While businesses have begun to pay greater attention to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, there is still an opportunity for growth in this area. Solving hard problems and getting everyone on the team to do their best, helps to have people with different backgrounds and points of view on the team.
More and more studies show that a diverse workforce improves creativity and productivity. Some studies have found that businesses with policies that encourage diversity do better and can handle economic downturns better. It’s no secret why this is the case: firms with a higher percentage of female employees are significantly more likely to be innovative.
Businesses have shifted their focus in recent years away from diversity and inclusion in favor of protecting and recovering from disruptions to operations. Some staff works from home, while others are at or returning to an office or construction site in person. These new forms of employment have the potential to expose any hidden biases and worsen the current diversity crisis. Simply put, a distributed workforce has the potential to increase isolation amongst workers and teams, undermining previous attempts to foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in the Workplace
- Recognize unconscious bias: Understanding bias and raising awareness are steps toward transformation. Unconscious biases don’t always match our conscious beliefs. Therefore, they’re even more crucial to notice. Leaders should help their workers understand how unconscious bias affects them and what actions make biases stronger. To fight against unconscious bias, encourage employees to think about, question, and analyze their own biases and assumptions.
- Promote bias management: Leaders and staff can control bias and promote inclusive cultures through cultural humility. This notion incorporates cultural curiosity and humility. Technology and training can assist firms in helping employees manage their personal preferences.
- Equal pay: Managers must give each employee a fair chance. Analytics can find underpaid individuals with comparable positions or responsibilities. People analytics can help managers find out if their employees are getting paid differently, and leaders can look at patterns across departments to find out what’s going on.
- Train Strategically: Diversity training teaches how cultural differences affect work and interactions. It can cover time, communication, self-identity, and conflict. Optional diversity training is more effective than required training. Companies should focus on relevant training for their company and workers that match their diversity, equality, and inclusion aims and issues.
- Celebrate all holidays: Recognizing forthcoming religious and cultural holidays can promote diversity and inclusivity. If the audience is manageable, ask participants how they’ll commemorate the holiday. Use your company’s intranet to assist employees in learning about and tracking ethnic celebrations. Respect these days when scheduling meetings, and know that employees may need flexibility.
- Make ERG participation easy: Managers may build and develop talent in ERGs. ERGs build community. Employers could get more people to join by giving ERG meetings a separate pay code or letting employees work on projects or tasks together. A leader can boost ERG visibility, innovation, and awareness and combine them with company goals.
- Team-up: Diverse voices, experiences, values, and cultures must be understood and learned. Diverse talent boosts perspective and team creativity. A culture of inclusion enhances creativity and innovation in teams. Multiple perspectives encourage creative thinking, new connections, and various problem-solving approaches.
- Continuous feedback: Organizations might promote feedback to learn what’s happening behind the scenes. Pulse surveys give leaders the information they need to make smarter decisions and lessen or eliminate discrimination or bias, for example. An anonymous “pulse survey” of employees can help you act quickly on current problems and set long-term goals.
- Policy evaluation: Employers must also assess areas of prejudice. Company policies and interpersonal relationships, including how an internal issue is handled, perpetuate problems. Employers can eliminate unpleasant processes or encounters by rethinking their rules.
- Long-term tracking: Diversity, equality, and inclusion projects take time. Changing personnel strategies and procedures can take months as organizations face new hiring and management problems. A cultural transition takes time, so businesses must track their progress to see if their efforts are working.
- Diversify recruitment and promotion: Diverse candidates are important for a DEIB-friendly and inclusive workplace, but more needs to be done. A diverse recruiting panel ensures objectivity and fairness.
- Develop a mentoring program: From cross-department shadowing to CEO breakfasts, there are many ways to mentor underrepresented personnel. These initiatives improve employee engagement and promote advancement within the firm. A strong mentorship program sets clear goals for the mentor and mentee, operates across all corporate levels, and fosters dynamic, two-way mentoring so people may learn from one another.
- Train and engage DEIB personnel regularly: Many workplaces mandate diversity and unconscious bias training, but is it effective? Studies disagree. DEIB training programs may make people more aware, but they will sometimes change how people act if given passively. Training must be dynamic, ongoing, and part of a larger organization-wide conversation.
- Accountability leaders: A DEIB plan will only take hold if leadership holds it accountable. Set goals, measure results, and have the leadership team be responsible for good or bad DEIB results. Employees turn to their leaders for guidance, but they’ll only follow if they believe they’re changemakers too.
In a nutshell
Strategically bringing on new onboarders takes more than just printing out papers and making a PowerPoint presentation about company policies, it pays off. Strategically onboarding personnel has numerous benefits. Some, such as increased productivity, have an impact on your revenue. Others, like keeping more of your employees, can have a big impact on your bottom line. Think of your onboarding program as a work in progress. Add new ideas as you can and ask for feedback to make it better. Over time, there will undoubtedly be more advantages to properly onboarding staff.