When you work for a for-profit company, success ultimately comes down to business outcomes. If you are improving the bottom line, boosting shareholder value, or creating a better customer experience, then you are succeeding.
But when you work for a public organisation, success is measured in different metrics. Financials matter, but so does mission. At Transport for London (TfL) “it's not just about transport. It's about connecting people to opportunities,” Gurdeep Sira, the organisation’s head of talent acquisition – D&I, explains. Success at TfL means reducing inequality by making London accessible to all.
Gurdeep Sira, head of talent acquisition - D&I - Transport for London
And TfL can’t accomplish this mission if its workforce doesn’t mirror the incredible diversity of London itself. This was a hard-won lesson for Sira, who before her current role at TfL worked for the London Fire Brigade.
Leaders who reflect their community
“One of the key things that stood out to me when I worked at the Fire Brigade was that post-Grenfell a lot of the feedback from the families was, ‘We appreciate the job that you do, but you don't look like us. You don’t understand what we've gone through, our lived experiences.’ That really resonated, actually seeing the impact on the customer side,” she says.
It is really important that we represent our customer base and we represent London because people want to see people that look like them and understand their experiences. That actually enhances our customer experience
Gurdeep Sira, head of talent acquisition - TfL
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Sira took this realisation with her to TfL where it now impacts how she recruits senior leaders for the organisation. “It is really important that we represent our customer base and we represent London because people want to see people that look like them and understand their experiences. That actually enhances our customer experience,” she says.
The TfL diversity and inclusion team works to ensure the organisation’s workforce mirrors the city at every level, from the frontline to the boardroom. Outreach programmes to young people have meant the organisation’s apprenticeship programme has risen from 20 per cent diverse participants to 41 per cent, for example. TfL has a number of other initiatives including staff network groups and partnerships focused on neurodiversity that help bring diverse junior talent into the organisation.
Sira also outlines a number of changes TfL has made in recent years to attract more diverse leadership. The recruitment process is carefully tracked to see how many diverse candidates are entering the process and where they might be dropping out. More diverse selection panels not only offer different perspectives on candidates, but also offer a window into the senior hiring process to the more junior staff who now participate in the process. TfL has also worked with external providers on rewriting job ads and running networking events with an eye towards increasing diversity.
“The broader the talent pool, the better the competition throughout the process, and actually the better the hire at the end,” says Sira, summing up TfL’s hiring philosophy.
Human stories of change
How does TfL measure the success of all these efforts? Data certainly helps. Sira points out that, during her tenure, TfL has hired three new board members; two were women and one had a disability background. But while demographic profiles convey important information – “Our aspiration is alway to match the profile of London,” says Sira – sometimes the impact of this emphasis on a diverse workforce can best be captured in a story.
“I remember in my early years we had someone that had some vision impairments. TfL had just designed some new platforming in the stations for people with vision impairments, and to actually go out and get their feedback live on how it would work in a station was really valuable in terms of shaping what we designed in all stations going forward,” Sira remembers.
This incident underlines that, for TfL, striving for a workforce that reflects the incredible diversity of London isn’t a box-ticking exercise. It’s essential for the success of the organisation’s mission. The viewpoints and insights of employees from different backgrounds helps connect the organisation to its customers and its customers to greater opportunity. And that’s what TfL is all about.