Cafe Spice
Diversity in practice – Learning from our Investors in People Champions
Café Spice
Interview with Cyrus Todiwala
This organisation has a multicultural workforce who live and breathe diversity and this is actively encouraged within the organisation. They have quite a low staff turnover and generally only recruit as part of an expansion programme. They do not have any formal monitoring of recruitment at present.
Access to training and development is based on individual needs, for example one of the Chef’s has recently completed an NVQ in food preparation. The organisation supports flexible working and the team fits in with each other to support and accommodate differing work patterns. For example the accountant needs to work from home on occasions due to childcare responsibilities and this is supported by the organisation.
The culture within the organisation is one of friendship. It is not authoritative and everyone supports each other. There are no restrictions, about whom the organisation employs, staff are recruited on basis of merit. It is very much about teamwork. The owner very much leads from the top and a culture of teamwork, support and informality is actively encouraged.