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Facilitated by Place Matters, the organisations on the Learning Journey co-produced an Employee Journey Map to show what inclusive and supportive practices might look like at each step of the employee journey, from finding out about the opportunity to career progression, through to moving on.
The employee journey
They focused on the following stages on the employee journey: the application process, interviewing, induction to the organisation, training and mentoring, care and support, career progression, and moving on.
Job description and application process
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- Focus on accessibility at the start and design the process based on the role. Ideally, allow time and resources to hire people that don’t necessarily have all the experience needed.
- Better communicate the opportunity in job descriptions, remove non-essential requirements and be clear where alternatives are acceptable.
- Encourage potential applicants to apply by providing support and flexibility throughout the process, potentially through a peer role or HR.
- Consider a guaranteed interview scheme or alternative application forms (e.g. audio or video applications).
- Advertise the role in appropriate places, with clarity on salary and reasonable adjustments, and be clear about your organisation's values. You could also include quotes from current staff with lived experience.
- Consider paid training opportunities to invest in the future workforce.
Interviewing
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- Ask specific questions about lived experience requirements of the role.
- Make the interview as accessible as possible with questions in advance, understanding different ways of responding to interviews and supporting people to answer questions in a way that works for them. Use relevant task assignments to the job, allow bring a companion to an interview.
- Consider who is on the interview panel: develop skills and perspectives - ensuring all have training in accessible recruitment and unconscious bias.
On-boarding and induction
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- Invest in time to build connection with the organisation.
- Provide clear, assessable onboarding information.
- Offer support to deal with the role transition and change in relation to lived experience.
- Provide resources to overlap between the old and new post holder.
Training and mentoring
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- Provide mentoring and ongoing support for senior staff to build skills in managing staff with lived experience.
- Allow 10% of time for personal development.
- Allow time for staff to train colleagues, as well as both insourced and outsourced training. Ideally, have funding for training on demand.
Career progression
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- Offer support to identify transferable skills to take on other roles and jobs, and offer a clear career progression.
Care and support
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- Develop a wellbeing policy with resource available, and wellbeing action plans for all staff.
- Offer spaces for people to rest after emotional toil and support to help people process their experiences and traumas.
- Provide greater support for disabled staff and those with mental health issues to have flexible work structures in policy and practice.
HR policies and processes to get specialist advice on
The organisations suggested the following areas that an employer should get specialist advice on:
- Sick pay policies appropriate to needs
- Issues around fixed term contracts
- Flexible working policies
- Full pay 52 week maternity policy
- Menopause policy
- Managing legal names and pseudonyms
Actions for funders
They also recommended the following actions for funders:
- Change the blanket approach to representation which often doesn’t fit with actual employees.
- Challenge funder pressure to demonstrate lived experience which risks being exploitative to staff.
- Offer a 15% funding premium for organisations with significant lived experience.