Most EDI policies are written properly. Genuinely. The intention is real. But intention isn't the same as implementation. Somewhere between the policy document and the interview room, something gets lost — because the people actually doing the hiring find it easier to take the candidate who doesn't need any adjustments. Easier to manage. Less paperwork. And there's a quiet worry sitting underneath it too: will giving a new starter, or someone we've just promoted, an adjustment that nobody else has, upset the rest of the team?
That happens a lot. More than most of us would like to admit.
Stage one isn't the finish line
Here's the thing — most people now understand what EDI means. We've all sat through the training. We know what we can say and what we can't. We know that "banter" one person finds funny can feel threatening to someone else. That's important. But it's only stage one.
Stage one is knowing the rules. Stage two — the bit most workplaces haven't got to yet — is building a culture where difference isn't just tolerated, it's normal. Where making an adjustment isn't a favour you're doing someone, it's just how the team works. Where people are included, not accommodated. That's what keeps a business moving forward. That's where the ideas come from, where the knowledge and skill and experience actually grow — because you didn't filter it all out at the interview stage in favour of "easy."
And while we're on interviews — can we stop asking people why they want to work for us? We all know why. To get paid, and to get some satisfaction out of the work. Nobody is walking into that room and saying "honestly, I don't want to work here, but I'll take it until something better comes along." An interview isn't there for us to be flattered. It's there to find the right person.
I know this because I've been on both sides of it.
The phone call that decided it
When I took my job at Warburtons, I visited three times before I started — not for progressively harder interviews, but to actually meet the people I'd be working alongside. There were the standard HR questions too, and I'm told I answered them well, reacted well when they gave me ten minutes' notice to go and train someone on an SOP on the spot. That was enough to convince the senior team I could do the job.
But that's not why I took it.
The reason was a phone call, after my second visit, from the man who's now my line manager. He asked if I could pop back in. He said all "that stuff" — the tests, the questions — had already convinced everyone he needed convincing. He wanted to know who I was. Not what I could do.
We talked for about ninety minutes. How I'd got to this point in my life. Why training mattered so much to me. My wife, my kids. My health — physical and mental, conditions I've carried for years. He shared some of his own story back. And at the end of it, he didn't say "we'll be in touch" or "recruitment will call you." He offered me the job, right there, and told me to go home and think about it.
I didn't need to. I accepted on the spot, turned down two higher offers, and cancelled the interviews I still had booked. I'd found where I wanted to be, and that conversation meant more to me than the salary, the title, or the size of the role ever could.
He wasn't concerned about adjustments for my medical appointments. He wasn't concerned about twelve years of mental health struggles. He wanted me — first because I was me, second because of the passion I clearly had for the job, and only then did competence come into it.
Nearly thirty years apart, the same lesson
It reminded me of the first job I ever got, nearly thirty years ago, at Pilkingtons. My CV had one D grade, in French. Everything else was below that. The two people who interviewed me didn't see a lazy kid, or a thick one. They wanted to know why the grades weren't there — what had actually happened. They wanted to know about me.
Without that offer in 1997, I wouldn't be where I am today. I've never forgotten that, and I show my gratitude the only way that actually means anything — by giving more than 100% every single day.
That's the real value of EDI, done properly. Pick the person. Not whatever looks easiest to manage on paper. Both of the companies I've mentioned here have been around a very long time, and that's not an accident, and it's not because they went looking for easy. It's because they picked people who would push, innovate, work hard, and help everyone around them succeed too — adjustments and all.