In our research so far, it has been notable the way that our research participants have increasingly referenced the development of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) accreditation systems. There is growing interest in using sets of guides or toolkits that facilitate organisations when evaluating and developing their EDI-related strategies. A range of public and private consultancy and support bodies are increasingly pervasive in the world of work and employment, but the steady use of systematic guides and toolkits has become evident, even when not tied to such consultancy systems. Organisations as diverse as The Equality Trust, ACAS, the British Standards Institute, and the CIPD have developed online and offline toolkits to facilitate the development of equality-related employment practices. The pressures on human resource managers, EDI managers and trade union representatives are such that they often need to refer to such toolkits and guides to ensure that they are conforming to either changing statutory requirements or best practice developments that ensure a higher profile for EDI activity, or both. The competing pressures from a range of social responsibility arenas and the related complexity linked to each of these (e.g. ecological, ergonomic, and others) means that organisations – especially those with underdeveloped support management teams – have to resort to pre-established toolkits for the formation of their EDI strategies.

Curiously, there does not seem to be an expansive literature on these toolkits and guides as organisational artefacts and reference points. The focus appears to be on formal strategies and issues as opposed to the institutional redesign process used by employers in their attempts to ensure improved EDI outcomes. However, toolkits can have various positive effects.

First, they allow for organisations to draw from the experiences of others in relation to EDI strategy when the toolkit represents the outcome of extensive research. They allow for organisations to organise their approaches to EDI in terms of clearly defined steps and sets of activities. This may allow for the processes to be more transparent and clearly organised.

Second, this rationalising of the stages and dimensions required to adopt an EDI-related strategy or practice, such as recruitment or participation, allows an organisation to reflect on the way it can deploy its resources (personnel and otherwise) across the different stages of its development. In some respects, toolkits and guides simplify and construct transparent routes through the implementation processes of EDI policy.

Additionally, some of the toolkits and guides used are tied to live cases or the experts or consultants related to them, and these practical examples are therefore situated within a broader organisational learning process.

Furthermore, there are often toolkits and guides that have been the outcome of cross-organisational collaboration and draw on different approaches and expertise in such a way that, as well as being more robust in terms of their knowledge base, may also be seen as more legitimate and inclusive in the way they have been designed. For example, some of our research participants referenced the joint work between the TUC LGBT committee and the CIPD on the development of a Trans Inclusion toolkit, which is viewed as one of the most inclusive and comprehensive.

There is also the Equality Trust’s ‘Achieving Equal Pay in Your Workplace’ toolkit, which was the outcome of broad discussion and engagement with academics and practitioners engaging with work and equality issues.

Finally, the adoption of toolkits and openly available guides allows others not directly involved in policy development to evaluate or at least understand what the organisation’s aspirations are regarding EDI and can assist in the framing of any internal discussions on the matter.

It is important to note, however, that the formal or informal adoption of an available toolkit or guide does not always deliver positive outcomes, which are also dependent on a range of other organisational factors. Unlike the two examples provided above, they are not always designed collectively or inclusively.

Firstly, it is important to consider how the adoption of EDI toolkits fits with other EDI strategies and other socially responsible strategies more broadly. There is always the possibility that they are developed in isolation and in a fragmented manner such that they do not fit a broader vision of change and engagement with EDI themes. The way such guides and toolkits are developed internally may mean that they are integrated in a de-centred and piecemeal manner without underlying problems being reflected and acted upon, nor with engagement and consultation with those directly affected, or their representatives. The debates before, during and after the adoption of toolkits require the inclusion of those who are likely to be connected to the issue these change processes are dealing with. There may be a need to ensure that various organisational stakeholders are engaged with the adoption and implementation of such organisational artefacts.

It is worth being alert to the possibility of toolkits being deployed cynically, whether as a simple managerial trend or as a protectionist mechanism whereby an organisation can cite it as evidence of engagement with an issue, similar to the way EDI accreditation systems can be used for pinkwashing.

The fundamental question is whether they are used instrumentally in this way or if they are engaged with genuinely as a tool for transformative and progressive organisational change.

For any policy framework to be effective, it requires an ongoing quality assurance and enforcement process. The extent to which toolkits are linked to organisational processes and are part of an ongoing organisational community based on knowledge-sharing and improvement needs to be considered. If they remain isolated artefacts that are not audited or linked to any type of inspection and evaluation processes, then it will be difficult to accredit any organisational meaning to them.

Finally, there is a broader consultancy and accreditation ‘industry’ which gives rise to many of these guides and toolkits. There is, in effect, a marketplace for toolkits and how one judges the quality and robustness of them needs to be more systematically discussed. The way such organisational artefacts are constructed and developed requires significant internal knowledge and cross-organisational discussion as to their efficacy and robustness.

In some respects, we are witnessing a highly developed and extensive set of resources being utilised to assist the ongoing evolution of EDI strategies and practices. Toolkits constitute a sphere of activity to assist organisations in the face of their knowledge gaps and can provide a degree of legitimacy and risk management in terms of EDI policy development. However, their continued and increased use raises the need to question the fundamental nature of these devices and to give consideration to a more collaborative approach to their establishment and implementation.