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Black History Month Team Talk with AFBE Co-Founder Ollie Folayan

15 October 2024
8 Min Read

As we mark Black History Month in the UK this October, the team have been reflecting on their ability to lean into conversations around race and ethnicity.

To help with these conversations, we invited Dr Ollie Folayan, co-founder of one of our EDI partners, the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers [AFBE], to our factory for a team talk and tour.

After addressing our team on the 'Equity of Ethnic Diversity', we sat down with Ollie to learn more about the vital link between safety and inclusion.

Why is Black History Month important to AFBE and the team?

"Black History Month is important because it gives us a moment to pause and think about where we are on our journey.

"In one sense, every month should be Black History Month. Ultimately, what happens is a lot of awareness raising and people understanding what the issues are.

"There is the space for people to share their fears concerns, creating the pathway for change. Crucially, whilst Black History Month is important, it's those little things that we do daily that bring about real change."

I hope that Black History Month this year just gives people a moment to pause and think, what more could we be doing as an industry, as a company, as a team.

What advice can you offer to help us continue to be advocates in the 'Equity of Ethnic Diversity' space?

"There are three broad themes that this covers. The first one was the importance for everyone within an organisation to understand the issues and have an awareness of the issues. Most people are well-intentioned, but really understanding what the issues are requires information, studying, and listening to people's experiences.

"The second thing is to get people to 'clean up'. We are all prone to bias. We discussed the stereotype content model and how if we can overcome this, we can start to understand how teams can work better.

"The third thing is to start seeing the opportunities- for greater talent, engagement, profit, and performance."

Why Is Black History Month Important To Us?
I hope that Black History Month this year just gives people a moment to pause and think, what more could we be doing as an industry, as a company, as a team.

Ollie Folayan

You spoke about coalition of allies and the idea of safety and inclusion being tied together. Can you expand on that?

"One of the most important things that has happened within the engineering sector revolves around the importance of safe practices.

"It has led to saving lives within the industry. It has led to a better reputation for our industries. It has protected personnel and protected families. We have moved away from just thinking about safety as something that is physical.

"We are starting to think how it impacts on people's well-being and mental safety. That is where I think safety, physical, mental, or just well-being in general, intersect.

"If we agree that there is a parity between physical and mental safety and embed that into all our processes, it will allow us to take it just as seriously. In my talk I was able to show the process of the development of an engineering project and we were able to identify that at different points, we have safety gates.

"If we think inclusion is just as important, we should have inclusion gates. That is the connection between the two."

How important is the relationship between the team and AFBE?

"It is so vitally important. If we think about our industry, we are all about trying to widen participation as much as possible. I have just seen some of the most innovative practices within our sector.

"For people from all backgrounds to get the opportunity to find out what a company like the Mercedes F1 Team does; maybe even be mentored by people here, and possibly even get the opportunity to work for the team in the future, is so vitally important.

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What is the role of the AFBE?

"My sister and I founded AFBE in 2007 to help us respond to the under-representation of certain communities within the engineering space, and because we were looking for a network that could help us in our careers.

"We lived in a community with real social issues that we felt we could do something about as engineers. It came from a desire to find people who we couldn't find in our own organisations and then to use that group of people to support younger people in the community. It was those things that led us to form the organisation.

"We have three key areas of focus. We want to attract more people into the sector. We want to retain talent within the engineering sector by addressing that crucial stage between the end of education and entry into industry. If there is a leaky pipeline, that is one of the areas that leaks the most.

"Finally, we want to raise leaders by ensuring that those technical professionals who get into the sector know that there is a space for them to go even further.

"Attraction, retention and progression, because we believe that without progression, the attraction and retention pieces do not really work."

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