Celebrate Black History Month With Vercida

October is Black History Month and a chance for organisations to honour the often unacknowledged accomplishments of Black individuals in every area throughout history. This is an opportunity for HR to work with employees to create a work environment that celebrates Black culture and promotes inclusivity. 

So what can your organisation do to meaningfully celebrate Black History Month?

• Bring in speakers to share narratives around race and Black identity. Through promoting diverse voices, your organisation can foster a space of inclusion, understanding and empathy. To involve your workforce further, consider sending out an email with the details of the event and ask for suggestions of topics that could be covered/ let them know the topic so that employees can prepare questions for the speaker.

• It’s always a good idea for companies to promote volunteering and giving back. Not only does this boost employee morale but also provides much needed support in the community. Consider teaming up with a local nonprofit for a day of volunteering, or raise awareness of different local charities helping the community. 

• Black History Month is a great opportunity to highlight possible areas of growth within your organisation. If you find your organisation is lacking in its diversity and inclusion practices, why not take the time to examine your current recruitment, interview and training processes to make necessary improvements.
• Support diversity in the workplace always - October is a great time for organisations to self-reflect on what they can do to ensure a diverse and inclusive work environment but this effort doesn't have to start and stop in October. Organisations can continue this effort by creating educational resources on a diverse range of topics, making diversity and inclusion training part of employee induction and encouraging employee-led projects like book clubs or discussion groups centred around diversity issues.

Here at VERCIDA we believe that diversity and inclusion should be an organisation's priority year round. However, October is the perfect opportunity to celebrate and recognise the triumphs and successes of Black individuals throughout history and to challenge and call out the systemic inequalities and discriminations that the Black community face on a daily basis especially in the workplace.