At Boult we believe in being inclusive and creating a working environment where everyone can comfortably be themselves. Attracting, developing and retaining a diverse team and creating an inclusive culture where people feel valued and included is extremely important to us and something we work hard to achieve. Through our collective action we have achieved tangible change and made a positive impact on our culture, and we will continue to do so.

In 2021 we worked with Focal Point, an organisation dedicated to helping workplaces become more respectful and inclusive environments, to create a staff survey to understand what our people thought about our culture, and equality, diversity and inclusion at Boult. We wanted to take stock of where we were and where we wanted to go. We were able to use these findings to help us develop a fresh approach to and perspective on equality, diversity and inclusion.

During 2022 we created an EDI strategy around six pillars that guide our actions: engage, equip, empower, embed, evaluate and evolve. We revised policies and recruitment procedures, held leadership courses and changed our flexible working arrangements to ensure our approach encouraged diversity and valued differences. Throughout the year we ran educational sessions to raise staff awareness of unconscious bias and neurodiversity, to understand and engage with those issues. We have taken proactive steps to address EDI concerns in our industry and beyond, joining supportive networks and organisations such as WorkLife Central, IP Inclusive, and the General Counsel for Diversity & Inclusion (GCD&I). We have also signed charters and made commitments to organisations whose values we share such as the IP Inclusive Charter, the IP Inclusive Senior Leadership Pledge.