Investor in Diversity Status Awarded

In 2010/11 Cruden made a commitment to become a leading edge in ethical employment, equality and diversity in the construction industry. Being able to attract, engage and retain the most effective pool of people to deliver our construction services is a core influence for much of the competitive advantage enjoyed by Cruden.

As outlined by Sir Michael Latham, Chairman of ConstructionSkills "The logic is simple: we must change the way in which we recruit, and we must work hard to improve the image of the industry to appeal to this fresh pool of recruits"

Equality, diversity and inclusion are considered as fundamental cultural threads that run throughout the organisation. It provides the platform of how we interact with our employees, clients, partners and the communities we operate in.

The 18 month application process for the IiD Stage 2 Standard enabled Cruden to take a structured and planned approach to further embed equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of what we do. A comprehensive action plan was delivered throughout last year that focused on employee training, supply chain engagement and equality impact assessment throughout the business.

The application process promoted Cruden's commitment to continuous learning by self assessment and self analysis. Through a series of activities we created and promoted communication, dialogue, discussion and debate within the organisation, being successfully assessed across five key areas of; committing, learning, developing, improving and communicating. Equality and diversity training courses have been, and will continue to be, delivered to the entire workforce including all employees from Chairman to Apprentice. All Directors, Senior Managers and Supervisors have received a full days training and half day courses were delivered to rest of the Cruden team.

With the support of the National Centre of Diversity and particularly Training Provider and Assessor Jo Barton, Cruden were delighted to receive the accreditation following our successful application. In the assessment report Jo commented "There has been significant progress in relation to equality and diversity since IiD was introduced into the company and many of the recommendations captured during the training sessions have already been implemented which highlights the commitment of the company to embrace change and to allocate the finances to achieve this, which in the current climate is commendable"

With on-going support from the National Centre of Diversity, Cruden are now utilising the recommendations suggested in the assessors report to move towards Stage 3 'Leaders in Diversity Status' for 2012/13.