Like the multifariousness of flowers included in the garden, a typical workplace should also constitute diverse human resources whose perspectives and ideas are heartily welcomed in the organization. The quote of the writer of We Do This ‘Til We Free Us’, Mairam Kaba, “Why be a star when you can make a constellation” can be aligned with the adoption of diverse and inclusive policies and strategies in the organization. Before indulging in the coign of vantage of Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace and strategies for HR professionals, one needs to understand the definition of Diversity and Inclusion in the first place.
Diversity: Refers to the multiple visible or invisible differences such as race, gender, socio-economic environment, sexual orientation, etc among people working in the organization. Diversity can be categorized into four types as enumerated below:
Internal: Unchangeable such as age, gender, race, etc.
External: Changeable such as education, skills, etc.
Organizational: Job location, departments, etc
World view: Political opinions, work philosophies, etc.
Inclusion: An organizational practice to create an inclusive environment for all employees despite their age, gender, color, etc. An assurance to provide equal access to opportunities to all the human resources significantly.
The concept of Diversity and Inclusion aka the D & I initiative has gained momentum around the globe in the past years. The organizations are commendatory on adopting this initiative as the words- Discrimination, Inequality, and Partiality are slowly demolished from the workplace dictionary. Diversity and Inclusion have become pivotal elements for business success, employee productivity, and organizational sustainability of the organization. All the organizations around the world are cognizing the importance of the organizational policies that allow the diverse workforce to unveil their perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences and create a favorable space for their intellections to be heard and implemented as well.
But the catch-22 is diversity without inclusion and inclusion without diversity is like filling water in the jerrycan with multiple holes. The efforts are seen but the result is zero. It just invites a toxic work culture and an uncreative workplace with zilch results. According to Deloitte, companies with diverse workforces enjoy 2-3 times higher cash flow per employee and Gartner discovered that inclusive teams improve team performance by up to 30% in higher diverse environments. Also according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the companies with more inclusive work cultures and policies experience to enhance work culture as well as overall performance. These findings are published in various online articles as well.
Examples of Navigating Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace:
- Celebration of diverse festivals with participation of different employee groups such as Eid, Christmas, Teej, etc
- Organizing various programs with the involvement of all the diverse human resources with the concept of Culture Add rather than Culture Fit
- Formal address by the CEO or senior management team to the employees on various diverse programs so that the diverse workforce may feel they are welcomed and heard.
D & I initiative is the devoted effort of the organizations to create a diverse workforce understanding the capability and potentiality of all the employees by embracing the differences based on opinions, race, age, and many more and including every organizational member’s viewpoints and specific identities. The four pillars of navigating diversity and inclusion include:
i) Community
ii) Growth
iii) Education
iv) Engagement
Let’s delve into the advantages for the organizations that are inclined towards the D & I initiative:
i) Embracing the magpie backgrounds and distinguished traits of the diverse workforce can create a healthy work environment with the positive and good physical and mental health of the employees as they feel connected within the organization as their roots are also valued.
ii) Companies with diverse workforce can elegantly tackle the customers as customers don't belong to just a specific community, they also come from varied backgrounds, perspectives, and groups. This helps the organizations cater to a wide range of customer demands ultimately resulting in customer satisfaction and applauding market share adding a competitive advantage.
iii) When the employees feel valued, they are more likely to stay and dedicate their efforts to the organization for a longer time leading to reduced turnover rates in the companies and recruitment costs with a good company reputation in the market as the news of frequent resignation and announcement of vacant posts in the organization may negatively impact the company image and brand.
iv) When learning, growth, and advancement opportunities are provided to the employees as the integral effort of the D & I initiative, it ultimately boosts employee morale and productivity and it can’t be denied that a diverse workforce creates creative output due to creative solutions coming from diverse backgrounds to solve creative problems and create fresh business opportunities.
v) With the diverse and inclusive workforce, talent attraction and retention are the plus points as top talents may feel a sense of security and belongingness in the organizations where they are valued. This ultimately helps to reduce workplace biases, improving organizational and employee efficiency. The collaboration between the strong teams significantly impacts the business success of the companies.
vi) The new ideas and innovative ideas that come from diversified backgrounds, help the organizations to go the extra mile for profitability, retention, and increased employee engagement and trust-building.
As most of the organizations have followed this practice of the D & I initiative, the DEI approach has added extra garnishing to the organization's standing for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with equitable standards in the organization. As the organization follows D & I approach or practices in the organization, there are multiple advantages for the organization, employees, HR, and customers along with some challenges of Leadership participation, KPIs or measurement scales lacking, interventional training, Silos, additional T & D programs, etc, in a nutshell, its importance is immense from an overall point of view. Here are some of the few tips to foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace:
- The theme of Understanding the Differences and acting on the commonalities should be implemented.
- Education is not just about grabbing the certification of degrees. It’s about embracing open-mindedness and eliminating bad stereotypes; hence, HR and the team must create a workplace environment where there is mutual trust and understanding amongst the employees rather than fear of raising their inner voice and perspective.
- The priorities in hiring, communication, and transparency should be considered in a multicultural and multigenerational workforce.
- The recognition and reward of employees should be done on a frequent basis.
- There are measurement challenges of the D & I approach but HR professionals must do thorough research on leveraging tools and equipment to measure the everlasting and ongoing success of the initiative.
- Conducting regular surveys and employee feedback must ensure that the workplace is maintained per the approach or not and what else needs to be done for the better of both employees and the organization.
- Documentation of the best practices, strategies, and policies for upcoming programs is highly recommendable.
- Organizing reliable training and development programs for the employees adds extra points to this practice.
- Maintaining the base standards on the D & I approach to meet the objective criteria can be one of the best strategies to proceed further.
- Setting up a Council or committees to examine the fruitfulness including employees from varied backgrounds can also work.
- Incorporating D &I practices into the hiring and recruitment of the talent pool is suggested.
There are various Diversity and Inclusion trends popular in 2024 such as hiring diversity professionals, introducing remote workspace, multigenerational workforce, and plenty more that require lots of homework and research by HR professionals. The first and foremost step is to welcome diverse people into the work environment and make them inclusive otherwise the D & I initiative goes in vain. Both diversity and inclusion should be implemented ahead in a parallel way followed by equity, systematic change, and other required practices in a dynamic way. Just for the sake of the Name, its practice in the organizational chart is invalid. Hence, corrective actions should be taken from the organizational end to create a diverse and inclusive workforce.