3 Tips for Cultivating Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

Cultivating Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace is a hot topic right now, loaded with buzz words and aspirational phrases including empowerment and advocacy.

Many hands make light work — and we have a lot of work to do.

How can we continue to keep the lines of communication on this topic open and make an impactful difference without sounding trite or appearing disingenuous? How can we avoid the missteps of pandering when instead we should be celebrating Black History Month, International Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc.?

I’ve spent the last week researching the topic, what works and what doesn’t, as well as attending formal panels, summits, and engaging in passionate networking events focusing on Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace. After speaking with powerful leaders and organizations that are flourishing, it is apparent that Diversity and Inclusion need to be deeply embedded in a company’s culture and institutionally nurtured from the top down.

From this newly acquired knowledge, I’ve refined my approach and have 3 tips I’d like to share with those interested on where to focus your energy and creativity while aiming to cultivate Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace:

Talent Development and Recruitment

It is necessary for D&I to have firm roots in Talent Development and Recruitment, not only in the departments’ practices and policies, but within the diverse structure of the teams themselves. Career Conversations should be practiced quarterly for all employees with their direct managers, based around personal development and consistent, effective 360 feedback. Setting clear expectations and goals for both task-oriented career development and behavioral or soft-skill development (Okoro, 2012). These consistent expectations and constant nurturing for all employees help reduce possible bias regarding workplace opportunities and advancement. Accessible training for all employees also creates a company culture of learning and growth, encouraging each employee to take their career and personal development into their own hands. This can curtail employee resistance to “mandatory” training, instead rebranding these tactics as opportunities for gaining relevant insight and knowledge.

Furthermore, a company must invest the time to train the managers, recruiters, etc. properly and consistently. Employees are often promoted to managerial positions for stellar performance without being provided a proper training path for people management. Creating a curriculum for rising stars helps them grow into effective managers as a natural career progression. I’d recommend in-house courses focused on

soft skills like: people management, understanding unconscious bias (and how to combat it), having difficult conversations, how to give effective feedback, goal setting, etc.

This same inclusive and nurturing mindset should extend itself to the HR and Recruitment Departments, flowing from the top down, encouraging them to rethink outdated “requirements” for the role in interviews (i.e. possessing a college degree, previous ‘x’ years in current position, etc.) that may be reflective of a systemic bias, limiting their diverse talent pool. Additionally, these departments should reconsider archaic “professionalism” policies (i.e. Monday-Friday 9-5 schedules or required formal attire, etc.) that may inhibit some employees from maintaining their necessary flexible schedules or from bringing their full selves to work. A company will benefit from establishing new workplace norms and building a two-way relationship of communication and trust, enabling employees to flourish and know the company supports their best selves and their most creative work.

Diversity, Civility, and Inclusion

Take a careful look at how your organization defines and values each of these terms. Diversity is well understood as an important factor in an organization’s success. Companies with more diverse populations often avoid groupthink and produce more creative and inclusive work. As the corporate world becomes increasingly global with the implementation of digital components like Zoom, employees can collaborate on projects from all over the world simultaneously. Inclusion is also preached far and wide, but often becomes an oversight in practice. Leaders must make more room at the table — make sure everyone has a seat and a voice at the table when decisions are made and information is disseminated. In best practices, this is often developed over time through communication that’s consistent and intentional in all information flows (upward, downward, and lateral). To do so, providing collaboration tools becomes vital. Great examples include implementing a #Slack enterprise or regular all-hands meetings, like town halls, where open feedback is encouraged. Offering opportunities for in-person and anonymous digital feedback help make sure all voices and opinions are included when gauging the cultural climate, understanding of purpose, and overall engagement satisfaction of an organization.

Metrics and proper analysis, when implemented correctly, can enable a company to assess their current state, and their growth YoY, for specific Diversity and Inclusion goals. For example, attrition rates can be useful. Do females or people of color leave the organization at higher rates or within shorter tenures than white heterosexual males? Set specific goals for what your company envisions for D&I and use the proper tools and analyses to measure progress quarterly. Use these metrics to inform what programs, policies, and practices are or are not working over time.

However, focusing on Civility can be the game-changer when sharpening your D&I tool belt. Unpacking civility means to extend its meaning beyond the definition of, “formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech” and allowing it to influence all behavior by all employees. Consider the concept of innersource, a coding term, for inspiration – as a soft-skill, not coding specific. Perhaps this can simply be defined as peak internal teamwork and collaboration for the purposes of this tip. How can we enable ourselves to remove or reduce unconscious bias by implementing the practices of an innersource community?

• Community built on meritocracy

• Encourage contribution, collaboration, and reuse of content/information

• Enable self-help

• Focus on innovation

• Follow the predetermined, polite rules of engagement

Put it in Writing

Finally, my last tip is to put it in writing. While this may seem like the simplest task, using the recommendations above and empowering employees exhibiting the desired skill sets to write and administer these policies will be most effective. Most companies already have massive employee handbooks, filled with policies and clauses to cover all possible situations. How often are these policies reviewed by a diverse, civil, and inclusive committee? How often do you make sure the policies keep up with the times?

Bringing in fresh perspectives on age-old rules can provide insight into documents that may have inherent bias. Simply because heritage policies have been in place for years doesn’t mean that they reflect a company’s current values system. Creating a formal and tangible inclusion policy and updating employee expectations provides the opportunity to achieve new D&I goals. Reassessing methods for recruitment — from the phrasing in job descriptions to the questions asked in an interview, looking at the expectations for workplace norms — like fixed schedules or rigid, outdated attire policies, and placing in firm guidelines for diverse, fair, and equitable career development can put a company on the right path to effective Diversity and Inclusion.

References

Dobbin, F., Kalev, A. (2016) Why diversity programs fail. Harvard Business Review.

Martin, G.C. (2014) The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace. Journal of Diversity Management (9)2, 89-92.

Mazur, B. (2010) Cultural diversity in organizational theory and practice. Journal of Intercultural Management (2)2, 5-15.

Okoro, E.A., Washington, M.C. (2012) Workforce diversity and organizational communication: analysis of human capital performance and productivity. Journal of Diversity and Management (7)1, 57-62.

PSA — If you’re looking for a great facilitator for D&I 101 or Uncovering Unconscious Bias, I have a great connection to share with you. Additionally, if you’re seeking Learning and Development programs or template courses, I have connections who may be willing to share their time as a coach or offer insight and assistance building your own program.