Women. She is a trans activist, fighting for the community and women’s rights, and due to her campaign work, she was nominated in 2023 for Woman of the Year. In February 2023 she was a panellist on Question Time, discussing trans women using single-sex spaces and the Scottish gender Recognition Reform Bill. Despite some hostile questions, Willoughby was praised by the community with how she handled the audience.

Adrienne Rich (1929-2010) – Poet and essayist Adrienne Rich has not only been important for her creative writing, but also because of her idea of “compulsory heterosexuality”. With this phrase, she suggested that girls and women were forced into the institution of heterosexuality, regardless of how they actually felt, and this then structured their lives. She made the concerns of women, especially lesbian/gay/queer ones, more visible.

bell hooks (1952-2021) – was the pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins. hooks was a prominent thinker in unpacking representations of race, gender, feminism, love, class and overlapping ideologies of oppression. It was the essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, which basically described black women’s experience of watching film, being the same as black men on the grounds of race, but separate at the intersections of gender, that is a reminder, that we all see differently.

Doubling Down: Why is it so hard for Leaders to say I’m sorry?

Written by Dr Ope Lori

One of the major talking points in last month’s news, was the controversy, surrounding MP Lee Anderson, the Conservative whip from Ashfield who was suspended from his post, following racist, anti-muslim and Islamophobic comments made towards Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London. Whilst what he said in our opinion was racist, anti-muslim and Islamophobic, what this article puts into the spotlight, is the inability for leaders, now privy to such comments failing to recognise them as such and to offer an apology.

Why give an apology you might ask? Why was it so hard for leaders to call out his comments for what they were? Further, why was it so difficult for them to say sorry? Until now, despite multiple questions to top Conservative MPs, including the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, no apology has been issued, either by Anderson, or by Rishi, the head of the party and indeed our nation.

Whilst this case emerges from the political arena, it is not dissimilar to navigating workplace contexts, where senior figures or CEO’s speaking on behalf of their organisation, fail to recognise wrongdoing and offer apologies. As we will see from the BBC interview between Laura Kuenssberg and Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, aired on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the interaction gives us a blueprint for the dos and don’ts of how leaders should handle these situations, especially in order for them to build back trust and avoid further alienating their teams. It will look at good leadership behaviours and set the context for strategies that can be used when issuing an apology, for managers or anyone with leadership responsibilities. Even if you’re not in either of these categories, there is still the benefit of knowing how such messages would be received, especially by those on the other side of hearing the apology, for that is something that shouldn’t be ignored.

To start, let us go over what happened in the interview. Going straight for the jugular, Kuenssberg asks Dowden whether he agreed the comments made by Lee Anderson were racist, anti-muslim and Islamophobic? These were the terms referenced by Dr Halima Begum, the chief executive of ActionAid UK, when giving her opinion over the incident. Dowden, refraining from answering the question with a yes or no, goes on to say that it was right for the prime minister to have taken action, following Anderson refusing to offer an apology.

Dowden is then shown a clip of the comments made by Anderson. Without going into detail with what was said, the reasons why I agree that the comments are racist, anti-muslim and Islamophobic, are because, firstly, it lumps Sadiq Khan in with terrorists, simply because he is Muslim. The comment reinforces racist tropes on Muslim identities. Secondly, the comments reinforce who is classed as British and others who are not, even though Khan himself was born and raised in South London. His comments echo the words of the former US President Donald Trump, when at a press conference in 2020, at the height of Covid-19, made an offensive anti-Asian comment to an Asian-American White House correspondent. 

To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.