202303 – Copperthwaite – Progress on the Route to Developing and Retaining Diversity in Signalling Engineering

This paper concludes the theme for Andy Knight’s year as president and in part provides a response to the first paper of his year “Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: a British Female Perspective”.

A common and very current theme that is often discussed concerns improving EDI (Equality, Diversity,
and Inclusion) in our institution activities, our workplaces and in society in general. Being conscious of whether we are being inclusive and treating all as equal is the first step in assuring diverse engagement, but why does diversity matter?

Examining existing exclusions and barriers that are a result of past decisions and have unwittingly constrained our approach to engineering and our workplace culture, gives us clues to the importance of diversity in all of our activities. This paper provides a further response on discussions that resulted from Claire Beranek’s paper. It gives some explicit examples and hypothetical challenges of where diversity might have achieved a better outcome from seeking a wider capability and a better team engagement. It is hoped these topics and thought prompts will support leading us away from a bias of exclusion to a bias of inclusion.

With the context set as a baseline, this paper goes on to consider why we should have a focus on diversity through equality and inclusion. It shares some insights to spotlight that striving for diversity can have the effect of improving business performance.

To enable improvement, it is necessary to understand what we mean by diversity and identify what we intend to do to be more inclusive and equal. Before we can improve, it is beneficial to consider where we are at, in our journey from exclusive to inclusive. The paper explores the potential of a
simple model to assess our current diversity performance, introducing the concept of an equality, diversity, and inclusion maturity lifecycle. The model is proposed as a tool to baseline and measure improvement in EDI.

Knowing our starting point enables us to plan our actions and look at what we as individuals, members, council, and associates of the IRSE can do to influence and impact our EDI maturity. How we, the IRSE, can support assurance that we will achieve our strategic goals to engage and grow.

The conclusion of the paper considers some immediate commitments that membership and council can make to help us to improve in our equality and inclusivity and offered suggestions for our newly formed EDI vision.