Same, same but different..?

Ensuring diversity and inclusivity in your business can be key to retaining and fostering talent, but it must be committed to, it cannot simply be given lip service – so what measures can you take to develop this?

Fostering an inclusive workplace demands the commitment of every individual in your organisation, ranging from seasoned executives to newcomers. While creating a diverse and inclusive environment may appear daunting, there are key areas where you can initiate meaningful action.

Employee behaviour

An inclusive workplace starts with those who work in it, so the behaviour of your employees should reflect the workplace you want to build. In order to do this, you can implement measures such as:

• Setting clear standards of behaviour for inclusion.
• Encouraging employees to treat all colleagues with respect.
• Empowering employees to challenge exclusionary behaviour and providing the relevant support and channels for them to do this.

Leadership

As a leader, you set the tone of your workplace. Implementing change at the top will encourage all employees to act in a similar manner. This can be done in a number of ways:

• Diversify your boardroom/managing team to embed inclusivity at the heart of your business.
• Evaluate your own unconscious biases and work to unlearn these.
• Become a role model by acting with inclusivity when managing and leading your team.

Policies and people management

To truly commit to diversity and inclusion in your workplace you should develop effective policies, implement training and run discussion groups in your workplace. This can include the following:

• Outlining your commitment to your employees across areas such as:
  • encouraging diversity and inclusion;
  • creating a workplace free of bullying and harassment;
  • monitoring the make-up of the workforce in relation to aspects such as age, sex, ethnic background, sexual orientation, religion or belief and disability;
  • implementing policies to support specific employee needs, such as flexible working.
• Setting out a commitment to running bias training for staff.
• Running focus group discussions with employees to identify areas for improvement.

For the acas diversity and policy template, you can look here: https://www.acas.org.uk/equality-policy-template

Measurement and assessment

As you move to implement diversity and inclusion in your workplace, it is important you measure inclusivity to identify the areas where your business needs to improve.

Surveys

Creating surveys is a great way to collect inclusion data. You can use customised questions specific to your business to measure inclusivity in your company across all levels of seniority and identify areas of need for change. For example:

Existing data

Whilst it is important to always look to the future when building a diverse and inclusive workplace, sometimes you must start by looking back. There is an abundance of existing data you can use to get your journey to diversity and inclusivity started; it can help you identify the most prominent areas in your business that need to be improved. This data includes information such as geographical, clinical and demographical characteristics. 

Focus and feedback and groups

Sometimes the most direct way is the best way. By organising focus and feedback groups you can go directly to your workforce and hear the areas they would like to see improvement in and hear real experiences. This will give you a new perspective on how your business is run, and make your employees feel like their voices are valued.

Benefits

So, what benefits can you expect from a diverse and inclusive workplace?

Employee retention

A diverse and inclusive workplace benefits everybody, especially your staff. By promoting inclusion in your workplace through encouraging a diverse workforce, ensuring safe workspaces free of bullying and allowing flexible working for your employees, you are more likely to retain your workforce for longer.

New talent

It’s predicted that 25% of the UK workforce will be Gen Z by 2025, it is important to make sure your workplace reflects the needs of the new generation of workforce. In a recent Monster report, 83% of Gen Z individuals stated that an employer’s commitment to diversity and inclusion was significant to them when choosing where to work and that diversity and inclusion were just as important as workplace benefits.

Reputation

Corporate reputation isn’t just rooted in environmental issues anymore; it will, increasingly, be measured by inclusivity. Promoting diversity and inclusion in your business portrays a positive image to your industry and customers – and also helps with employee recruitment and retention.

Bringing diversity and inclusion into the workplace can be a challenge. However, as it continues to grow in importance for the next generation of employees, it will be key to attracting, retaining and fostering the talent that will keep your business growing.