Department: Corporate
Term: Permanent
Reporting to: CEO through EDI Committee
Location: Emerald Headingley
Salary: Available on request
Organisation:
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the team at Yorkshire Cricket as Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Manager.
The Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of the world’s most famous cricket clubs. Founded in 1863, Yorkshire is England’s most successful club, winning a record 32 County Championships, joint Champions twice and five One-Day cricket crowns. The Club has produced more players for England national team than any other county in history.
Away from the professional arena, Yorkshire is the hotbed of cricket in the country with over 750 grassroots clubs and schools playing the game every week in the summer equating to over 125,000 recreational players.
Its outstanding work in the local community, via the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, is regarded as one of the region’s best organised sporting foundations with over 20,000 schoolchildren visiting the Club’s home Emerald Headingley Cricket Ground across the year.
Yorkshire Cricket Board is responsible for all recreational cricket from Playground to the Academy covering 1818 primary schools, 350 Secondary schools, 750 cricket clubs and 80 leagues including 4 Premier Leagues and the BAME Management Group. It is also in charge of facility development, the education and development of all coaches, umpires, scorers, groundsman and volunteers and runs an extended disability development programme. The Pathways Scheme accommodates 930 players annually so that all players can achieve their potential.
The Role of the Inclusion and Diversity Manager
Yorkshire Cricket is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across the sport from those playing the game, watching, following, volunteering, officiating, coaching and working. We support and commit to the goals of Sport England and the England and Wales Cricket Board to make cricket an inclusive and diverse environment where everyone can thrive and be themselves. We want people and communities to be united by the feeling that cricket is a game for them. We are committed to ensuring that diversity and equality opportunities are incorporated across all aspects of our operation, ensuring the organisation is open, accessible, welcoming to all and recognised as a leader in this area.
This needs a collective and collaborative approach; we need to work with people from all backgrounds to ask questions, reach out and more importantly to listen. We want to take time to work sensitively and genuinely. This is our long-term commitment, and we hope many people from all backgrounds will come forward to work with us as we will listen and take action together.
We are looking for an energetic and experienced individual to lead on our diversity and inclusion strategy. This is exciting opportunity to work in a high profile and fast-moving arena of sport with scope to make your mark on the cause. Reporting into the CEO and working closely with the Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, the candidate will be responsible for developing and successfully implementing our Inclusion and Diversity strategy both internally and externally. Our vision remains to enrich everyone’s life through cricket, no matter their background, and to ensure equality and accessibility for all.
We are committed to developing a fully diverse and inclusive organisation, which attracts and retains talented employees and volunteers from all sectors of society and is therefore representative of not only the people we currently engage with, but those with whom we seek to engage in the future.
The successful candidate will have a strong record of achievement of working in the inclusion and diversity arena but not necessarily within a cricket environment.
Main Responsibilities
• Conduct a full review across Yorkshire Cricket, once this is completed build an action plan to create an environment that is more reflective of the population at every level.
• Supporting the development of our Inclusion and Diversity strategy with clear objectives both internally and externally covering the short, medium and long term with a view to achieving external recognition of the excellence of Yorkshire Cricket’s approach to inclusion and diversity.
• Support the EDI Committee that brings people together from across the organisation to deliver the Inclusion and Diversity strategy.
• Identify a programme of events within the calendar that will demonstrate Yorkshire Cricket’s commitment to improving inclusion and diversity and coordinate the implementation of these events.
• Keep up-to-date and share thought leadership and best practice on all areas of inclusion and diversity and ensure these are incorporated into the relevant policies and procedures.
• Ensure the organisation is compliant to the relevant industry standards in this area and aim for compliance to Equality Sport standards.
• Develop existing and new relationships with key stakeholder groups within Yorkshire, including the Yorkshire Cricket BAME Management group and its 4 sub-committees.
• Develop and deliver Inclusion and Diversity education and communication programmes for staff, players, board members and volunteers.
• Working with the Club, the Board and the Foundation to devise innovative approaches to ensure under-represented groups in Yorkshire have the opportunity to get involved in cricket.
• Attendance at YCCC/YCB/YCF Board meetings.
• Work with the Marketing team to analyse supporter data and identify interventions to meet key targets for increasing the diversity and encouraging new fans to attend Yorkshire Cricket matches.
• Work with the Commercial team to identify key opportunities with current and prospective club partners where there may be alignment with our inclusion focus. Attend key industry events relating to inclusion and diversity on behalf of the Yorkshire Cricket.
• Identify key measurements, monitor, and evaluate progress, reporting to the Board as required.
• Work with the Communications team to share good news stories relating to inclusion and diversity from our fan base, our staff and the wider community.
Other Key Accountabilities
• Conduct a comprehensive review of the landscape to identify gaps in our current approach to EDI.
• Work with the EDI Committee to define the most appropriate methodology to measure culture change.
• Pro-actively engage with relevant colleagues to share understanding and facilitate conversations to understand challenges and approaches to workplace culture.
• Identify key community partner organisations in which to pilot interventions and manage those relationships throughout the course of the pilots.
General Club Accountabilities
• Ensure compliance with all relevant Club/Board/Foundation policies, including health and safety policies and with specific reference to the data regulations (GDPR and PECR).
• Ensure compliance with all relevant legal, regulatory, ethical and social requirements • Build and maintain good working relationships both internally and externally, maintaining a professional image at all times when representing Yorkshire Cricket and exemplifying the Club’s values.
• Keep confidential any information gained regarding the Club and its personnel.
• Maintain a flexible approach to work at all times The above list of duties is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks, as required by their line manager across Yorkshire Cricket.
Key Internal Relationships
• Yorkshire Cricket Senior Management Team
• Chair EDI Working Group
• BAME Management Group
• Operations • Marketing
• Commercial
• Player Liaison
Person Specification – Essential Personal Characteristics
• Minimum of three years’ experience in a similar position
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills are essential
• Competent with Microsoft Office packages, particularly Word and Outlook
• Confident working alongside senior executives and managing external stakeholder relationships with excellent business networking skills.
• Uses initiative with minimal supervision
• Dedicated to the quality and accuracy of projects from inception to completion
• Ability to manage a heavy workload with strict deadlines
• Excellent organisational skills
• Flexible and willing to take on ad-hoc tasks
• Comfortable working independently but also an excellent team player able to bring together staff from different parts of the business to work together effectively.
• Willing to work unsociable hours as required
Person Specification – Desirable Characteristics
• CIPD (or another related professional body) qualified or equivalent experience
• Strong understanding of the equality and diversity challenges in professional sport
• Knowledge of the respective Equality Standards
• Knowledge of inclusion programmes run by the ECB
• An understanding of community engagement linked to sport
How to apply:
Please send full CV with covering letter to Liz Neto, HR Manager, Yorkshire CCC [email protected] by no later than Friday 14 January 2021.
