Arts staff to host webinar on ‘Rethinking Inclusive Employment Practices in Lockdown: Live Comedy’

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Dr Sophie Quirk, Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre, and Dr Lavinia Brydon, Lecturer in Film, will be running a webinar in partnership with Kent Innovation and Enterprise entitled ‘Rethinking Inclusive Employment Practices in Lockdown: Live Comedy’ on Friday 31 July at 10am.

The webinar is part of the University of Kent’s Covid-19 Business Recovery Response Webinar Series.

Covid-19 has brought equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) issues into acute focus. The challenges of remote working disproportionately affect groups of workers who were already at risk of marginalisation. Along with enhanced scrutiny of EDI processes being brought to bear by movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, the summer of 2020 is a critical time for employers, carrying the risk of practical and reputational disaster. Many organisations feel both the moral and practical imperatives to do better, but do not know where to start or what they might be missing. The session will help you to answer these questions by learning lessons from a revealing case study: the live comedy industry.

The webinar will demonstrate how systemic inequalities created hidden risks and dangerous habits that could spell the end of a whole industry, and the dynamic, exciting strategies that are being used to save it. By showing the lessons that everybody should learn from live comedy – both good and bad – and helping people apply them to their own business contexts, this webinar will provide attendeees with tools to emerge from lockdown as a more equitable employer.

This two-and-a-half hour webinar will include a 30 minute Q&A, followed up by a 30-minute networking session where delegates will be able to dive deeper into the topics raised.

The webinar is open to all and free of charge. Participants can register for the webinar here:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rethinking-inclusive-employment-practices-in-lockdown-live-comedy-tickets-109136504222