Queen Mary Careers and Enterprise want to ensure that our events bring inspiration and confidence to our students and promote inclusivity. For more information, please read Careers and Enterprise Statement of Intent, Religion and Inclusivity 2024 [PDF 138KB]
As one of the most diverse universities in the UK with our students drawn from over 170 nationalities, and 72% of our domestic undergraduate students coming from Black and Minority Ethnic heritage, fostering environments of inclusion and representation is a priority. We recognise the importance of creating inclusive learning environments that respect and celebrate the diverse backgrounds of our students, and we would therefore like to share some recommendations from Rare Recruitment in their June 2024 report on ‘The Experience of British Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in City Law’. Whilst this report relates to Law, we believe the principles can be taken and applied to all sectors. To this end, we would like to strongly encourage our employer partners to consider the recommendations made in this report in order to create an inclusive and fair environment for students of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage, as well as other minority communities.
Thank you to Rare for their permission to reproduce their statement.
Based on the findings of this report, we recommend that employers take the following actions to create an inclusive and fair environment for employees of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage, as well as those employees affected by similar barriers and challenges:
1. Host formal work social events in venues that are not pubs or bars and that serve food that can be eaten by people who observe a Halal diet.
2. Build formal work social events around activities that are inclusive and not solely focused on alcohol.
3. Put in place clear policies on accommodations for religious prayer and fasting during the working day. Ensure managers and supervisors are briefed on these policies, provide an overview of the policies during inductions for new joiners and make clear statements about the policies annually.
4. Make clear statements during inductions for new joiners that people are permitted to pray when they need to and that their supervisors and managers are aware of this.
5. Brief supervisors and managers clearly on how to be inclusive of Muslim employees and interns, including advice on prayer, fasting and alcohol.
6. Review the accessibility, convenience and suitability of prayer and bathroom facilities.
7. Endeavour to include role models of Asian Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage on internships, or, if that is not possible, role models of Muslim heritage.
8. Reference Muslim networks and other religious heritage or belief networks as part of diversity talks, should such networks exist.
9. Provide support for the creation and promotion of a firm wide Muslim network and/or other religious heritage or belief networks where none exists.
10. Conduct data analysis to assess the representation of Bangladeshi and Pakistani candidates within your existing outreach programmes and application pools. If the data shows this group is underrepresented, consider establishing targeted outreach programmes and scholarships for Bangladeshi and Pakistani candidates.
11. Conduct grade-adjusted adverse impact analysis to monitor the fairness of your assessment process. If you identify adverse impact when controlling for prior attainment, review and update your assessment process and assessor training with the aim of removing this bias.
In addition to these recommendations, we recommend that employers follow established best practice in regard to including candidates from lower socioeconomic status groups. This includes:
To monitor inclusivity at events, we collect optional Special Category Data from speakers. For more information on the process and purpose, please read our Special Category Data statement. QMUL Careers and Enterprise Special Category Data Statement - 2023 [PDF 262KB]