How can you craft a powerful diversity and inclusion statement for your HR team?

One helpful strategy I've found from managing my team is to openly communicate the value we place on diversity and inclusion from the start. We've woven these principles into our mission and values because we deeply believe in the strength that comes from varied perspectives. It’s about creating a place where everyone can be themselves, feel respected, and heard. Getting leadership buy-in was our first big move. We set concrete goals and always discuss employee satisfaction in our team meetings. We value feedback immensely, encouraging open conversations, and offering giving each employee a chance to contribute during our meetings. The benefits are clear: enhanced problem-solving, vibrant creativity, and a strong team community.

The purpose of bringing a diversed culture is to ensure people stand united and feel the sense of belongingness towards the organization. To enjoy this prospective, a) recruitment strategies were defined in an unbiased manner. People from all castes, creed, culture, education and sex were open to apply for vacancies. b) Engagement activities were strategized in order to ensure that all employees feel equality in their presence. c) Rewards and recognition policy was reframed so that all employees can actively participate based on their performance and not based on their diversified culture. d) Ideas, solutions were welcome openely using the Grievance redressal model, where in all were offered a plan to speak and express their views.

Being diversified means to bring people in an organization from different culture, background, mindset, temprament, religion under one platform and making them feel stand equal. For this, the best way to write a statement is to celebrate their existence, hard-work, dedication, commitment, ideas, thoughts and solutions and adhere to their queries, not being biased. This brings in motivation and sense of belongingness within all employees at equal level.

In my 25yrs career in HR, I have mostly worked with midsized tech companies & staffing agencies. When I used to interview people for my team it was purely based on talent they have & what value they will add to the team & how they will be instrumental in org success. In 2012 I interviewed 100s of recruiters for my team & this lady was physically challenged had tremendous energy, spark & urge to do something in recruitment convinced me to hire her on the spot. HRs started talking about DEI very recently 2018 onwards, however we are far from achieving or far from where we intend to reach which I am not sure we will achieve very soon.

I personally, have not been able to add value to DEI hiring because of the business vertical that I have worked for have not seen many job applicants from people those I spoke about, reason could be I failed as HR to make attempt to approach them.

When HRs / orgs talk about DEI they need to understand core meaning of DEI which is, irrespective of dept they are hiring for should invite applications from physically challenged, LGBTQ+, single parents, balanced team of gender equality. Since first lockdown in March 2020 we saw lacs of layoffs globally & many techies & HRs above 40s & mid 40s lost their jobs & today in 2023 they are still facing trouble in finding a job. Not hiring someone with career gap actually negates your DEI policy. Until HRs with titles "dEI advocate" start hiring for their team 1 person each from physically challenged, LGBTQ+, single parent, managers in 40s & mid 40s, balanced team of gender equality, their DEI policy will only remain on paper.