Diversity and Inclusion is more than just policies or programs. Inclusive workforces are proven to get ahead of their competitors through respecting unique needs and perspectives of all team members. Diverse organisations can gain a deeper trust from their employees – who also tend to be more committed to the business.
While they relate to one another, diversity and inclusion do not mean the same thing. Diversity is about representation or the make-up of an entity, whereas inclusion is about how well the contributions, presence, and perspectives of different groups of people are valued and integrated into an environment.
Diverse employees don’t automatically form an inclusive workplace where every employee is valued and given opportunities to thrive. You may have an environment where there are variations of genders, nationalities, sexual orientations, and races, but only the perspectives of certain groups are valued or carry any authority or influence. This may be a diverse workforce, but it is not inclusive.
Therefore, we will be giving you some advice and tips with regards as to how you can have a diverse workforce which is also inclusive of the perspectives of all. But first, we want to explain what a diverse and inclusive workforce is.
What is diversity and inclusion in the workplace?
When applying diversity and inclusion into a working context, a diverse and inclusive workforce is one which makes everyone feel equally involved in and supported in all areas of the workplace – regardless of who they are or what they do.
To evaluate your company’s own diversity, it could be a good idea to look at your organisational statistics. Do you have a workforce made up of 50% women? Yet only 5% of management are female? What is the percentage of representation of people of colour? Are they spread across equally? Or are they all in the same department?
A truly diverse and inclusive workforce is one which has equal representation for all different types of people, where their perspectives can be articulated across all sectors of the business.
Why is diversity and inclusion important?
There has been plenty of research to show how diversity and inclusion is beneficial for a business. Some of these benefits include:
- Variety of different perspectives – adapted from having employees with different characteristics and backgrounds – offering different skills and experiences.
- Increased creativity – from putting together different types of people with different perspectives, you are more likely to have new ideas flowing which improves overall creativity.
- Higher innovation – inclusive companies are 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market.
- Faster problem-solving – diverse teams are able to solve problems faster than cognitively similar people.
- Better decision making – when diverse teams make a business decision, they outperformed individual decision-makers up to 87% of the time.
- Increased profits – companies who have more diverse top teams were top financial performers, due to the speed of decision making, increased creativity and better overall employee engagement.
- Higher employee engagement – improved engagement is an outcome of diversity and inclusion, where employees become more engaged through feeling more included.
- Reduced employee turnover – when individuals feel more accepted and valued, they are happier at work – therefore, diverse and inclusive workforces have better employee retention.
- Better company reputation – companies who promote diversity are viewed as being more humane and socially responsible which creates a strong brand image.
- Improved hiring results – 67% of job seekers said that a diverse workforce is important when considering job offers.
How to have a more diverse and inclusive workforce
So, now we’ve discussed the pros of having a diverse and inclusive workforce, we will talk about what you can do to be more proactive with this topic. Below are some of the points we believe can help you on your journey:
1. Remove Unconscious Bias
Building awareness towards your unconscious bias is the first step towards real change. As a leader, you are responsible for helping employees understand how people may be impacted by unconscious bias, and what actions may reinforce these biases. Try to encourage every employee to review and question their own personal biases and assumptions (while also doing the same for yourself). When a person understands their own bias, they are turning them from being unconscious to conscious, and this will help them understand when they are stereotyping and try to prevent this in the future. Read our article on tackling unconscious bias.
2. Promote Pay Equality
Managers must provide a fair opportunity for every employee. Leverage analytics to identify which employees are being underpaid for similar roles and responsibilities. Once you have this information, make sure that people are being financially compensated for their worth, and that they are being paid equal to those in similar positions.
3. Develop a training program
Diversity training will help employees understand how cultural differences can impact how people work and interact at work. Typically, when diversity training is optional it tends to be more effective than when it is made mandatory. Try and focus the training specifically to your organisation, where you could potentially partner with a consultant to have a customised training program. This will keep people motivated and understand how it ties into the overall company vision. Read our articles on building an effective training program or how to structure a training program.
4. Acknowledge holidays of all cultures
This is an effective way to build cultural awareness for all staff. Through recognising that with a diverse workforce you may be employing people from all different backgrounds, they may celebrate certain religious or cultural holidays. During these times, it could perhaps be a good idea to respect these days when scheduling meetings or carrying out typical day-to-day activities. Keep track of the dates of multicultural events!
5. Make it easy for employees to participate in employee resource groups
Employee resource groups help build a culture of connection and belonging. Though incorporating this, you should make it easy for all employees to participate. Do this though allowing a social and business network for employees to connect with one another and have as many seniors as possible on the board. Through having senior members in the employee resource group, this can help increase visibility, innovation, and awareness, while also allowing the activity to align with your organisational goals toward diversity and inclusion.
6. Mix up your teams
A key part of diversity is to help employees understand and learn from difference voices, experiences, values, and cultures. Through having teams which are diverse and multicultural, you are promoting the sharing of information and values, which encourages creativity and innovation.
7. Encourage ongoing feedback
Through receiving feedback from your employees, you can get the right idea as to what is the best approach for diversity and inclusion. Handing out anonymous surveys is the best method in tracking the effectiveness of what your company is doing right, while also getting ideas from the people who it affects most. If you were the only one coming up with ideas to incorporate diversity and inclusion, then you can naturally succumb to your unconscious bias, which can negatively impact the change you’re trying to make.
8. Create safe spaces
Having safe spaces to be inclusive of certain types of people could be a great way to demonstrate to your employees that you care. For example, having prayer or meditation spaces, lactation rooms for new mothers, gender-neutral toilets are all examples of spaces which can cater to others at work.
9. Assess your company policies
It’s important for you to assess the areas of the business where discrimination may exist. For this, you should look closely at your policies and interpersonal interactions, and understand how you may typically handle internal issues. If you rethink your policies, you can address and replace any negative processes with positive ones. Do any of your policies enable or perpetuate discrimination?
10. Reward everyone’s performance
Recognition drives employee engagement, which therefore boosts morale and overall productivity. Focus on rewarding everyone consistently, perhaps you rewarded one person for reaching £10,000 in sales last month, but you didn’t reward another? It might also be a good idea to look for other successful reasons to reward your employees – maybe one person isn’t great at sales, but they’re excellent at generating leads. Do you cater your rewards to all types of successes?
11. Create events and initiatives focused on inclusivity
Host events which celebrate inclusion, whether that is documentary viewings during lunch, guest speakers, fundraisers, or mixers – get creative with it! This is a positive approach to diversity and inclusion because work events can be fun and encourages team-building.
12. Track your progress
Diversity and inclusion are not overnight successes. Changing your organisational processes can take months, if not years. You may experience challenges along the way which may hold you back. Regardless, you should keep track of whether the strategies are working or not. Hand out surveys to your employees to see the impact it’s having on them.
How does technology help promote inclusion and diversity?
Better technology can create a positive recruitment process and prevent bias in recruitment. Through using AI, you can remove any bias through technology recognising only skills and qualifications on CVs, rather than the applicant’s demographics.
Also, technology can be used to address any gender pay gaps, where you can view the demographics of employees, view their pay rate, and accurately attend to any pay gaps which may occur due to discriminatory reasons. Not only this, but you can also keep track of any diversity and inclusion targets via technological channels – where the figures are put in front of you (e.g. number of females in managerial positions compared to men). Once you are aware of these statistics, you can work towards ensuring that your company figures are aligned with your diversity goals.
To Summarise…
Now we’re aware of the benefits and first steps towards becoming more diverse and inclusive as a workforce, it’s important you learn your own methods of adopting this type of collective mindset as a business.
We hope these tips can point you in the right direction to become more diverse and inclusive! Have any more ideas on inclusion and diversity in the workplace? Let us know at [email protected].
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Other Reading Materials: Racial Equality and Diversity in the Workplace, Gender Equality and Diversity in the Workplace, Focusing on a Multigenerational Workforce.
