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A simple line drawing of a building above bold text reading FRIENDS HOUSE on a light background.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Friends House is committed to fostering equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and radical acceptance in its event spaces and workplace, where different experiences aren’t just tolerated but valued and appreciated.

We welcome everyone regardless of their gender, faith, sexual orientation, class, background, ethnicity, and disability in our venue.

We’ re always exploring areas of improvement for our whole organisation (we’re part of the charity Quakers in Britain). This led to an internal EDI audit report in June 2022 and establishment of an EDI Working Group. They worked with a consultancy and produced a Vision Statement for the company.

We have listed below what we do to make sure our venue is a welcoming and safe environment for all.

The Friends House team with the EDI award
A welcoming venue to all

We want every individual in our venue (clients, customers and staff) to feel respected and valued in their identities:

We trained mental health first aiders,
We created a gender-neutral toilet facility,
We installed dispensers with free sanitary products,
Our worship space is available for quiet time and prayer of any faith.
Inclusive catering

Our diverse catering options encompass a wide range of cuisines and flavours to cater to different tastes and preferences:

We offer gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, nut-free, and halal-certified meal options to cater to different dietary choices,
Allergen information is available to ensure attendees can make informed choices about their meals,
Premium quality products that are ethically sourced and sustainably grown in our café and meeting rooms.
Fair employment practices

Our employment offers are open to all, and we encourage applicants to fill in our diversity monitoring form. Every application is anonymised, so that we don’t know the name, gender, or race of the applicants. As well:

We are a Living Wage Employer,
We pay staff above the London Live Wage,
We have a 1:4 ratio between our highest and our lowest paid staff,
We report on our gender pay gap. Our median Gender Pay Gap for 2023 is –0.77 in favour of women. This compares very well to the National Figure of 14.9%.
Accessibility

We want to be inclusive and accessible to all.:

A detailed accessibility guide available on our website for all areas of our venue,
Signs for autism awareness on our hand driers,
Two accessible lifts with voice announcements and hearing loops,
Enhanced lighting throughout the meeting spaces to aid the visually impaired,
Accessible toilets on every floor,
Assistive audio systems (induction loop or infrared) are installed in our larger meeting spaces, portable systems are available for our other rooms.
Family friendly policies

We already had flexible working policies before the pandemic, and decided to extend it to everyone whose work doesn’t require to be on site full-time. This is what we have in place:

The right to request flexible working is available to staff after 26 weeks of service,
The right to request flexible working when coming back from maternity leave.
All staff with more than 26 weeks service receive 16 weeks full pay, followed by 18 weeks half pay and 5 weeks SMP consecutively
Parents expecting multiple births receive an additional two weeks parental leave,
Staff undergoing IVF treatment receive 10 days paid leave to attend the appointment and up to 5 days paid leave for staff who wish to accompany their partner to appointments who are receiving IVF treatment in any 12 months period.