For this week’s EDI Reading, I was particularly moved by Hashi Mohamed’s story, a successful Barrister and Broadcaster who has risen from being a desperate Kenyan child refugee to British barrister. I find Mohamed’s biography particularly inspiring in the knowledge that when he arrived in the UK he spoke basic English, attended low rated schools and was raised exclusively on state benefits in a deprived area of North West London. Mohamed has written a memoir on social mobility in Britain, in his book ‘People Like Us’ he provides advice from personal life experience about what it takes to ‘make it’ in Modern Britain. Mohamed campaigns for a kind of root-and-branch societal reform that will benefit everyone, not exclusively the brightest. 

There are several insightful interviews with Hashi Mohamed available online. I have chosen to share a HR Podcast from a presentation he gave in 2019 to Changeboard HR, part of the Future Talent Group.

From a People Services perspective, Mohamed’s insight working with HR Leaders highlighted to me that regardless of well-intentioned EDI HR initiatives and action plans, such as redacting equal opportunity information from CVs and providing interview panels with EDI training, that unless organisations have a clear set of widely recognised EDI values underpinning their business strategy, then efforts to instill EDI by way of recruitment protocol may in fact be artificial. 

Please have a listen to the podcast – we’d love to hear your thoughts!