Top 3 initiatives to accelerate DE&I’s impact in a business-driven environment

Diversity and inclusion have been the most trending topic in the last decade. Especially in a hybrid model, the thought process behind diversity has evolved a lot. Earlier it was mostly about the gender ratio and many organizations undermarked certain positions to bring diverse talent to their team. According to PwC Global Diversity & Inclusion Survey, organizations are investing at an unprecedented rate in D&I programs, with 75% now saying it is a value or priority. Organizational culture in terms of how they treat their employees is a direct determining factor of how fast the business accelerates. It not only inspires fresh and exciting ideas but also stimulates innovation.

Most employers face challenges in getting enough diverse applicants because of a ‘top of funnel’ strategy. With this strategy, parts of the hiring process and criteria do not bode well for underrepresented candidates. Leaders need to start consciously having a diverse funnel where the role expectations are best met by the diverse candidates, purely on the basis of their competency and caliber. Today, diversity is all about how organizations build an inclusive work culture and mindset. Organizations need to capitalize on the strength of their workforce by providing free space for expression. There has to be an inclusive space where people should feel safe when they express their ideas and bring noble concepts to the table. Organizations need to be receptive to the feedback from the diverse talent workforce and work towards actionable results to achieve maximum output. In this context, here are the top 3 initiatives to accelerate DE&I’s impact in a business-driven environment.

Choose right when it comes to being Hierarchical or a flat organization

Top-down approaches encourage compliance rather than commitment. Everyone, from senior leaders to frontline employees, must recognize and understand their role in company culture. This includes identifying differences in employee experience and values across the organization. Change needs to be tailored to each individual and there has to be an understanding that long-term change necessitates activating different parts of the system. 

Inclusion has to be ongoing, not one-off

It is imperative for organizations to realize that inclusion is not about one-off training but it is an ongoing process. Mere corporate trainings on DE & I are not enough. Inclusion, like any other type of behavior change, necessitates individuals to identify key moments to develop new habits or micro-behaviors. We must believe that anytime learning is the way forward. Organizations must introduce massive open online courses (MOOCs) for employees through their partnerships with different learning platforms. 

Improve traditional unconscious bias training by adding action-oriented strategies

As per Harvard Business Review (HBR), unconscious bias training can be a useful component of diversity and inclusion efforts, but only if it is thoughtfully designed with research and its limitations are well understood. A thorough examination of existing practices as well as a corresponding checklist of actionable improvements should be included in the employee training and management sessions. We must support training programs like GELP (Global emerging leaders program) to help leaders move from their high performer journey to a leadership journey.

Conclusion



Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace is a prerequisite for overall development and growth. It helps organizations to achieve more as it acknowledges the diverse skills and perspectives that people bring to the workplace. The core objective of adopting, inculcating, and promoting D&I culture is to empower every employee and achieve optimum results. Hence, organizations are accelerating equity and inclusive culture for all.

The article has been written by Romita Mukherjee, Associate Vice President, Human Resources, Whatfix