Inclusion Specialist

Overview

Job description

At McLaren, our mission is to set the standard for high performance in sport. Everyone, in every part of the team, has a role to play. So if you want to test your ideas with the world watching… And measure your progress in milliseconds… And play your part in racing history… You belong here. High performance starts with you.

Purpose of the Role

The People Team is a highly valued and dynamic business performance partner, offering services across a range of diverse functions and departments within our highly competitive racing teams. It’s a unique and fast-paced sports environment, so we are looking for the best in our industry to lead change and keep pushing boundaries.

This role will report to the Head of People Experience, with a dotted line to the Senior Manager, DEI.

The Head of People Experience provides overall governance and accountability for how inclusion is embedded across the full employee lifecycle, ensuring alignment with People strategy, policies, and processes. The Senior Manager, DEI, sets the strategic direction and roadmap for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Specialist, Inclusion ensures execution of this roadmap, translating strategy into practical initiatives and measurable outcomes.

Diversity, equity and inclusion deliver performance for us as a team, and in this role, you’ll be responsible for how we embed an inclusive approach across the full employee lifecycle, working closely with experts across the lifecycle. You will be delivery-focused; responsible for implementing internal initiatives, managing data and reporting, and embedding inclusion across learning and development, employee communities and awareness events, all whilst providing expertise and support to the wider DEI strategy for STEM engagements and social impact initiatives.

Day-to-day, you’ll work closely with the People Experience, DEI, Learning, Early Careers and Talent teams on initiatives with a focus on optimising performance through our people. The role will also see you collaborating with our wider People and Internal Communications teams on the delivery and evaluation of activities and interventions.

Given the high-performance environment, this role requires credibility, adaptability, and a performance-focused approach, along with being a strong collaborator, communicator, and relationship builder.

Key Accountabilities

• Deliver inclusion programmes as defined in the annual DEI roadmap, ensuring all initiatives have clear timelines, owners, and metrics.

• Drive and empower the maturation of our Employee Communities/Networks: setting up governance frameworks and embedding impact measures.

• Provide input into the design of highly personalised learning interventions in the inclusion space across face-to-face, virtual and digital learning. Using feedback and evaluation to iterate content.

• Support our People Partner community as an inclusion SME to design solutions and offer coaching to managers and team members within their functions.

• Support the delivery of the statutory and internal inclusion reports (e.g. Gender Pay Gap, Sustainability DEI reporting), working with the Senior DEI Manager to evolve and use feedback to inform the maturing of DEI areas.

• Collaborate with our People Analytics team to design data dashboards that measure not only the diversity of our people but also inclusivity, tracking key inclusion metrics (representation, experience, attrition) and surfacing trends that require action.

• Support our Early Careers team on inclusion-focused attraction and engagement activities such as careers fairs, work experience and scholarships.

• Support our Senior Manager, DEI, on key activations across our Social Impact agenda externally.

• Support external Social Impact and commercial Partnership activations under DEI themes: co-deliver partner-programmes, events, and campaigns, monitoring impact against agreed KPIs.

• Collaborate with Internal Communications to execute the annual DEI events & awareness calendar, aligning with DEI priorities and external activations.

• Monitor DEI best practices, regulatory changes, and emergent trends working with the wider People Experience team to drive innovation and continuous improvement.

• Ensure all internal inclusion initiatives are embedded into core People processes (attraction, recruitment, onboarding, development, experiences and performance).

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience working on inclusion as part of a DEI, People Experience or Engagement team, ideally within an engineering, technical or professional sports environment.

• Demonstrable experience in establishing, maturing, and measuring the impact of Employee Communities/Networks.

• Experience in developing and delivering inclusion-related development, facilitating informal dialogues and learning spaces.

• Experience in building business cases, securing stakeholder sign-off, and reporting ROI on inclusion initiatives.

• A good working knowledge of UK employment law and how it applies to diversity, equity, inclusion and workplace culture, with the ability to apply it pragmatically in a fast-paced environment.

• High emotional intelligence, integrity, and the ability to navigate sensitive topics with empathy, rigor, and discretion.

• Strong analytical and storytelling skills – able to translate data into action and compelling narrative for senior stakeholders.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to build relationships with stakeholders at all levels.

• Strong project management experience, evidenced by the delivery of complex or time-pressurised interventions successfully.

• Experience in cross-functional collaboration, particularly with People, Early Careers, Talent, and Internal Communications.

Personal Attributes

• Relationship builder: the ability to capture the attention of an audience, inspire others and create relationships quickly, establishing credibility and trust, inspiring confidence across all levels of the organisation.

• Collaboration: actively collaborates with stakeholders, creating strong working relationships to ensure all needs are represented and the best outcomes and experiences are delivered.

• Attention to detail: hold incredibly high standards for your work and your delivery – ensuring all training exceeds expectations.

• Highly motivated and agile: thrives within a fast-paced and demanding environment, moving with the business to deliver changing priorities and evolving goals.

• Calm under pressure: stay focussed and measured while managing projects and juggling requests for support from the people team and the business.

• Credible: considered credible and has gravitas, acting as a trusted advisor and role model for inclusion.

• Ownership: demonstrates behaviours that support a high-performance culture within and across teams and has a clear track record of getting things done.

What can McLaren offer?

We constantly strive to be better tomorrow than we are today. Our ambition is to be the most pioneering and exhilarating racing team in the world, and our collective task is to set the standards for high performance in sport. We show up every day with energy and enthusiasm, ready to play our part.

We encourage and support diversity, equity and inclusion. We will actively promote a culture that values difference and eliminates discrimination in our workplace.

McLaren Racing is based at the iconic McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) near Woking. Here at McLaren, we offer hybrid working with 3 days a week based in the MTC.

Our state of the art, sustainable campus offers many facilities including a gym, restaurant and indoor and outdoor break-out areas, as well as direct access to park and common land. The MTC is connected to Woking mainline station via regular shuttle buses, from which London Waterloo is a 30 minute train ride.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including private healthcare, car schemes, life insurance and generous pension contributions.