Leadership in the Age of Personalization. A major issue is that many companies believe they’re already promoting a diverse and inclusive culture. Companies that promote diversity and inclusion also usually see a boost in their brands. Companies with significantly more racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to outperform competitors. Once you’ve garnered adequate support, ask critical questions about your company’s workforce. Most believe in their hearts that the implementation will make the company better inside and a more competitive outside. What’s more, by building an inclusive work environment, you can instill greater trust between employees and leadership一an enormous problem in today’s workforce. According to Jeff Cates, employee networks are “perhaps the single greatest way to promote the type of inclusive culture that helps people thrive and businesses stand out.” Outside of ERGs, think about establishing a D&I steering committee to drive and advocate for D&I initiatives. This Spring, YW Boston partnered with Bentley University on their report, Intersectionality in the Workplace: Broadening the Lens of Inclusion.YW Boston’s work focuses on the intersectionality of race and gender, specifically, by working to help individuals and organizations create more inclusive environments where women, people of color, and especially women of color can succeed at all levels. Highly diverse, inclusive companies experienced a 14.4 percent gain while the S&P 500 saw a 35.5 percent decline in stock performance. Employee engagement software can help you better understand blind spots in all departments at all levels. Diversity is a competitive differentiator一McKinsey found that for every 10 percent increase in gender diversity, EBIT rose by 3.5 percent. The Financial Facts of an Inclusive Workplace. A company’s policies and practices should be available to all workers at all times. Inclusion means that everyone in the diverse mix feels involved, valued, respected, treated fairly, and embedded in your culture. The State of Workplace Diversity & Inclusion. Remember: Gathering data is just one piece of the puzzle. How well do you practice diversity of thought? 2. Be sure to measure diversity and inclusion–related KPIs before and after implementing each new D&I initiative. Consider adding other typical D&I KPIs like the percentage of employees belonging to minority groups, average tenure of employees based on age or ethnicity, etc. Our goal as leaders is to convert the melting pot of differences into a mosaic that fuels strategies for growth, innovation, and opportunity to maximize the full potential of people, brands, and businesses. This higher engagement has a ripple effect on profitability, team morale, and retention. Encourage team leads to listen to the ways in which D&I is manifesting at all levels of the employee experience. As you build and grow your employee networks, remember to focus on creating thoughtful conversations and strategies around D&I in the workplace. Inclusion is the only scalable way to build diversity within an organization. A significant majority of white respondents also said workforce diversity is important. A diverse, progressive, and inclusive workplace culture can no longer be treated like an optional, industry-specific perk. Otherwise, they’ll always be pushed to the back burner. But when I ask the executives what their plans solve for, they often say “diversity and inclusion.” That’s as tautological as you get. When it comes to employee networks, our D&I committee helps with the following: drive awareness and education of employee networks, provide strategic guidance, and share industry research and best practices. Leadership teams need to lead by example, from integrating D&I into their hiring interview process to the way they treat their fellow employees. Can you answer this? Consider creating a campaign to increase activity in your employee recognition program to ensure everyone feels appreciated by their peers and managers. This helps spread awareness about ERGs and encourages people to sign up for D&I initiatives. When companies support D&I initiatives, a whopping 83 percent of millennials are actively engaged in their work. 1. However, only 40 percent of employees agree that their manager fosters an inclusive environment. Be ready to take action on feedback—this is critical for employees to provide feedback in the future. Let’s face it. Other policies should clearly summarize the company’s stances on compensation and benefits, and employment conditions and termination. The Harvard Business Review found a statistically significant relationship between diversity and innovation outcomes. The most diverse enterprises—in terms of migration, industry, career path, gender, education, age—were also the most innovative, as measured by their revenue mix. Great Place to Work assessed hundreds of publicly traded companies before, during, and after a recession. Teaching your leaders to recognize the unique talents of their team members and to reward employees for doing their best work can alleviate this issue and create a more inclusive workplace. Growth strategies are becoming less about the business defining the individual and more about the individual defining the business. Lack of participation is often connected to uncertainty and fear of what will happen if they do speak up. The Future of Inclusion. Below are some of the top challenges that organizations face when it comes to leveling up their diversity and inclusion strategies. Diversity and inclusion requires diverse and non-diverse leaders to work together to create a culture that embraces diversity of thought and deploys the required best practices, development tools, and resources to maximize talent engagement, advancement, workplace performance, and overall satisfaction. Empowering all employees and recognizing their special talents is part of creating an inclusive company. Discrimination, in all its many forms, is illegal. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. As the new year approaches, you … Take full advantage of an engaging recognition and rewards program that encourages your workforce to celebrate their peers’ strengths, but also their uniqueness. Ask yourself, “How are my employee networks and other D&I initiatives guided by an overall D&I strategy?” At Achievers, we have a D&I steering committee that acts as the primary advocate for all things D&I, with a mission to drive D&I initiatives to success. The Achievers platform delivers on all fronts. Our D&I steering committee requires a good mix of committee members and representation from different areas of the company. Furthermore, many diverse employees have faced significant adversity in their life. The pattern is clear: Spurred by a penchant for action, managers tend to switch quickly into solution mode without checking whether they really understand the problem.”. When there is a lack of acceptance of the diverse culture and beliefs among employees, conflicts may arise. That’s what a diversity and inclusion plan should do. In addition to employee networks, think about your overall D&I strategy. Do inclusive training every year: This is costly for a lot of organizations. There are myriad ways to start incorporating diversity into your workplace. Join our mailing list so you never miss a post. Try experimenting with a variety of team-signed celebration cards to help foster a sense of belonging and make employees feel included from day one. For each individual to bring their best self forward, a … In other words, diversity is the representation of a range of traits and experiences in a company’s workforce. By and large, diversity and inclusion initiatives focus only on recruitment, reputation management, and “checking off the boxes.”  That does not make them bad. Today, millennials make up the vast majority of the workforce. Discover how to strengthen connections across your organization. My organization, GLLG, helps companies build high-performance leaders, teams and cultures focused on inclusion and the power of individuality. One way to collect everyone’s point of view is to use something like Achiever’s Action Builder feature which allows managers and teams to find a focus, build a plan, and collaborate on effective action. We need to stop solving and looking for recognition and start thinking about and earning respect from the actual people in our workplaces and marketplaces – to give them influence over the growth of the company. Highly engaged employees go the extra mile for the organization. Consequently, leaders gain new perspectives and inspire employees to make a difference. The moral case for building fairer and more inclusive labour markets and workplaces is indisputable: regardless of our identity, background or circumstance, we all deserve the opportunity to develop our skills and talents to our full potential, work in a safe, supportive and inclusive environment, be fairly rewarded and recognised for our work and have a meaningful voice on matters that affect us. These training sessions need to show that you’ve done your research and you know about the current biases in your workplace. Challenges of diversity and inclusion Leadership involvement. These elements must go hand-in-hand in the workplace in order to truly make an impact. This gauges employees’ sense of belonging and authenticity. Objective criteria reduces the chance of bias or prejudice. Build a multigenerational workforce. It’s been over 50 years since the Civil Rights Act made discrimination in the workplace illegal. Give your employees the ability to tie each recognition to a particular company value supporting D&I. Show them that their voices matter. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) concluded that harassment, which is a form of discrimination, is more likely to happen in the workplace with a lack of diversity. It’s about just getting out there to sell, sell, sell. Public recognitions are very impactful because they give a sense of belonging and offer company-wide visibility. Recognition is a sure way to build a supportive and inclusive workplace culture. Inclusion tackles the lived experiences employees bring to their day-to-day work and how those experiences are accepted, valued, and welcomed. But what really limits them is where they live: in HR and CSR – on the fringe and disconnected from enterprise wide growth opportunities. Move diversity and inclusion out of human resources. 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