Few HR professionals will not be familiar with the EDIB – equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging – agenda that so many organizations are signed up to these days. Of course, not every business culture truly supports EDIB even if they pay lip service to it and, in some cases, it is not part of their everyday working practices at all. As such, it is important for those at the top of organizational hierarchies as well as human resources personnel, to consider just why an EDIB agenda can be so beneficial commercially.
To be clear, businesses that are more diverse and inclusive tend to be the most productive. This is because when employees feel they belong – truly belong – in an organization, you will get the best out of them. Equally, diversity of thought tends to help overcome cultural problems like ‘groupthink’ whereby employees will keep their mouths shut if they feel they won’t be listened to even if something is going wrong.
Furthermore, inclusive workplace cultures will often have low – sometimes, very low – rates of employee turnover because people value the way their employer views them and, consequently, wouldn’t dream of moving on. As such, businesses that are more fully engaged with building EDIB cultures tend to run more efficiently, spend less on recruitment and retention, make fewer strategic errors and enjoy a more fulfilling and creative workspace.
That’s all very well, of course, so long as senior managers know how to build more diversity into their organizations. Emphatically, it isn’t just about employing people from different demographic groups and hoping for the best but about creating a more inclusive workplace culture. In short, diversity and inclusion go hand in hand, one informing the other. What can employers do to make their organization a more fertile ground for such a culture?
To begin with, you need to establish just how engaged people on your payroll are within their jobs. High levels of employee engagement will indicate you are on the right path but low levels will mean some changes will need to be implemented. However, most employees will not be able to tell you directly about their level of job satisfaction, especially when it is negative if they don’t have a safe space to do so.
Safe spaces for employees can be created in all sorts of ways but one of the best – and most efficient – methods is to utilize anonymous employee feedback surveys. According to WorkBuzz, which uses a tried-and-tested online platform for measuring employee diversity and inclusion, anonymizing the data captured from workers’ surveys means being able to make better decisions. Remember that in organizations that are not as diverse or inclusive as they could be, certain groups will feel under even more pressure to conform to what the ‘right answer’ might be if they’re asked in an open forum. Anonymity gets around this problem.
Another key aspect of making your workplace more inclusive is that every voice needs to be listened to. With an online survey – as opposed to a paper-based one – employers will be able to capture data and points of view from every stratum within their management structure from the bottom to the top. Remember that diversity of opinion should be welcome at every level. If your findings demonstrate that rank and file workers tend to think one thing but middle managers another, then your organization might not be as diverse as you think it is.
You should also ask inclusive questions. In other words, don’t ask employees to complete a survey that tells them to skip a question if they fall into a certain demographic even if you want information on what men think about the workplace compared to women, for example. Everyone should feel included and as having an equally valid say regardless of their job role or background. This means using inclusive language throughout.
Building trust is also important when you want to build diversity. For example, senior managers should allow employees to check in with them from time to time even if there is nothing urgent to say. Trust is about building a dialogue between managers and those they manage. If, as a senior executive, you find that you are only ever speaking to the same people, then you necessarily won’t be fostering a diverse workplace culture.
Include more people in your meetings. Indeed, setting up meetings specifically to speak to employees lower down in the organizational structure is often found to be an effective way to gain more perspectives and spot talent. Above all, you need to have an open promotion policy. Without complete transparency in who gets promoted, people will question your diversity agenda and, therefore, not necessarily trust that you are committed to creating a more inclusive workplace culture at all.