Pride Month at Wickes 2022

Our Wickes Pride Network is 5 years old this year, and Pride Month feels like a great time to celebrate our Birthday. It's also Wickes 50th Birthday, which coincides with 50 years of Pride in the UK! During the last 5 years, we have driven significant change to the business in support of our LGBTQ+ colleague and customer community, and have a plan that will see this continuing for the next 5 years and beyond.

I’m often asked what I consider to be the biggest achievement for the network, or my proudest moment, and for me it’s really clear. It’s the genuine impact that our work is having on our overall culture and our colleagues at Wickes. In the last couple of years, we have seen and heard so many positive coming out stories and regularly receive colleagues' stories about their experience inside and outside of Wickes.

The environment that the network has helped to create, shape and nurture is definitely what makes me the proudest. Hearing that our colleagues really can be their true selves in Wickes (and in some cases it’s the only place they’re out!) is just so special and makes the hard work that much more worthwhile.

This year at Wickes, we’re focusing heavily on allyship, having trained and signed up almost 200 LGBTQ+ Allies over the last 3 years, it turns out that it’s this year we need them the most! Active allies will help us make a real difference to the current wave of anti LGBTQ+ activity both here and abroad. We really encourage our allies to learn the current issues facing the community and speak up when something isn’t right! And more importantly, we encourage them to provide a safe space for our LGBTQ+ colleagues to talk about how they feel. You don’t need to look far to see how trans people are being demonised in the media, how the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are writing guidance that goes against trans rights, how the UK attorney general is guiding schools against recognising a child's wish to self-identify and express, and how generally backwards we seem to be going. Even the proposal for the ban on conversion therapy is not inclusive of trans people. The UK has gone from the 3rd best country in Europe for LGBTQ+ people, to 14th! All in the space of a year. We have to turn the tide, and we can only do that with great support from our Allies. So we’re using Pride Month to ask our allies to step-up their support and stamp-out discrimination!

We also conduct our #proudmoments campaign during Pride Month. This campaign encourages our LGBTQ+ colleagues and allies to share their proudest moments from the last 12 months with a picture or video and a bit of a story about why. These moments always bring a smile to my face, there is nothing better. And again, in a year where hate is growing, sharing these moments far and wide across our business creates a wave of love and admiration and helps our LGBTQ+ colleagues feel valid and valued.

This year marks 50 years of Wickes and 50 years since the first UK Pride, so we will, as always, mark the end of the month with a Pride party in our stores, distribution centres, and support centres before we gear up for London, Brighton, and Manchester Prides through July and August.

Lastly, I think it’s really important that we get the balance right this year, of course we want to shout about what we’ve achieved, share our proud moments, and enjoy the lighter side of Pride. But, we can not ignore the challenges faced by the community right now, and we should all use our platform, no matter how big or small, to drive awareness and protect and enhance the rights of everyone in the LGBTQ+ community. As a Stonewall Diversity Champion, we were awarded Gold Employer status this year, and we certainly don't take that responsibility lightly. The job is far from done!