Why Is It Important to Understand the Diversity of Heritage Workforces?

What is this advice about?

Historic England believes that an inclusive heritage sector is a resilient heritage sector that better represents and addresses the needs and concerns of society, and is relevant to a greater number of people. We commissioned a pilot research project in 2024 highlighting under-represented groups in the heritage sector workforce, showing differences in job roles, contract types, and workplaces for different groups of people. Read more about this research

This advice is for organisations of any size or scale that employ people in heritage-based roles. It highlights some of the key reasons that knowledge and understanding of workplace diversity benefits individuals, organisations, and the wider sector, and it can be used in making the 'business case' for diversity. This advice can also be paired with our guidance on the GDPR considerations of staff diversity surveys and how to have conversations about diversity surveys.

What are the key points?

What impact does diversity have on heritage organisations?

Diverse workforces have a wide range of lived experience, skills, knowledge, and perspectives to draw upon. Drawing upon the widest possible employee pool means accessing the best skills and experience. Embedding a diversity of people into strategy and decision-making, either through leadership positions or strong staff consultations, means an organisation is resilient to challenges by having the widest possible range of experience to meet and overcome them.

For heritage organisations, an important facet of any work is to make sure it is relevant, engaging, and important to as wide an audience as possible. Engaging a diverse audience means a stronger support base for heritage, with the potential for future staff, volunteers, advocates, funders, or policymakers. Having a diverse workforce is a key element to being able to understand and reach this diverse audience, building resilience into both individual organisations and the heritage sector more widely.

Organisations that put changes and improvements in place to make them more inclusive and accessible for a diverse workforce will also recognise the benefits on their wider workforce.

For example:

• Having explicit meeting codes of conduct and agendas with 'no unwritten rules' (which can be beneficial for neurodivergent people) also benefits anyone taking part as it sets expectations explicitly and avoids conflict and confusion
• Having a variety of office furniture such as chairs with different types of armrest or flexible height desks (which can be beneficial for people with physical impairments) also benefits anyone with temporary or permanent mobility changes
• Having a formal and well-developed programme of staff CPD and training around different inclusion issues can help employees feel seen and valued, but also give all employees the confidence to raise issues or take the initiative to request and make changes, demonstrating your organisation's commitment to potential employees

Why is it important to measure diversity in workplaces?

Data is an evidence base – it can be visualised in ways that can be easily and quickly read and understood. It is also an essential tool for communicating issues and advocating for support and resources towards change. Data can be highly impactful, especially if it highlights issues such as inequalities.

In terms of diversity, data helps organisations understand where there may be gaps in representation and what barriers might exist for people seeking jobs and careers in the sector. As many aspects of someone's lived experience, identity, or background are often not recorded when they join an organisation or are not visually identifiable, it can sometimes be challenging to be aware of a workplace's demographics without collecting data systematically and purposefully.

This data can serve several purposes for heritage organisations:

• It can be benchmarked against national-level figures, to establish where there are gaps in representation
• Many funders will ask for the demographics of organisations or teams working on their grant-funded projects, and having this data to hand makes reporting more efficient
• Some conference and event organisers now recommend or require panels or delegations with diversity and representation of minorities. Knowing your organisation's data on representation makes it easier to meet these requirements, and you can demonstrate this in your applications with your diversity data
• When recruiting, knowing the potential barriers to employment in your organisation can help to focus where specific resources need to be targeted to ensure you are reaching a wider potential audience and demonstrating to them that your workplace is inclusive for them
• Knowing where there are gaps in representation can help heritage organisations target strategic partnerships with other organisations that can help them audit and develop their practices and ways of working to tackle barriers. For example, a workplace with low disabled representation could reach out to a disabled-led organisation and ask them to review their employee handbook and recruitment process to identify what barriers exist

How do we approach collecting diversity data?

Collecting data on workforce diversity can feel daunting, especially if it has not been addressed by an organisation before. But with some work to advocate for the process internally, and ensuring GDPR is followed, it can be a simple and effective process.

Any diversity data survey should be anonymised. It should not collect any identifiable information such as employee number or email. You may wish to monitor separate departments if your workforce is large enough, but this may become challenging if some are small and responses may be identifiable. You should also ensure that it is a separate survey, not linked to wider questions such as an employee satisfaction survey – this keeps the data discrete.

1. Open a conversation with your employees. You can use points from our explanation in Historic England's 2024 Heritage Sector Workforce Diversity Survey, which explains the importance of recording diversity data and why specific questions are being asked. Find out more
2. Remind everyone that responses are private. Nobody has to disclose or share any element of their survey responses with anyone, including line managers
3. Set out your reasons for the survey and what the data will be used for. You can include some of the points in this resource on how the data can support the organisation. If you want to share externally for reporting purposes, make sure you include this in your information so that staff are aware of where the data can be shared
4. Use a platform that has a strong privacy policy and complies with GDPR, such as Microsoft Forms or Google Forms
5. Report your findings to employees in a reasonable timescale. Additionally, state actions you will be taking as a result. This phase should include some staff consultation, particularly with any staff networks you have for specific groups of people, such as disabled staff or staff from an ethnic minority
6. Share your data with other heritage organisations. This will allow others to see the wider picture of the sector, who may work strategically with you to tackle identified barriers or to learn examples of best practice from you