With so many awareness days, weeks and months taking place each year, how does STEP decide which ones to mark? We start from our strategy and what matters most to us.

In January 2022, STEP’s Board set out its commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Our Board published a set of Guiding Principles for the organisation. Our aim is simple: we want all our people – members, volunteers and staff – to grow and thrive through their relationship with STEP.

We want to create an environment where everyone, regardless of background or personal circumstance, feels valued and included.

In November 2022, we sent out an anonymous survey to members. We had a fantastic response: just over 2,000 members participated. This 12% response rate provides a high level of confidence (98%) that the results reflect the wider membership.

The results help us to establish a benchmark of members’ views, perceptions, awareness and attitudes against which we can measure progress and change.

What did we learn?

The results first and foremost give us an insight into who our members are and what their experience of STEP is.

The vast majority of members feel STEP’s activity on EDI to date is appropriate and are positive about this focus. Just 3% of members do not agree.

The reasons for this are varied but terminology does seem to be one issue. Some were concerned that ‘EDI’ is overly politicised. Our fundamental aim, however, which is about ensuring people feel welcome and included, is widely agreed with.

While the majority of members do not feel there are any barriers to engagement, 11% do. Of that 11%, 15% felt lack of diversity and lack of role models were a barrier to their engagement with STEP. A similar number said they did not feel welcome at STEP events/meetings.

While these issues do not look to be widespread, it is important that we work to address them to ensure that all our members can fully engage with STEP at all levels.

What will we do now?

We recognise that to some, the profession itself can look and feel largely homogenous. There is definitely work to do and we will need to work with other professional bodies and firms to make a real impact.

Our first priority, though, is to focus on EDI within our governance and volunteering structures. Next steps will be to look at our governance structures against the information gathered on the profile of our members.

Do our committees properly reflect the communities they serve? Where they do not, what are the barriers and how can we address these to ensure that all who want to be involved can be?

In particular, during Pride month, I invite members who identify as LGBTQ+ to get in touch if they have any feedback about their experience of STEP’s governance structures that they wish to share. Please email step.edi@step.org with your comments.

This is just the start of our EDI journey and there is a lot of ground to cover. We recognise that we are learning as we go, taking best practice to adapt and adjust along the way.

We look forward to working with and for our members, listening to your experiences and working to make STEP a fully inclusive and welcoming organisation.

Assad Abdullatiff TEP is Managing Director of Axis Fiduciary Ltd, a member of STEP’s worldwide Board of Directors and Chair of STEP’s EDI Committee