Jane describes Result’s new project researching employees’ experience of discrimination - and what our team learned from it. 

Discrimination is a difficult topic. According to recent research, around 45% of employees experience it in some form. So it’s a big issue, but not one we find easy to discuss. 

At Result, we were honoured to be asked to express interest in carrying outa research to investigate one organisation’s staff experience of discrimination as indicated in their annual staff survey. The project was to be set up to understand that experience in more depth, whether the discrimination was ‘one off’ or more regular and enable staff to explain both barriers to reporting and solutions to tackle the discrimination. The employer sought a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data via an in-depth survey and voluntary, confidential interviews. 

Result is fortunate to have PhD-qualified researcher and Chartered Coaching Psychologist Ronie Walters as an associate. Ronie designed a questionnaire exploring the full range of discrimination (direct, indirect, harassment, victimisation and othering), which protected characteristics it related to as well as the nature of - and extent of - its impact. Ronie supported a small team of us to gather – and share in strict confidence– information via interviews to support the data collected via the questionnaires. The associate interviewers brought significant lived experience of discrimination and trauma-informed coaching skills to this work.   

The client organisation required ‘at least 50%’ of staff to engage with this research exercise; we were delighted that, with the strong support of the client, 90% did so. This meant that the data collected was representative of staff experience and it strengthened the messages contained in the report we produced.  

Carrying out this type of highly sensitive research was a great learning exercise for Result. We discovered:  

It took a lot of courage for the client to address these questions and commission the research. Our report, as requested, includes a set of positive recommendations for addressing the questions raised. They integrate staff recommendations and propose a co-created accountability framework, with neutral third-party support built in. We hope to work with the client further to support this work, and we would encourage more organisations to delve positively into this subject.