Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) are critical components of workplace innovation, employee engagement and organizational success. HR professionals and D&I practitioners have an instrumental role in shaping workplace environments that continually value a diversity of people, thoughts and abilities. The HR function through strategic actions can become a significant force for change. This guide will provide tangible strategies for elevating D&I in the workplace and provide specific steps for HR practitioners.
Evaluate Your D&I Current State
To start, assess your organization’s D&I situation. Through anonymous employee surveys, gather demographic data on gender, ethnicity, age, disability, etc… to ensure anonymity. Collect data for use in monitoring your hiring, promotion and retention rates for different groups. Pay attention to discrepancies as you parse question examples e.g. if women comprise 20% of leadership roles in the organization and make up 50% of the workforce, or are there barriers for BIPOC candidates.
Additionally, perform focus groups or 1:1 interview of employees to solicit their experiences (i.e. desirability of workplace values). Also consider the use of D&I scorecards or similar tools to compare and quantify the observed gaps, and set some baseline metrics or targets aligned with your organizational objectives like proportionate representation.
Create Inclusive Policies
Build or revise human resource (HR) policies that advance fairness and inclusion. Implement blind recruitment practices by removing names and photographs from resumes and applications to lessen bias, as research demonstrates this can result in 30 percent increases in diverse hires. Offer flexible working arrangements for all while allowing for any diverse other needs including disabilities or caregiving responsibilities (i.e. remote options, different hours). Update anti-discrimination policies to ensure that all protected characteristics are included, complying with your local laws (such as India’s Equal Remuneration Act). Clearly communicate policies to employees via employee handbooks and training so everyone will hold themselves and each other accountable.
Develop Leadership Buy-in
Selling leadership on D&I efforts is essential in supporting its initiatives. Ask executives for public buy-in on D&I initiatives within the organization like in town halls or tenant wide emails. Communicate the importance and expectations of D&I efforts (training leaders on unconscious bias, making inclusive decisions, participating equitable in meetings) with reallife circumstances. Establish D&I councils which include the C-suite to support D&I and build the organization’s D&I capacity. Set true goals so that your organization is watching and keeping track of certain goals like
40 percent diverse candidates in leadership pipelines in two years (“You’re 25% more likely to earn employee trust in D&I efforts, with leadership buy-in”, at least according to research.)
Initiate Targeted Training
Create training programs to combat bias, encourage cultural competence, and add structure to training about bias. Make bias training mandatory making it part of your performance management system. Organize regular workshops using topics like microaggressions, allyship, and inclusive communication specific to their roles (e.g., manager versus frontline staff). Use engaging interactive formats such as role-playing and case studies to enhance engagement and build off studies suggesting that interactive training evidence retention by 60%. Provide training resources through an e-learning management systems or modules. Include materials for continuous learning on topics like bias, culture, diversity, implicit bias, etc. All learning materials should be in
English and in other languages in cases where employees don’t speak English as their first language. Captioning is a great way to accommodate diverse workforces. Track participation and feedback through performance management systems.
Create Employee Resources Groups
Support employees resource groups (ERGs) across underrepresented groups (women, LGBTQ+, ethnic and cultural minorities, etc.) in your organization. Provide both funding for and time to support an ERG’s activities from cultural awareness sessions, speakers, or mentorship programs, contributing to a feeling of belonging, connection and bonding in terms of their group differences. For example, an ERG for women in tech could host coding workshops and then help place the women in tech jobs thus increasing retention by 15%, according to industry reports. Make efforts to foster relationships across ERGs. These relations can survive even after the pandemic and help employees feel connected to each other. HR should have a role in creating and encouraging ERGs, but we should let our employees drive this process, which allows the initiative to come from their interests and passion, and not be confused with HR policy or procedures.
Measure and Report Progress
Regularly assess relevant diversity and inclusion metrics—this can be diversity in hiring (e.g. hiring 30% female candidates in STEM role positions), or employee inclusion survey scores (e.g., 80% stated they felt valued). Use HR analytics platforms to get roll-up views, identify trends, and then report findings quarterly back to the workforce and leadership. Transparency from reporting on diversity demographics in an annual report builds trust. Also doing biannual pulse surveys to track inclusion sentiment and make data- or evidence-based adjustments to D&I initiatives can help. Compare against best-in-class industry standards (e.g. become parity with the ratios of diversity representation of leading firms within 3 years).
Foster an Inclusive Culture
Inclusion needs to be incorporated into practice. Is the cultural diversity of your talent represented in events that your company hosts? When you hire candidates, is diversity evident in your messages, media, and
project teams? Reward inclusive behaviours (e.g., in performance reviews, awards). Research indicates that the simplest of actions like having diverse panellists in meetings can result in a 20% increase to perceptions of inclusion.
Conclusion
To improve D&I in the workplace, it is important to assess the current situation, produce inclusive policies, secure management commitment, and provide targeted training. By supporting ERGs, measuring progress, and promoting an inclusive culture, human resources can create an equitable workplace, which will positively impact our organizational success.
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