The 2024 Inclusion Summit
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The ongoing sense of energy and exhilaration surrounding Tuesday’s Inclusion Summit at the Indigo at the O2 in London is keeping the industry buzzing — what an incredible day! Our headline annual event brought together over 700 people — from senior leaders, graduates from our leadership development programmes, to ENG members, and HR and EDI leaders from across the country and abroad — to attend a conference focussing on the business impact of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
After a warm welcome from WiHTL & DiR Founder and Chair, Tea Colaianni, the impact of the work done by our team over the past twelve months was highlighted by some impressive figures: the Collaboration Community comprises 115 organisations, meaning we positively impact 4 million employees (one million more than 2023), and we produce and manage six leadership development programmes and eight separate committees, which have engaged over 15,000 people. Our advisory arm, inclusion in, worked with 25 companies completing 30 projects and 70 workshops, positively impacting another 120,000 employees.
Over the last 12 months, 75 companies have completed our industry-leading benchmarking tool, allowing us to pinpoint and measure EDI progress, decline or stagnation across the industry. The great news is that both sectors sit firmly within the Strategic segment and both have improved vs 2023. Retail is just slightly ahead at 68.3% — up 0.2% from last year. Hospitality, Travel and Leisure sit at 66%, marking a bigger increase from 2023 of 1.8% — up from 64.2%. However, there’s still a way to go to hit Leading Edge. Analysis of the data from AlixPartners suggests that organisations in the Leading Edge category are far more likely to have seen higher profits than their peer group. Their analysis has also identified a strong positive correlation between deep integration of EDI and relative market performance.
The audience was welcomed by venue host John Langford, Chief Operating Officer of AEG Europe and Mark Veldon, Partner and Managing Director at AlixPartners (the Summit headline sponsor), both of whom stressed the importance of inclusion and how a diverse workforce not only enriches a business through innovative thinking and global perspectives, but how this creates business success on numerous levels.
Their words were echoed by Elliott Goldstein, Managing Partner at the MBS Group, who outlined industry-based research produced for the WiHTL & DiR 2024 Annual Report. Providing both figures and context on the evolution of EDI in HTL and Retail, Elliott painted a broadly positive picture of how EDI data is showing greater diversity across both sectors, but highlighted that there is still much work to be done to extend success achieved in some areas to ensuring success takes place in all areas of business.
Empowering Teams for Success Through Inclusion
And this is where the purpose and ambition of the Summit came into its own thanks to the remarkable insights and innovative thinking from our speakers, starting with a panel on Empowering Teams for Success Through Inclusion.
Led by Akshay Agarwal, Regional Operations Manager at Premier Inn, we heard from Steve Ryan, VP of Human Resources at Hilton, how their employee engagement and broader business performance has improved hugely since working relentlessly on driving an inclusive culture globally, including a 3% reduction in team member turnover and an 18% improvement on employee engagement. Kirstie Loveridge, EVP People & Culture at AEG defined the key elements to their inclusion journey and emphasised ‘starting with the point of pain’ in having open and honest conversations. Both Jen Stobart, Director of Tent, UK and Tanya Hamilton, EDI Manager at IKEA UK&I called attention to the narrative around employment for refugees and the power of storytelling as part of creating a broader social impact.
Creating bright futures for people with learning disabilities
Greg van Heeswijk, Director of Fundraising & Communication at Team Domenica brought accessibility to the forefront of the event in his powerful speech about how finding meaningful employment for people with learning difficulties provides purpose and a sense of meaning and independence to their lives. Team Domenica is WiHTL & DiR’s charity partner, and throughout the event, Summit delegates generously contributed towards raising funds to help the charity continue their incredible work. Thank you to all for such big-hearted generosity. You can donate here.
Innovative Inclusion: Customer Centricity
Inclusion takes many forms and in the next panel discussion, our speakers broadened the scope of inclusive practices to customer centricity. Josh Bullmore, the Government’s Disability & Access Ambassador for the Advertising Sector guided the conversation around how organisations have made inclusion a key focus for customers as well as employees. The audience learnt about some truly extraordinary initiatives and focus.
Sarah Taitt, Chief Property & Services Officer at Wickes, shared that the company prioritises servicing the needs of the community alongside the diverse needs of Wickes’ customers. This approach was mirrored by Juliett Cattermole, Group People Director at David Lloyd Clubs who explained how their strategy encourages managers to ‘do good’ by taking care of local communities as part of driving positive change. Juliett’s key point was that employee experience and customer experience are inextricably linked.
QVC have drilled down into very specific issues which cross both employees and customers. Alexandra Mendel, Vice President Buying, Merchandising UK, explained how through their Menopause Your Way campaign, the company has made menopause a key focus for their customers such as in the product mix they offer which has had a commercial impact adding to growth and customer engagement. Ruth Mann, VP of Marketing at Sweaty Betty outlined how they launched several campaigns within their female-focussed community such as Thigh to Thigh with the Sisterhood classes, and Wear the Damn Shorts, both of which achieved huge engagement — internally as well as externally. Ruth stressed the importance of not always relying on data for insights but to also learn from human experience. The point behind the campaign was to help women feel empowered and body confident, and this also led to a commercial benefit with an uplift in sales of shorts.
Keynote: Measuring Inclusion - Higher Profits and Happier People
Flying in from New York especially for the Summit, world-renowned EDI speaker and Chief Scientist at Aleria, Paolo Gaudiano, shone the spotlight on leveraging EDI for happier people and for higher profits. Paolo stressed the inescapable link between employees and overall financial success, and that leaders should understand how to quantify their organisation’s human assets in the same way they manage assets of any type in order to achieve superior results. ‘Anything that causes employees to underperform because of personal traits, impacts the whole organisation adversely’. This statement was backed up by a brilliant comparison between inclusion and our own health: when we are healthy, we don’t notice it — in exactly the same way as for inclusion. We notice inclusion when we don’t have it. Unfortunately, exclusion is hardest to see for those who make up the most included employees. Employee dissatisfaction through such exclusion leads to lower performance, and Paolo put these powerful questions to the audience: ‘How much money am I invisibly losing because I am treating some people less well? How much money could I save if I treat people equally?’ He concluded by saying that, ‘The ability to quantify the impact of EDI initiatives will make ‘inclusion first’ companies dominate the economy for decades to come.’ Delegates are able to learn more from Paolo’s insights and experience through his book, Measuring Inclusion, which was given to Summit attendees.
The Festival of Inclusion
Over lunch, the Festival of Inclusion provided the perfect opportunity for attendees to explore what other organisations in the industry are doing from an EDI perspective. Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do, so the Festival gave all the chance to broaden their network, learn from peers and engage in meaningful discussions.
Leading Inclusively Through Disruption
The incredible insight kept on coming as Kate Boddington, Partner at AlixPartners, gave a fascinating presentation on leading inclusively through disruption, having completed in-depth research on the challenges being faced by business leaders today. These challenges include digital transformation, operations, and the supply chain, which are hooked into the main business priorities revealed by the research of risk management, cost management and strategic investments. Kate explained that 61% of CEOs worry that their companies cannot keep up with these disruptive forces but that their research indicated that women leaders see more opportunity in disruption than men on most of the identified issues. Pushing the women's leadership agenda further, Kate’s data showed that 83% of women agreed that their natural leadership flourished in a disrupted environment compared to 79% of their male counterparts. Kate concluded with some sage advice: ‘Give women leadership opportunities. This diversity of thinking will help your organisation flourish in difficult times’.
Profit with Purpose: the EDI advantage
Our final panel discussion of the day, Profit with Purpose: the EDI advantage, took the audience on a multi-faceted journey on this fundamental topic, with panellists who have accrued over 100 years of combined business experience!
We were given deep, statistical insights from Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle, Senior Expert and Partner at McKinsey & Company as she discussed the three pillars which can benefit from the impacts of EDI: the whole economy, individual organisations and broader society.
Sundiatu put forward the question, ‘What would happen to global GDP if women had parity?’ The answer: over $10 trillion in GDP uplift! In relation to ethnicity, she highlighted the vast potential if companies were more inclusive, there would be growth across the 27 EU states of $120 billion — in one year. Leni Savva, UK CFO at Elior, spoke about how organisations who prioritise EDI are more likely to move into new markets and how KPIs can be fuelled by the EDI agenda. She admitted that although it is difficult to quantify the impact of EDI activity, it is crucial that everyone ‘keeps the conversation going’, particularly around social mobility — an area that she identifies as one of the biggest barriers to workplace equity. Lynsey O’Keefe, CEO for Corporate Services, Energy & Resources at Sodexo, emphasised how EDI has to be non-negotiable in an organisation but that efforts have to be intentional, and that the single most important thing is to empower people to be their authentic selves while at work. Simon Roberts, CEO at Sainsbury’s, put forward his two key must-haves with regard to creating EDI impact: leadership and the expectations which go alongside a leadership role, and placing the EDI agenda at the very core of business strategy. He also said that when times were hard, it was even more important to remain committed to inclusion.
Future Leaders: Gen Z and the Inclusive Workplace
A Fireside Chat between Tea Colaianni and international speaker and change agent, Hayley Mulenda, brought the future into sharp focus as delegates learned how younger generations may carve out careers in a different employment landscape in years to come. In an energising discussion, Hayley provided advice on how organisations can better engage with younger employees: ‘Be a real model not a role model’, ensure that there is clear visibility in this, the digital age, and be willing to include them in the dialogue. She explained that young people really care about working for a purpose-led business and that leaders should advocate strongly for them, for example through reverse-mentoring, and finally that playing it safe is not what initiates change — ‘2025 is the year of feeling the fear and doing it anyway’. Tea praised Hayley for her genuine authenticity and for the way she weaves her personal narratives in the conversation, which is a powerful vehicle for connection and inspiration leaving all feeling enriched and invigorated.
Rounding off another fantastic year
Tea wrapped up the Summit by reminding all about the theme for the day: measuring business impact — impact on employees, on customers and on market performance. She encouraged all to go back to their workplace hopefully equipped with the right tools and language to shift the conversation from a nice to have to inclusion makes eminent business sense. Tea also invited all to remember that ‘we can make a difference if we work together, if we recognise and welcome diversity of thought and experiences, if we work collaboratively and purposefully with generosity and reciprocity.’
She then brought the day to a close by reading an extract from a poem by Benjamin Zephaniah:
People will always need people
People need people, To walk to
To talk to
To cry and rely on,
People will always need people.
To love and to miss
To hug and to kiss, It’s useful to have other people.
To whom to moan
If you’re all alone,
It’s so hard to share
When no one is there.
There’s not much to do
When there’s no one but you.
People will always need people.
To please
To tease
To put you at ease
People will always need people.
To make life appealing
And give life some meaning,
It’s useful to have other people.
If you need a change
To whom will you turn?
If you need a lesson
From whom will you learn?
If you need to play
You’ll know why I say
People will always need people.
As we look ahead to 2025, we reflect on all we have achieved in 2024 — both as a team and as the Collaboration Community — and we offer our sincere gratitude to the incredible support we have received from our Member organisations, our sponsors and partners, and from each and every person who has contributed to the fantastic success over the past 12 months — culminating in this week’s Inclusion Summit. The Summit itself not only gave us the opportunity to reconnect with each other and reinvigorate our EDI hopes and ambitions, it gave us a moment to celebrate — together! We look forward to seeing everyone again next year.
To request a copy of the Annual Report click here click here.
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