Upholding diversity and inclusion is more than just hiring people from diverse backgrounds. It involves actively promoting diversity and inclusion at every level in the organization. As such, the lower-level employees and the upper management have to be aware of the company’s commitment.
Companies that embrace diversity and inclusion have shown to perform better because they attract diverse talent. Inclusion is about accepting and embracing people from different cultures and backgrounds. Fortunately, diversity and inclusion can be achieved in many different forms. It is a collective process that involves a change in processes, people, and company culture. Many people hold on to the myth that it is HR’s job to uphold diversity and inclusion. However, everyone in the organism is supposed to participate.
What is diversity and inclusion?
Although these terms are closely related, they are not the same. Often, diversity is used to refer to race and matter of racial representation. In other words, diversity is based on individual differences between people in terms of personality, physical aspects, and identity. On the other hand, inclusion is about making everyone in the company feel welcome, supported, valued, and respected as a valuable member of the organization. Inclusion is a continuous effort for every company’s leadership and workforce.
Best practices
- Practice fairness in the workplace
Fairness in the workplace means recognizing and respecting individual rights of all employees. Fair treatment of employees is crucial for them to feel included. As such, promotion and salary increments should be made fairly. All people should also be represented in leadership positions. Fairness will boost your company’s overall productivity because workers feel safe and fully engaged. Unfair treatment can create a toxic work culture, which in turn breeds high employee turnover, absenteeism, and lower productivity.
- Employ diverse talent
When trying to achieve diversity in the workplace, it is important to check job descriptions and get rid of any gendered terms or any other exclusive terms. Many reports say that higher performance and profitability are associated with diversity. Additionally, such companies have higher retention rates and innovative thinking. It is important to have the right diversity and inclusion strategy; for instance, recruiters use techniques such as skill tests to assess their candidates. Also, HR teams can utilize unconscious bias training to assess interviews and resumes.
- Make employees feel a sense of belonging
Employees need to feel welcome in the workplace to be highly productive. One way of making employees feel welcome is by encouraging them to voice their concerns and opinions. Consequently, this will create an environment of trust and transparency.
Employers can create a sense of belonging by creating chances for their employees’ personal and professional growth. Employees will commit to the company better if they know that their company values their success. Companies can achieve this by organizing mentorship opportunities, training programs, and other initiatives that help employees grow and develop.
- Hold diversity and inclusion training for employees
Such training can help employees understand that diversity and inclusion promote equity. It is important that employees understand the need for inclusion of underrepresented communities and how their voices should be heard. Members of the workforce can then act in a manner that is considerate and open-minded. Such training can also help employees understand and identify issues relating to discrimination, bullying, and harassment, creating a safe and equitable workplace. Therefore, companies can invest in diversity and inclusion counselors.
Many companies concentrate on educating upper management about the benefits of diversity and inclusion, forgetting lower-level workers. It would hurt the business if there were reports of exclusion at any level.
- Hold diversity and inclusion training for employees
Teamwork is a good way of promoting collaboration and a sense of community among the employees. This can help employees recognize and appreciate their diverse skills and perspectives, which can help them create innovative and profitable decisions for the company. Teamwork can also be a great way of breaking down stereotypes and biases through interaction. They can learn from each other’s cultures and share knowledge and experiences. The most effective way of promoting collaboration is by creating diverse teams. To create a diverse team, the company can occasionally rotate team members, create project-based teams with individuals from different departments, and create cross-functional teams. Diverse teams can help the company by encouraging the exchange of different points of view, breakdown silos, and end group thinking.
- Rethink your hiring and recruitment process
Research shows that focusing on candidates’ previous work experience and educational background can result in practices that don’t promote diversity and inclusion. One proven method of diversifying your employees is using personality assessments. That way, you can set aside specific values, motivations, personality traits, and skills and be less dependent on educational background and work experience. By using personality tests, you can get great candidates from underrepresented communities purely based on their natural abilities and talents. According to a study conducted on 150 companies, those that used personality tests had a more diverse workforce compared to their counterparts.
- Keep tabs on your inclusion and diversity efforts
It is important to measure the inclusion and diversity efforts in your company. Using analytics to measure your diversity and inclusion efforts can help identify gaps, drive continuous improvement, ensure accountability, and retain a diverse workforce. It can help upper management recognize the errors in their policies, culture, or processes that hinder full representation. To measure the company’s inclusion and diversity efforts, the management can organize external benchmarks and best practices, use HR information systems, diversity dashboards, surveys or simply use diversity metrics and analytics.
Conclusion
Diversity and inclusion are very important in the workplace because they lead to higher production and increase employee retention. As such, companies are tasked with creating inclusive cultures that uphold the differences and values of various employees, offer equal opportunities, and actively support diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The top best practices that companies can leverage include holding diversity and inclusion training, ensuring their recruitment process upholds diversity and inclusion, encouraging teamwork, recruiting a diverse workforce, creating a sense of belonging, and having metrics to measure inclusion and diversity efforts.
Upholding diversity and inclusion is more than just hiring people from diverse backgrounds. It involves actively promoting diversity and inclusion at every level in the organization. As such, the lower-level employees and the upper management have to be aware of the company’s commitment.
Companies that embrace diversity and inclusion have shown to perform better because they attract diverse talent. Inclusion is about accepting and embracing people from different cultures and backgrounds. Fortunately, diversity and inclusion can be achieved in many different forms. It is a collective process that involves a change in processes, people, and company culture. Many people hold on to the myth that it is HR’s job to uphold diversity and inclusion. However, everyone in the organism is supposed to participate.
What is diversity and inclusion?
Although these terms are closely related, they are not the same. Often, diversity is used to refer to race and matter of racial representation. In other words, diversity is based on individual differences between people in terms of personality, physical aspects, and identity. On the other hand, inclusion is about making everyone in the company feel welcome, supported, valued, and respected as a valuable member of the organization. Inclusion is a continuous effort for every company’s leadership and workforce.
Best practices
- Practice fairness in the workplace
Fairness in the workplace means recognizing and respecting individual rights of all employees. Fair treatment of employees is crucial for them to feel included. As such, promotion and salary increments should be made fairly. All people should also be represented in leadership positions. Fairness will boost your company’s overall productivity because workers feel safe and fully engaged. Unfair treatment can create a toxic work culture, which in turn breeds high employee turnover, absenteeism, and lower productivity.
- Employ diverse talent
When trying to achieve diversity in the workplace, it is important to check job descriptions and get rid of any gendered terms or any other exclusive terms. Many reports say that higher performance and profitability are associated with diversity. Additionally, such companies have higher retention rates and innovative thinking. It is important to have the right diversity and inclusion strategy; for instance, recruiters use techniques such as skill tests to assess their candidates. Also, HR teams can utilize unconscious bias training to assess interviews and resumes.
- Make employees feel a sense of belonging
Employees need to feel welcome in the workplace to be highly productive. One way of making employees feel welcome is by encouraging them to voice their concerns and opinions. Consequently, this will create an environment of trust and transparency.
Employers can create a sense of belonging by creating chances for their employees’ personal and professional growth. Employees will commit to the company better if they know that their company values their success. Companies can achieve this by organizing mentorship opportunities, training programs, and other initiatives that help employees grow and develop.
- Hold diversity and inclusion training for employees
Such training can help employees understand that diversity and inclusion promote equity. It is important that employees understand the need for inclusion of underrepresented communities and how their voices should be heard. Members of the workforce can then act in a manner that is considerate and open-minded. Such training can also help employees understand and identify issues relating to discrimination, bullying, and harassment, creating a safe and equitable workplace. Therefore, companies can invest in diversity and inclusion counselors.
Many companies concentrate on educating upper management about the benefits of diversity and inclusion, forgetting lower-level workers. It would hurt the business if there were reports of exclusion at any level.
- Hold diversity and inclusion training for employees
Teamwork is a good way of promoting collaboration and a sense of community among the employees. This can help employees recognize and appreciate their diverse skills and perspectives, which can help them create innovative and profitable decisions for the company. Teamwork can also be a great way of breaking down stereotypes and biases through interaction. They can learn from each other’s cultures and share knowledge and experiences. The most effective way of promoting collaboration is by creating diverse teams. To create a diverse team, the company can occasionally rotate team members, create project-based teams with individuals from different departments, and create cross-functional teams. Diverse teams can help the company by encouraging the exchange of different points of view, breakdown silos, and end group thinking.
- Rethink your hiring and recruitment process
Research shows that focusing on candidates’ previous work experience and educational background can result in practices that don’t promote diversity and inclusion. One proven method of diversifying your employees is using personality assessments. That way, you can set aside specific values, motivations, personality traits, and skills and be less dependent on educational background and work experience. By using personality tests, you can get great candidates from underrepresented communities purely based on their natural abilities and talents. According to a study conducted on 150 companies, those that used personality tests had a more diverse workforce compared to their counterparts.
- Keep tabs on your inclusion and diversity efforts
It is important to measure the inclusion and diversity efforts in your company. Using analytics to measure your diversity and inclusion efforts can help identify gaps, drive continuous improvement, ensure accountability, and retain a diverse workforce. It can help upper management recognize the errors in their policies, culture, or processes that hinder full representation. To measure the company’s inclusion and diversity efforts, the management can organize external benchmarks and best practices, use HR information systems, diversity dashboards, surveys or simply use diversity metrics and analytics.
Conclusion
Diversity and inclusion are very important in the workplace because they lead to higher production and increase employee retention. As such, companies are tasked with creating inclusive cultures that uphold the differences and values of various employees, offer equal opportunities, and actively support diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The top best practices that companies can leverage include holding diversity and inclusion training, ensuring their recruitment process upholds diversity and inclusion, encouraging teamwork, recruiting a diverse workforce, creating a sense of belonging, and having metrics to measure inclusion and diversity efforts.
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