This starts at the top. Senior leadership should recognise the cultural benefits of a team full of people from a variety of backgrounds and lived experiences. Class is not about one community, it’s intersectional and is as important as other protected characteristics.

Getting culture right is the bedrock for all the other Class Confident Actions.

STARTING QUESTIONS

• Have senior leaders had a conversation about the culture of your organisation and understood both the benefits of diverse teams and the barriers that might stand in people’s way?
• Do you measure the class backgrounds of your teams, not just for data collection but to understand the barriers and transform your organisation?
• Are the people with greenlighting power, development heads, commissioners, trained to understand class bias and how to dismantle it?
• Do all teams across the organisation recognise their responsibility to address class representation and understand what they can do?
• Could you create a staff working group or network of colleagues from working class backgrounds, who can act as mentors to others within the organisation?