The Aviation sector needs to ensure that the diversity of aviation leaders and the wider workforce more closely matches the diversity in our societies to ensure that we are able to tap into the full talent pool of personnel. Equality will ensure that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents, giving everyone equal opportunities to develop. Inclusion forms the base for psychological safety and also contributes to a better safety culture that is imperative in ATM organisations. It is vital for the sustainability of businesses and economies. Everyone stands to benefit when we embrace and value the diversity of thoughts, ideas, and ways of working that people from different backgrounds, experiences and identities bring to an organisation. Even though there is wide acceptance of the EU legislation and UN SDGs, and the benefits for the companies, there is great difficulty to translate them into actions. Given that the political and societal will is so strong, there is a clear need to provide for pragmatic and efficient approaches to achieve DEI in supporting where possible, mapping and referring to other existing initiatives to avoid double work and fragmentation of efforts. This action will have the clear value of delivering a pragmatic way for ATM in a first step, and later wider aviation, companies on how to engage efficiently and to develop productively local actions, relevant to their specific context, to achieve realistic results.
The toolkit will have the following elements: Engaging, Partnering, Use of data and statistics, Learning programmes, Certification- mapping some available certifications, pros and cons of using them, and Communication
The work to improve DEI in the aviation sector has so far been largely uneven and has been executed at local level with many organisations working in isolation. More efficiency and faster results will be achieved if there is a collaborative approach to leverage scale of economies and economies of knowledge so that the 62 ANSPs that share same technical and operational standardization and best practices also share best practices and knowledge on DEI. People and organisations need to actively engage on the topic, and a coherent strategy is needed to ensure that working practices across the industry support an inclusive culture which embraces difference, at local, international, and organisational levels.