ACTIVITES

Diversity and Equal Opportunities

What does diversity mean to Prospectus?

As a company providing a full recruitment service to the not-for-profit sector, we strongly believe that having the most diverse pool of candidates allows us to find the best candidates for the job.

There are various statutory obligations surrounding diversity issues but they alone cannot make a difference. The ethos at Prospectus is that by fishing for candidates in the largest possible pool, we are more likely to attract the very best candidates, thus also reflecting the community we are servicing.

It is important to be proactive to ensure a truly diverse workforce and we have taken a number of initiatives to bring benefits of diversity to our candidates and clients.

The key reasons we promote diversity are:

• Better representation of all groups
• Better choice of candidates
• Broader skills base
• Better understanding of client groups

How do we actively promote diversity?

Prospectus is actually trying to 'walk the walk' rather than just 'talking the talk'. It is all very well to say what we believe but what are we actually doing?

We work in partnership with organisations that support excluded groups back into the workplace. These partner organisations can advise us where to attract candidates and what we can be doing to make us an attractive option for candidates. They also support us in the interviewing process and assist in any adjustments which may be required.

Diversity can only be successfully achieved if the company accepts responsibility on an individual as well as company-wide level. For this reason we also train all of our staff in awareness issues surrounding diversity. To date we have had various disability awareness training; a notable example being deaf awareness training. We also attend various events to ensure comprehensive understanding of the issues. Our chief executive is on the London First Disability Champions group.

To summarise, we achieve a diverse pool of candidates by:

• Consultant training - all of our consultants have hands-on experience, professional guidance and share your commitment to achieving a diverse workforce.
• Attracting candidates through a variety of sources - we advertise for candidates in a number of publications.
• Actively encourage applications from excluded groups.
• Building partnerships to improve diversity.

Equal Opportunities Policy

Naturally, we have an equal opportunities policy fully in place but we go far beyond this using it as a tool to see which groups we are reaching and how we can broaden our reach even further.

We have developed a policy that applies to both the company and to the services it provides to its clients. The policy is constantly monitored by Prospectus and covers many areas.

For more information please download a PDF of our Equal opportunities Policy.