Diversity and inclusion at Frontline

We believe that diversity makes for a stronger team. Our employees come from a range of backgrounds with varied expertise.

We are actively seeking to bring people with different lived experiences into the organisation, to create a workplace that is welcoming for all and diverse in age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, race, religious belief, sexual orientation, social background and any other forms of identity.

Our employees

Demographic data

We conduct an annual survey internally to measure the demographics of our workforce. Our 2021 survey showed that 26% of our employees are from ethnic minority backgrounds (29% in London), 17% are disabled, 81% are women and 20% identify as LGBTQ+.

Recruitment

We are committed to an inclusive approach to recruitment. We use a system called Pinpoint to remove bias from the selection process by anonymising applications. We only ask for a degree when a role requires specialist knowledge, we review job packs and adverts for gendered language and we ensure we have mixed interview panels and diverse shortlists for every role.

Affinity and action groups

We encourage employees to set up affinity or action groups on topics of interest. Employee led groups include the wellbeing action group, Black affinity group and LGBTQ+ affinity group. More social groups include Christians at Frontline, the Sustainability Action Group and the book club.

Anti-racism survey

As part of our commitment to be an actively anti-racist organisation, we have partnered with Flair, an organisation who have developed a tool to measure anti-racism in the workplace with data-driven solutions. The survey feeds into our racial diversity and inclusion plan that we first published in June 2020.

Diversity and inclusion group

The diversity and inclusion working group includes employees from across all teams and levels including the people team and our senior leadership team. The aim of the group is to build an inclusive culture that encourages, supports, and celebrates diversity, where everyone at Frontline feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work. We lead on recommendations for improvements in this area and implement initiatives to achieve equality for all.

Mentoring

We run a mentorship programme exclusively for employees from ethnic minority backgrounds. Participants are matched with a mentor from our leadership group or board of trustees for a minimum of six months, with the aim of developing their leadership skills and confidence.

Workshops

We offer regular workshops on anti-discrimination, allyship in action and disability inclusion to ensure all of our employees have the relevant knowledge to support our aims to be a truly inclusive organisation.

Diversity on our programmes

Our vision is a society where no child’s life chances are limited by their social or family circumstance and all our activity and teaching has a strong focus on anti-discriminatory practice, inclusion and practitioner reflexivity. As a result, our participants reflect on their identity, the lives of the children and families with whom they work and their experiences.

Since 2014, over 1,500 people have completed our programmes and our content equips people with the awareness and skill to challenge discrimination and strongly advocate for social justice.

Our achievements

Pink News award

We won the Pink News Third Sector Equality Award 2019 for our work on diversity and inclusion.

ENEI award

We won the ENEI Small Employer of the Year Award and the Wellbeing Award in 2020.

Our commitments

We have made a number of other commitments including being a living wage employer and a commitment to being a disability confident employer. We have also made a commitment to continue to support people leaving care as part of care leave covenant.

We are a Fostering Friendly organisation. We recognise and value the contribution that foster carers make to society and especially the lives of children in care. We are committed to supporting any staff member who is a foster carer or an approved kinship carer and offer flexible working arrangements which respond to their needs.