Mother’s Day – 10th In the UK, Mother’s Day is celebrated this year on 10 March. It’s important to remember that this day, while well-intentioned, […]
On 7 March 2024, people in the UK will be celebrating World Book Day. While some view the holiday as just a chance to dress up as their favourite character, in fact this is an important occasion run by a charity with the aim of encouraging people from all backgrounds and educational levels to read. Many schools and some workplaces use World Book Day as an opportunity to talk about literature and literacy more broadly. PILAA Research Associate Dr B.J. Woodstein is especially keen on World Book Day, so we asked her a few questions about it:
Q: B.J., what does World Book Day mean to you?
A: I love reading, and I also work as a writer and translator, so I absolutely believe in the importance of books. Some people might call me idealistic, but I truly think that if people read more, we’d have fewer problems in the world. If you read books about people from different cultures, religions and backgrounds than you have, you’ll learn about them, and they won’t feel as “other”. You’ll realise that actually we have more in common than we think. We’ll be slower to judge and to be prejudiced. From an EDI perspective, that is hugely beneficial. We should all read books about as many different types of people as we can. It’s educational and pleasurable at the same time.
Q: Can you say something about your work as a translator?
A: I translate from the Scandinavian languages, mostly Swedish, to English. I’m especially passionate about working on children’s literature, but I also translate adult literature, non-fiction, academic books, cookbooks and more. I’ve learned over time that people write differently and about different subjects in different languages, and I think translation is important because it enables us to bring new ideas and perspectives across into other languages. We’d be in a constricted echo-chamber if we only were able to read books in one or two languages. And think about how many great works of literature we’d miss out on! I’m privileged to be able to make Swedish literature available to audiences outside Sweden.
Q: How will you be celebrating World Book Day?
A: I have young children, so we’ll definitely be doing costumes. At the moment, one of my children is planning to dress up as a favourite character from Swedish lit, and the other has a Victorian-style costume to reflect a book that she really enjoyed. We read every day in our household as it is, but I expect that on 7 March, we’ll do some extra chatting about books and some shared reading. Storytime is one of the best parts of the day for us! I encourage everyone to read aloud, whether to kids, elderly relatives, partners or friends. It’s wonderful having that shared reading experience together.
To find out more about PILAA Research Associate Dr B.J. Woodstein, view her bio here and if you would like to work with her on your next project, get in touch with us!
Written by B.J. Woodstein, PhD
Is ADHD a problem for the workplace? Or is it in fact an advantage, particularly if the employee with ADHD is properly supported? We’re going to strongly argue for the latter, even while acknowledging that it is true that this form of neurodivergence can of course be a struggle to handle at times.
A recent article in the BBC told the story of a person with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who has faced a number of challenging situations because of her neurodevelopmental difference. For example, she didn’t properly read the terms and conditions of a new credit card and ended up with lots of extra, unnecessary fees. And she also missed a flight due to not seeing the correct departure time on her boarding card. Other examples in the article were about people losing glasses, losing house keys, impulsively buying unneeded products and then not returning them even though they didn’t really want them, or struggling with budgeting. All of these situations can affect the workplace as well as impacting people on a personal and emotional level. For instance, that flight missed was for a work role, and someone losing keys or other supplies, or making unexpected purchases can cost a workplace significant sums of money along with increasing stress levels. And those who experience problems like this may beat themselves up or worry about how they are perceived by their colleagues.
For this reason, managers need to understand how to best support colleagues with ADHD. But it is also important for them to not view ADHD as a burden or an annoyance; instead, they need to remember how amazing the particular traits and skills that ADHD brings with it. Often, when people think of ADHD, they immediately use terms such as impulsive, inattentive, distractible, hyper, unfocused, and other negative phrases. And sometimes people with ADHD do struggle with some of those behaviours. But if you look at the other side of the coin, as it were, we could instead use phrases such as creative, hyper-focussed, energetic, enthusiast, multitasking, and problem-solving. It’s the same person, with the same type of neurodivergence, but rather than criticise them for being easily distracted, we could consider how much energy they have and how interested they are in the world. The world is such an exciting place, no wonder they want to shift gears regularly and to swiftly move from one topic to another.
It has even been posited that humans evolved as we did thanks in large part to ADHD. The thinking goes that it was those restless, impulsive people who we would now call ADHDers who moved out of Africa and went on to discover and adapt to other parts of the world. That is to say, that they weren’t satisfied with the status quo and so they pressed for change and exploration. In fact, there is some suggestion that genes related to ADHD are more common in regions of the world that were settled later, such as South America, which would imply that it was ADHDers who kept pushing to move and to discover new places and new ways of living.
To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.
Written by B.J. Woodstein, PhDIs ADHD a problem for the workplace? Or is it in fact an advantage, particularly if the employee with ADHD is […]
Lunar New Year – 10th. On the 10th of February, the Lunar New Year begins. Though generally associated with China in Western consciousness, in fact […]
It is now the start of the first full week of the year, which sees many people returning to work after the festive holidays. Some of you however, might have started last week. Whatever your situation, we hope that you have managed to relax, recoup and are re-energized for what we hope will be a fantastic year ahead.
Last year at PILAA we had seen much growth in the organisation, beyond monetary value. We welcomed new Membership clients, and we are pleased to see how those relationships have flourished, with Members such as Corps Security winning awards for their commitment to EDI excellence in their specific industry.
We had won tenders at organisations doing meaningful work for their communities of service users. Some of those tenders have now come to an end, but we are grateful to the lasting relationships that we have made with those organisations. Like many of our clients that we have worked with over the years, we will continue to be good friends and offer support when needed.
We welcomed new team members at PILAA, with strong backgrounds in their respective fields. Despite the challenges of recruiting new employees under this current climate, we are pleased to say that we were still able to get the best people to join us and grow our PILAA family.
At the end of last year, we were pleased to have participated at London’s ExCeL Retrain Expo, running alongside The Business Show 2023. We met lots of interesting people from various industries and we are excited to let you know that 2024 will see the materialisation of some of those conversations into exciting projects. So do watch this space. We are also excited to share the winners of the competition we held at the ExCeL for free training. All entrants will be informed of the outcome after this message has gone out.
Finally, in December we were pleased to be on the judging panel of the DOJ Gaminz Festival, held by our clients DOJ Gaminz in Nigeria. It was an awe-inspiring two-day event; the first with leading gamers in Nigeria and the second with game developers responding to the theme of ‘breaking stereotypes’ in their video game submissions. There was so much talent and innovation in this sector, and we are grateful to our friends at DOJ Gaminz, who have allowed us to be part of their EDI journey within the gaming arena.
Further, we were also fortunate to have been able to deliver our CPD Course ‘The Grassroots of Diversity’, to Security Officers at the event. It was great to see Officers engaging with many EDI themes, such as unconscious bias, providing inclusive welcomes, (dis)ability and accessibility, but applying it to the landscape of Nigeria. Doing EDI work in the UK has its own challenges, but tailoring EDI for it to be culturally specific to where our clients are based, brings new and exciting learning opportunities and we were grateful to be in such a position.
Whilst we know there is lots more to be thankful for and to do, our focus for this year is to build on being a forward-thinking organisation, addressing EDI within and beyond its own parameters. This year you will see input from expert thinkers on exciting new topics. You will see the development of our EDI image bank and A-Zs in various identity categories. You will see the development of new PILAA-led research and resources. We will continue to deliver our workshops unpacking EDI issues at their root causes, whilst learning about the various industries that we enter through our work with past, present and new clients. We will continue to answer your mental health, accessibility, and well-being questions, irrespective of whether they seem too big or too small. Finally, we will continue to be advocates of EDI and continue to collaborate with organisations and individuals who are committed to engaging with EDI in a socially conscious way.
From us at PILAA, we would like to wish you a happy start to the year and an inclusive future in 2024.
Dr Ope Lori
Hanukkah – 7th – 15th December Hanukkah is the eight-day Jewish festival of light, this year taking place between 7 and 15 December. While it […]
Written by B.J. Woodstein, PhD
“Thanks so much for your efforts! We really appreciate it!” or “You did a fantastic job on that project!”
Wouldn’t you love it if your colleagues or managers spoke to you like that? Wouldn’t you feel good about going to work and giving it your all if you knew that you would be thanked, appreciated and respected?
Well, new research shows that in workplaces where women are in the majority, this is much more common a scenario. Intriguingly, the implication is that women are more likely to show gratitude – at least in the workplace, but perhaps beyond it as well – than men. The underlying idea here is that women are socialised into being more empathic and caring, and this extends to seeing how hard someone is working and how much they’ve tried, and then feeling grateful for that and wanting to show appreciation. Men, on the other hand, tend to be socialised into being more self-focused, which means they’re more likely to recognise and brag about their own efforts, instead of looking outwards at other people. Someone self-centred might be scared of acknowledging other people, because they might worry that doing so somehow downplays their own contributions. Logically, we probably realise that promoting others makes both them and us feel good, and also makes us look like we’re thoughtful and generous people, but emotionally, some people worry that being grateful to others somehow makes us look bad in comparison.
You might wonder why this matters. After all, you should be doing your best at work anyway, so why do you actually need to be thanked for it? Don’t you do your work in exchange for pay? Isn’t your salary thanks enough? No, frankly, it’s not. As humans, we all need to be seen for who we are. We want our own skills and characteristics to be valued, because that means we’re seen as individuals, rather than as easily replaced automatons. In fact, being specific about what we appreciate about another person actually boosts their self-esteem and builds their confidence. And if they’re happier, that rubs off on us and everyone else around them. What a great cycle!
That increase to people’s self-belief and overall moods should be reason enough to do it, but if you want to look at it from a more cynical perspective, you could say that happier people who feel good about themselves will work more efficiently and more effectively. That makes it good for the workplace too. However, there’s a depressing downside to the idea that women are more grateful. The fact is that even in this modern era, women are still paid less than men. You’d think gender pay gaps would be something from the past, but research shows they are still disturbingly common. Two people doing the same sort of work should obviously be paid the same, regardless of their gender, or any other aspect of their lives, such as their ethnicity or marital status or class. Women may not speak up about the pay gap because they have the feeling that they should be pleased to have any job.
To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.
Written by B.J. Woodstein, PhD “Thanks so much for your efforts! We really appreciate it!” or “You did a fantastic job on that project!”Wouldn’t you love […]
Written by B.J. Woodstein, PhD
I don’t think anyone would argue against the idea that representation matters. We know how important it can be to, for example, see people who look like you or who you share other traits with and to know they are being treated how you would like to be treated, or that they are achieving things that one day you’d like to achieve. If you don’t see people like you in jobs you want to have, or in positions of authority, or on TV, or in books, it can be hard to believe that one day you could do those things too. When there’s representation, there’s inspiration. And furthermore, when there’s representation, you feel included and acknowledged.
But another important aspect of representation is that it can actually save someone’s life.
I was heartened by a recent short news piece about medical students who have developed a website that depicts skin conditions on a variety of skin tones. Since textbooks and other materials frequently resort to white skin as the “norm”, medical students and healthcare professionals don’t get the chance to see the way that skin conditions or other illnesses might look on black or brown skin. And if they don’t learn that, then it is very possible they might not understand what they’re seeing when they are examining a non-white patient, and they could misdiagnose the issue or tell someone they are well, when in actual fact they are not. In the worst possible circumstances, that could result in death. So depicting different ethnic groups and skin tones is vital from a medical perspective, but it also is vital when it comes to countering the inequalities experienced by many minority groups. Seeing people like you depicted in a textbook shows you that you matter and that people care about you and your well-being. You’re not an afterthought and you’re not seen as a challenge to the norm; instead, you change what people perceive to be the norm.
I personally learned this lesson some years back when I was training to become a lactation consultant (IBCLC). Nearly all our books and websites showed breastfeeding positions solely on white skin. Similarly, they only talked about breast conditions as they applied to white skin; an example would be focusing on whether an area of tissue has turned swollen and red in order to help diagnose mastitis, but unfortunately mastitis could be missed if a practitioner focuses on the redness, as it does not present in the same way on darker skin. Thankfully, an IBCLC recognised this gap in knowledge and developed the Melanated Mammary Atlas, which is a huge help to healthcare professionals because it depicts breasts and breastfeeding in brown and black skin. Now we just have to hope that our lactation textbooks are updated to likewise include a range of ethnic groups in their images of breastfeeding and that they explain the differences in words as well.
To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.
