Diversity and inclusion are not only ethical and social goals, but also strategic and competitive advantages for any business. A diverse team can bring more creativity, innovation, and customer satisfaction to your organization. But how can you build a more diverse team and better serve your customers? Here are some tips to help you get started.
The first step to building a more diverse team is to understand where you are now and where you want to go. You can use various tools and methods to measure the diversity and inclusion of your team, such as surveys, audits, focus groups, and benchmarks. You should also consider the diversity and inclusion of your customers, suppliers, partners, and competitors. How well do you know their needs, preferences, and expectations? How can you improve your communication and collaboration with them?
Begin by actively recruiting individuals from varied backgrounds, including different ages, cultures, genders, and experiences. Implement programs promoting cross-generational collaboration, such as reverse mentoring initiatives, where younger employees mentor older ones, fostering a reciprocal learning environment. By embracing diversity and recognizing the strengths each generation brings, teams can leverage a wide range of viewpoints, skills, and experiences to better understand customers' diverse needs and deliver exceptional service.
Define “diverse teams”, rather than using it as a buzz word. Once defined, do you have the correct procedures and support in place? Creating a “diverse team” in an inadequate environment will do the opposite to what it was set to initially achieve.
Curiosity goes a long way. Diversity means that there will be more than one perspective in the room. Become intrigued by how someone sees things differently. Be tempted by complexity for longer than you usually allow. Customers, aka people, are complex. Your meeting room is a great place to practice understanding people, aka your customers, better.
To best evaluate your team's diversity, Yes, it's correct to say include all aspects of diversity. But what does that mean? Begin by making a list that broadens your understanding of diversity. Include some elements that are not always mentioned: personality types, geographic differences, and religion/faith.
To build a more diverse team and better serve your customers, you can follow several best practices. Firstly, address all aspects of diversity and customize your vision and company culture to create an inclusive environment. Redefine your recruiting strategy to attract a more diverse pool of candidates and eliminate bias in the hiring process. Make employees feel valued and practice empathetic leadership. Celebrate cultural differences and provide leadership development opportunities. Measure diversity and inclusion through metrics such as representation, recruitment, and retention.
The next step is to define your diversity and inclusion goals and align them with your business strategy and vision. You should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) when setting your goals. For example, you might want to increase the representation of women, ethnic minorities, or people with disabilities in your team by a certain percentage or number within a certain period. You should also communicate your goals to your team and stakeholders and explain why they are important and beneficial for everyone.
Lean into microgoals. Microgoals are weekly individual priorities that work towards larger team goals, such as OKRs or KPIs. Some things to consider when setting microgoals are: - Set 3-4 microgoals a week as a target number - Ensure your microgoals are challenging and difficult to obtain - Check to make sure your microgoals are not tasks - Seek real-time feedback on microgoals Microgoals benefits include: - Allows for change and pivots - Gives room for failure or error - Opportunity to celebrate wins in real-time - Brings freshness to goal-setting and priorities - Acknowledges side projects and innovative work - Encourages career growth and development - Easier to track and manage
Easy let your organization be representative of your customers. If your clients are 50 % women and only 10 % of your workforce is women then you know where to start. Work and life are not seperate. Let work life reflect daily life
While SMART is a tried and proven method, here is what I’ve found works for the elite leaders. Use Targets instead. With almost 3 decades of military experience in my past, I’ve spent lots of time making gunpowder into noise at the range. Once there, we’d a set up targets. Here is why I now tell people to do this to prevent what some people call Burnout. 1. Focus. You can only aim at one target at a time. Pick 1 thing, and aim to hit it. 2. Refinement. With goals, if you try to make sense of all the SMART stuff, you may have a great project - you may not finish it. Targets: if you are off, shoot again until on - then refine until bullseye. 3. Alignment. Your shooting lane is clear. Pick one Target, then move to the next. Easier. Try it.
a) Start with Individual Team Members: Establish team goals that align with the personal goals of individual members. This can help ensure everyone is working towards the same objectives. b) Set Reasonable Goals: Provide your team with achievable goals that include time-based milestones and objectives. Show them how they can increase their productivity over a certain period. c) Ensure a Supportive, Productive Working Environment: Create an environment that supports diversity and productivity. This can help your team work together more effectively. d) Give Your Team Something to Shoot For: Set ambitious but achievable goals that motivate your team to strive for excellence.
Setting clear and realistic goals is pivotal for cultivating a more diverse team, thereby enhancing customer service. Clearly outlined objectives provide a roadmap for fostering inclusivity, allowing organizations to measure progress and demonstrate their commitment to diversity. Realistic goals ensure attainability, fostering a sense of accomplishment. By integrating diversity goals with overall business objectives, companies not only create an inclusive workplace but also gain access to varied perspectives that can better serve the diverse needs of their customers. This strategic approach aligns social responsibility with business success, contributing to sustained growth and heightened customer satisfaction.
The third step is to put your goals into action by implementing effective practices that foster diversity and inclusion in your team. You should review your recruitment, retention, development, and promotion processes and policies and make sure they are fair, transparent, and inclusive. You should also provide training and coaching to your team and yourself on topics such as unconscious bias, cultural awareness, and inclusive leadership. You should also create a culture of respect, trust, and collaboration where everyone feels valued, supported, and empowered.
Recruiting is at its core, just networking. If your network is not very diverse, your candidates won't be either. Change where you go to look, and even who is recruiting to diversify from the beginning.
1) Companies often hire the same type of employee repeatedly, which can lead to a lack of diversity. It’s important to seek out candidates with different educational backgrounds, skillsets, and personality traits. 2) Value Fresh Perspectives: New perspectives can bring forth bold ideas, challenge long-standing internal thinking, and provide a more complete internal representation of the customer base. 3) Recruit Actively: Actively seek out candidates from underrepresented groups. Finding and recruiting people with diverse backgrounds takes time, effort, and dedication. 4) Promote Inclusion: Encourage team members to share information and delegate problem-solving tasks to the team. Let the team work on creative solutions together.
Avoid a trap of "culture fit" interview. When talking to candidates make sure you don't look for "people like us" but the ones who will extend or stretch the team in any meaning of this word.
I think it is natural for leaders to hire people who are similar to them. Either in background, outlook, or demographics. Trying to force a specific diversity ratio just doesn't work. However, diversity is vital for any business. It forces a more full and complete discussion within the company. The question is how to make it happen naturally vs forced. My favorite way of doing this for my own businesses, would be to add my clients to my advisory board. This transforms the leadership of the company. Additionally, while recruiting, we try to ensure that no decision is based on "liking" a certain candidate. Everyone is asked to rate the candidate on a certain set of criteria that is very trackable. This removes a lot of discrimination.
My team is extremely diverse, and it's so beautiful. We range from 21 to 55 years old, hail from three continents, and speak five languages! Wow, not bad for a small in-house marketing team. It's amazing and beautiful when we have many different ways to achieve the same goal. When the goal is clear, everyone can contribute. And when your team feels safe with their management, they thrive.
The fourth step is to monitor and evaluate your progress and impact on your diversity and inclusion goals. You should collect and analyze data and feedback from your team, customers, and other sources to measure your performance and identify areas of improvement. You should also celebrate your successes and recognize your team's contributions and achievements. You should also be open to feedback and suggestions and adapt your practices and goals as needed.
One of the heavily underrated skills of a good manager/leader is the ability to hold regular and effective 1-2-1s. How many of us have worked with Managers who are always moving or cancelling the weekly catch up? How many rarely get to have a proper sit down with their Manager, just to focus on them and not on customers and customer performance? As a manager, being able to hold a diary of 121s and make those meetings meaningly and valuable to both parties is something that should be worked on. Stick to the scheduled time. Focus on the individual and not your team's results. Listen and learn.
Building a more diverse team and enhancing customer service involves ongoing monitoring and evaluation of progress. Establishing clear diversity goals and regularly assessing the team's composition, ensuring representation across various backgrounds. Implement feedback mechanisms to understand customer needs better and evaluate if the team's diversity positively impacts service delivery. Regularly review metrics and customer feedback to gauge the team's effectiveness in meeting diverse customer needs, adjusting strategies as necessary to improve customer service and inclusivity.
Monitoring and evaluating progress in diversity and inclusion can be achieved through the following methods: 1. One of the best ways to see if you're hiring enough diverse individuals is to compare who is applying to your open positions versus who you're actually hiring. 2. Look at diversity and inclusion across your leadership levels. This can help you understand if there are any barriers to advancement for certain groups within your organization. 3. Measure job satisfaction among your employees. This can help you understand if your diversity and inclusion efforts are creating a positive work environment.
Always establish regular intervals for frequent feedback as ways to monitor progress with the goals established. Survey, frequently, whether opportunities for recalibration of effort exist in areas supporting the diversity and inclusion goals. Ensure efforts contributed by personnel are recognized and celebrated as progress advances. Where lower than expected performance arise, find supportive ways to uplift performance given the data and information collected. Always be open to feedback from service deliverers and their beneficiaries, thereby allowing continuous matching of needs in relation to the goals established and the progress in goal attainment. Successful progress requires continuous feedback, monitoring and updating of behavior.
This is a good reminder to stay focused on your people. When they stop you and say are you busy it’s ok to say yes but what can I do for you and “truly” pay attention. It’s an attribute I work very hard at.
The fifth step is to learn from others who have successfully built diverse and inclusive teams and organizations. You should network and collaborate with peers, mentors, experts, and role models who can share their insights, experiences, and best practices with you. You should also seek out opportunities to expose yourself and your team to different perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds. You should also encourage your team to learn from each other and leverage their diverse skills, knowledge, and talents.
Be first - share what has worked for you before to gain insights into diverse thinking and processes. Be quick to share what you may not be aware of. Ask for ideas on what is needed now to enhance meaningful diversity. Go beyond, location, color, shape, size - target the senses. How do the teams and customers you serve feel and process information. Get quickly clear on what could remove the first barriers - up to the biggest barriers - to attract, develop, and retain top diverse mindsets to deliver the best products or services to attract and please your diverse targets. Define and redefine who your target teams and customers are, and who you would like them to be - and WHY.
Sharing experiences offer great opportunities for learning what works and doesn't work. It offers opportunities to recognize where differences and similarities exist. Through collaboration among diversity and inclusion personnel, individuals learn what personal characteristics and combinations of personal and professional attributes contribute to the outcomes experienced. There are as many paths to success as there are configurations of diversity and inclusion attributes required for success in such programs. Always be open to and recognize other perspectives and experiences as learning opportunities and corridors for leveraging skills within your teams, across organizations and in organizations unrelated to your industry.
Li??es aprendidas no próprio processo organizacional, assim como fruto de práticas de benchmark s?o fundamentais para amadurecer o modelo de negócio corporativo. Trocar experiências e disseminar conhecimentos s?o fatores críticos para o sucesso corporativo.
I think networking and making connections with others is a key component here. There are so many aspects of diversity to consider in an organization from recruiting and hiring practices, policies, culture, and staff training. As a middle aged white woman, I have to first educate myself and expand my resources and knowledge to be able to guide the organization in sound decision making.
Here are my five sources of learning: Firstly, I share what I learn or like with others. With my colleagues, we have a chat where we share marketing content we like, and we constantly brainstorm in that group. I learn from the experience of my colleagues; sometimes, they share really valuable information. Additionally, a great way to learn is through Preply, a platform where you can get a tutor. Another effective method is attending offline events within your field. Try to find or build a community around your job. Learn from your manager. I was fortunate to have two managers who taught me a lot. It was a time when I thrived. I found out that a manager can either pull you up or kill your initiative.
The sixth step is to keep improving your diversity and inclusion efforts and outcomes. You should view diversity and inclusion as an ongoing journey, not a destination. You should always be curious, humble, and willing to learn and grow. You should also challenge yourself and your team to embrace diversity and inclusion as a core value and a competitive edge. You should also seek feedback and input from your customers and other stakeholders and strive to meet and exceed their expectations.
I agree that identifying diverse candidates is not difficult, however the fit for both the organization and the candidate is key. They need to like us more than we like them IMHO. I lead with empathy and forethought and focus on the whole person and not what they can deliver to the company initially.
I can recommend to encourage your employees to network with other companies inside working hours. Especially women can gain from this networking and bring more women into the network of the company.
How about incorporating a new point in our strategy that explicitly focuses on quantifying the diversity within our organization? We could use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to measure the progress and success of our diversity initiatives. By doing so, we would have a more impartial and objective way to evaluate the effectiveness of our diversity efforts and identify any gaps or areas for improvement. What do you think?
Regularly gather and analyze customer feedback specifically about how your team’s diversity (or lack thereof) impacts their experience. This approach provides real-world insights into how diversity affects customer satisfaction and loyalty. Showcase your commitment to improvement by actively seeking and responding to customer feedback. Invite customers to share their experiences and suggestions related to team diversity.
My DEI strategy is the simplest–when we are good humans, diversity in the workplace happens naturally. Be a good human. Be honest, kind, empathetic, responsible and self-aware. Learn and practice active listening. None of us are born with prejudices–we learn them, which means that we can unlearn them. Anyone belongs anywhere. If this does not come naturally, practice it. Then, bring it to your workplace. Finally, when the opportunity presents itself, share the strategy with others. When someone is out of line or someone else is a target, have the courage to do what is right. There will come a time when diversity and inclusion are merely chapters of history books. Let’s make that time during our lifetimes.
Diverse leadership is all about leader’s perspective on what diversity stands for and why it matters in an often unequal environment . It lends perspectives and discussion that are different , often insightful and sometimes create uncomfortable but intellectually stimulating environments. A diverse group of people in various studies have shown better culture and productivity over a period of time . So it is recommended for leader to train himself and learn the meaning in entirety . Top institutions offer , culture , diversity , inclusion, bias and micro aggression as key learning courses . One has to study and understand diversity as a leader . Period . Once you understand goals , values and principles align .
Creating a recruitment process that is open to all candidates will allow you to find the diverse candidates you need. Remove gendered/ageist language and consider if specific years of experience/education are required for the role. If not, switch the language to "ability to..." and assess ability in your process. These simple changes will make your process more inclusive and help you find those candidates who can better serve your customers.
There are different personality traits. Assess what kind of customers do you serve. Make polls, surveys, questionnaires, etc. Analyze results and separate your customers in several groups according to their common personality traits. Assign a team member with similar personality traits to the appropriate group.
Once again, as I wrote before, to build a genuinly diverse team don't focus on diversity, but on skills and competences and don't discriminate under any circumstances! If you focus on diversity just for the sake of diversity, you might fall into bureaucratic mindset, and ultimately fail to establish true diversity.