Improving Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion In Your Workplace

Organizations are propelled to success by the people who work within them, and fostering an inclusive workplace ensures that all employees feel welcomed, valued, and respected. An employee who feels valued and is treated fairly in an inclusive environment will bring positive ideas and creative energy.

Short for DEI, it should be a company's cornerstone to place a high value on this as it means solving a multitude of issues within the current workforce. The gender pay gap, lack of ethnic diversity in companies and industries, and a lack of diverse talent are among many other problems.

Promoting equality and diversity in workplaces is a pretty big challenge, but not an impossible one to overcome. It requires company commitment to diversity initiatives and building effective ones too.

Difference between Equality and Diversity

Equality in the workplace means ensuring equal opportunities for everyone, regardless of their culture, political beliefs, sexual orientation, identity, etc. It creates a sense of being treated equally and respectfully among employees and eliminates room for favoritism, office politics, and the mentality of taking sides. In other words, striving for equality makes everyone feel like they're in an inclusive culture and work environment.

On the other hand, diversity in the workplace means celebrating and appreciating all types of people for their talents and abilities, making them a part of the organization, and guiding everyone toward a common goal or objective. It allows people to express what they strongly believe in and more importantly, be themselves.

Ultimately, equality and diversity ensure that people are treated equally; their differences are celebrated and they are respected for who they are.

It is more important for those in power and responsible for decision-making to espouse equality and diversity in their actions and represent the company culture they purport to foster. Setting equality and diversity examples for the workforce can erode traditionalist views of hierarchy and help develop true diversity and inclusion in the workplace, based on active listening to employees. This in turn, generates a working structure based on mutual respect, accepting where discrimination exists, and treating it accordingly.

Explanation and Examples: Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI)

If equality means offering the same rights and opportunities to everyone, diversity refers to respecting and embracing people's values, identities, and beliefs. Finally, inclusion extends the principles of equality and diversity. Everyone has the right to be included, respected, and appreciated as valuable members of the community. These three pillars introduce the concept of DEI in workplaces. Let us look at some instances of DEI.

An organization that promotes and celebrates varied holidays and festivals, is the quintessential example of an entity that gives due respect, value, and importance to its employees. Likewise, creating and publishing videos or any form of content highlighting the idea of equality and diversity while emphasizing the implementation of such principles, is yet another example of DEI. This is especially relevant in an era where social media forms an indispensable part of our lives.

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Benefits of Valuing Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Policies

There are several benefits to valuing equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace for both employees and employers. Here are some significant advantages:

Building a Positive Company Culture

When you promote equality, you're also promoting a more positive company culture in the process. Whether it's people applying for positions, climbing up the ranks, or working for you, people will feel better when they're excited to come to work.

Promoting Creativity and Innovation

Creativity and innovation within the company are likely to occur organically when companies allow their employees to take creative liberties and employers encourage innovation. When there is a lot of support and encouragement for someone's growth in an organization, they're likely to push themselves further and go the extra mile for the company.

Expanding the Market

A company will continue to thrive, grow, and change when the company puts effort to promote equality. When employees feel like they're being looked after, they will ensure they look after the company in the same manner. When employees are treated fairly, they will find ways to keep the company solvent. This, in turn, allows the company to grow over time.

Diverse Problem-Solving

When an inclusive workforce embraces each individual's cultural differences, you'll have access to a wider array of solutions to company problems. Ideas that never occurred to you can rise to the surface if you make a point of having a diverse workforce and allow their voices to be heard.

Improving Business Performance

Overall, all the benefits shared here contribute to bolstering a company's existing performance significantly. When a company strives for workplace equality, everyone wins in the end as each individual is valued regardless of whether they're part of a minority group, have physical disabilities, or have different religious beliefs.

Core Elements: Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)

Incorporating diversity, equality, and inclusion into the workplace is a challenge that necessitates the inclusion of an outline providing the needed support to put together an action plan. The four core elements that form part of the outline include Education, Community, Engagement, and Growth.

Concerns: Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)

Just as every coin has two sides, everything has its pros and cons. While it is important to discuss the benefits of diversity, equality, and inclusion policies, it is equally critical to throw some light on specific concerns that accompany them.

• Leaders' participation and efforts: Those who run organizations are best equipped to incorporate essential changes for their further growth and development. In other words, they need to assign the necessary resources needed for improved performance of D&I within their respective companies. They also need to ask the right questions about their employees and secure the training required to enhance D&I measures and progress.

• KPIs for D&I measurement: The impact of an endeavor cannot be ascertained unless there are ways to measure it. To that end, companies need to determine the relevant KPIs they are going to use to measure the influence of each D&I initiative. They also must remember to keep asking questions and listening to the kind of experiences their practitioners are going through, as a way to collate data and insights.

How To Promote Equality And Diversity In 6 Steps

1. Develop A Clear Policy

How to promote equality and diversity begins with setting policies that enable this in the first place. These policies should outline the company's stance on these issues and the steps it will take to promote and uphold these values. DEI, at its core, must ensure everyone receives fair treatment, equal access, and equal opportunity to everything within their specific roles in the company.

Overall, the idea is that for each position, any notion of discrimination based on the characteristics of an individual or group, gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability, or others shouldn't be entertained. And any hint of that notion shouldn't be tolerated.

As such, every policy should clearly state the consequences of not contributing to an inclusive culture.

For reference, see the UK Equality Act 2010: Guidance.

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2. Provide Diversity and Inclusion Training

The second step on how to promote equality and diversity is to promote diversity and inclusion training. Having a workplace-inclusive atmosphere means having people grow and be part of the whole process from the very beginning, and training is a good way for people to be on board with that.

Regular training on these topics plays a critical role in raising awareness and understanding of the importance of diversity, equality, and inclusion. This means clearly explaining the company's inclusion strategy, which starts with the different types of discrimination, and clearly stating what is unlawful under the relevant equality act in your country.

Every equality act will have protected characteristics that it outlines. These vary from country to country but they're generally key identifiers of an individual. Your age, gender, whether you're pregnant, your ethnicity, marital status, and sexual orientation are examples.

Ultimately, DEI training will look at two kinds of discrimination and help people learn about them:

• Direct discrimination is when you experience worse treatment than another person because of any of the traits mentioned above. This also covers whether you are connected to someone who is being discriminated against, or if you're suspected of being discriminated against because of those traits.

• Indirect discrimination occurs when a policy or rule applies to everyone but unfairly disadvantages a group of people who share certain characteristics.

3. Encourage Open Communication

A business with a positive work environment, where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and experiences, will benefit in many ways. A company culture based on active listening, where people feel heard and not treated differently, allows a diverse range of topics to be openly discussed. 

So, how can this happen? Open communication is the first thing that can lead to inclusive behavior. Many organizations that promote equality and diversity also make communication easier.

Engaging in small talk or ensuring every person's voice is heard - whether it's a casual conversation or a work-related one, stifles discrimination and leads to different voices and a better employee experience. This can be further reinforced with 'open door' company policies.

Beyond that, another positive action to take is show genuine interest and care for others with different backgrounds. Encouragement is always appreciated, no matter who the person is, and makes you a more welcoming person.

Finally, creating surveys for feedback will provide a safe environment for people to talk about their problems and anything to build upon moving forward. People will feel even more confident in doing so when feedback is taken and implemented.

If you feel these efforts 'challenge workplace hierarchy', you'll need to improve the workplace culture. A smooth 'hierarchy' is built on respect for equality, equal opportunity, and the skill set each employee brings to the business.

There is no denying that there are challenges in gender diversity and accepting differences; these challenges are further reinforced by the workplace environment too. However, if the company is to have more diverse people, less discrimination, and better workflow, one must be up for the challenge.

4. Increase Diversity in Hiring and Promotion

More diverse companies should strive to increase equality, diversity, and inclusion in their hiring and promotion practices from the ground up. When looking for employees, removing the gender pay gap in job descriptions and assumptions can help.

Beyond that, including diverse interview panels for each position and objective criteria for evaluating qualified candidates ensures more workplace equality and less discrimination.

But the biggest hurdle though is overcoming our own biases toward certain groups of people. This is easier said than done as even HR leaders may have unconscious bias and your workers are no different.

This, in turn, can place restrictive factors and make truly being open and unbiased difficult. It can be addressed though. It is a matter of putting in the time and effort to do so. 

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Whether it's someone going for senior roles or just entering the workplace, leaning into the diversity policy of a company is a work in progress. However, a change in the status quo begins with a change in attitude and overall hiring and promoting practices.

It's crucial to focus on the merit that someone with a different cultural background than you can bring. This is what makes diversity important in the workplace.

5. Foster a Supportive and Inclusive Work Environment

Organizations can further create workplace equality, diversity, and inclusion by having flexible work arrangements. Research shows that people are more productive when they work remotely so giving people the same opportunities to do remote work or work in an office helps.

This same argument can be made about paid family leave, providing mental health resources, counseling services, and employee resource groups. 

Simply put, if you believe that 'people make the company', then finding out how to allocate both time and money to employees, regardless of gender or ethnicity, is an investment in the business.

Instead of trying to lay off most workers, invest in them as that can provide one of two distinct outcomes:

• Either the individual will continue working for you and continue to provide value because you gave them the same educational opportunities, pay, and growth as everyone else.

• OR the employee will move on to another company that will recommend your business if other people are looking for new opportunities themselves.

All in all, when you invest in other people, people will find a way to give back and help businesses.

6. Monitor and Evaluate Progress

The only way to measure progress and evaluate the effectiveness of your diversity, equality, and inclusion efforts is to allocate the necessary time for it.

Measuring diversity in the workplace may seem 'abstract', but active listening to employees through feedback sessions can point to whether inclusion is actually happening, discrimination is still experienced, or access to equal opportunities is impeded. Hard data and surveys can also piece together what diverse backgrounds are in your workforce.

But the big objective to keep in mind is that this is all an ongoing process. Discrimination, gender biases, and the pursuit for equal pay among other things is a commitment. It's a commitment from the senior level down to the ground level.

And depending on the size of the organization, it will take a lot of time.

A diverse workplace requires that differences be recognized in one's gender identity, ethnicity, and so on. A lot is to be discussed and addressed when a company both commits and pursues this.

To ensure that the previous steps are working and building a foundation for inclusion and diversity, group sessions and one-on-one sessions to get feedback can help. These sessions can provide many benefits and a wider scope of an issue.

If 'doing the work' isn't part of your core operating manual, then improving the real equality of your workforce isn't something you seek. It is a business responsibility.

Promoting Equality and Eliminating Discrimination

Breaking down discrimination is a team effort and it begins with having a more diverse workforce and being proud of the fact. This isn't relegated to entry-level positions either. When a board of directors has different genders and ethnic makeup, more creative solutions to problems emerge. The same can be said for executive branches and in management too.

Achieving all of this takes time and effort, especially in industries where one gender is predominant over the other. But the primary goal is to make the most of the situation. Business leaders, managers, and decision-makers in an organization should be looking at promoting DEI as an openness towards gender equality, and diverse cultural backgrounds can only provide benefits to businesses.

For more views on promoting equality in the workplace, see our recent article on trends for the coming year.