Since 2018, Everton Football Club has been on a journey to implement structure, governance and best practice processes to facilitate a cultural change. It was vitally important that diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) lay at the heart of this. The club’s motto is Nil Satis Nisi Optumum – ‘nothing but the best is good enough’ – and this was the approach to ensuring DE&I was embedded in everything undertaken. Previously, this was seen solely as a HR responsibility, and while progress was being made to promote inclusion, there needed to be a more collaborative approach to embedding DE&I acroass the Everton Family (which includes Club, Everton in the Community – the club’s charity, and Everton Free School).
In this case study, Kim Healey, the club’s director of people, culture and workplace wellbeing, outlines how the key to achieving success is engagement from the start, both in relation to ensuring that senior leaders and directors are involved in shaping the agenda, and that staff are able to engage with topics that matter to them through the staff networks.
