What do you do if your team lacks diversity and inclusivity?

This type of problem can’t be solved unless you understand why you are lacking diversity!Are you not appealing to a broad demographic, why is that? Do your policies block people from certain backgrounds for example insisting on a college degree or existing sector experience? Does the market place as a whole lack people from a particular background in which case do you need to do more grass roots outreach to engage young minds and lower barriers to entry? Have you looked in the mirror and asked whether you have unspoken prejudices that become self-fulfilling? Are you the one that needs to change?

Diversity & Inclusion has been long talked about and many organizations are still strguggling with it. To addrress this, it requires a multi-prong approach. First step is to acknowledge the issue and subsequently bring into startegic priority of leadership. Set very well defined D & I Goals for the function heads. Take proactive steps to recruit and hire individuals from diverse backgrounds Take proactive measures to address bias, discrimination, and microaggressions through policies and procedures. Lastly invest in training and development. For long term, Foster a culture of inclusivity where all team members feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives and talents

Addressing a lack of diversity and inclusivity within your IT strategy team requires a multifaceted approach centered on fostering an environment of respect, equity, and belonging. Start by acknowledging the issue openly and creating a safe space for open dialogue where team members can voice their perspectives and concerns without fear of judgment. Actively seek out diverse talent through inclusive hiring practices that prioritize diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Implement training programs and workshops focused on cultural sensitivity, unconscious bias, and inclusive communication to educate team members and promote empathy and understanding.

In one of my last jobs, I had an all female Access Management team and 60% overall team diversity. I didn't do anything special except let diversity organically occur on my team. Prospective job candidates know if they would be accepted as a team member or not during the interview process. My suggestion is to be open to all candidates and use diversity as business benefit to build a high performance team.

After identifying diversity and inclusivity shortcomings, it's crucial to set explicit, actionable goals for enhancement. Employing SMART criteria—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound—fosters a structured approach. For instance, aiming to increase the representation of underrepresented groups in your team by a specific percentage within a defined timeframe offers a clear objective. Establishing such goals not only provides a target to strive towards but also serves as a motivational and guiding framework for initiating tangible changes toward a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

When you identify the gap, develop the goals and plans to meet this challenge. Make sure this is realistic. You may have to do this in smaller steps if the gap is too large.

Once you know what you are missing, set up goals and make them visible. With this step, I suggest a very objective view on things - reasoning and persuation need to occur separately to not soften up the goals. A good goal includes the different parts of your team - for instance to increase female talent in your teams and especially in leadership positions, you might want to set the goal that on every level of the hierarchy, you want to achieve the percentage you already have one level down. This way, the goals becomes tangible and concrete and is not just met by "tricks" like hiring a bunch of female interns :)

In IT we hold a responsibility not only to our own teams and to our clients, customers or users, but also to society. The many humiliating examples from voice recognition failing to acknowledge female voices to face recognition ignoring black people, we as IT people who are building the software to run the world need to do better. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and for that we need the best teams. Those, by any measurement, are diverse teams. Our teams need to understand that this is serving them and preventing them from failure, and we need to help navigate that change.

Communication is critical to your team. They need to understand what the organisation is trying to do, and why. People can feel threatened if you change the status quo too fast or without proper communication. Everyone needs to be aligned, to be included.

Fostering diversity and inclusion is not just about implementing policies. It’s about creating a culture where everyone feels valued and included. It’s a continuous process that requires commitment and effort from everyone in the organization.

Our policies need to mirror the culture, values and communication we want to achieve. So we need to ask ourselves constantly: Is this policy only reflecting "the way things always have been" or a real, active need of the company? Times of working used to be a necessity to bring everyone together to talk. In teams with multiple locations and even time zones, it might no longer make sense to uphold a culture of attendance, excluding people who need to bring or fetch their child at certain times in the day or those who need a quiet environment for their best performance and mind wellbeing.

Updating policy on paper is only the first step. More important is changing the culture and lead by living and demonstrating inclusive behaviour especially in tougher conditions. Be very mindfull of behaviour that is not aligned with the spirit of the policies because if teams see that loopholes in policies are beeing used without consequences and/or pushback the policy has so real meaning.

Once you have your goals and metrics, you should visibly trace the changes - and don't forget to celebrate them with your whole team.

Only having metrics for cultural change is not effective. They need to be communicated often, broadly and with high visiblity on every level of the organisation.

Only having policies for cultural change is not effective. The current state and the desired state need to be communicated often, broadly and with high visibility on every level of the organization. Only then will the change be relevant to everyone. Utilize positive peer pressure between parts of the organization.

When you yourself are in a protected group and reach a leadership position, then it is your responsibility to influence the hiring managers, so that future hires will be well represented from those protected groups.

Leading by example is essential for increasing inclusivity & diversity as it sets tone for entire organization, creates models for inclusive behavior & opportunities. As I reflect on my journey, it has been both rewarding and enlightening.Having navigated through various corporate leadership positions, I've experienced firsthand transformative power of mentorship and support from leaders, helping me to unlock my full potential & pursue my professional aspirations with confidence. Then, I actively championed implementation of inclusive policies that promoted equity & opportunity for all employees, new joiners & ensured a subtle balance within teams. This helped to create workplace where diversity was celebrated & creativity flourished.

A lack of diversity is the effect of inclusivity not appropriately featuring in the core of team / corporate culture & values. Taking steps to fix the inclusivity element to address the following are good starting points… (1) hiring processes account for candidate search being executed across a more holistic scope of eligible prospects (vs limited to referrals and historical norms), (2) the culture is welcoming to attract folks from breadth of backgrounds equable of society and (3) diversity amongst the workforce isn’t enacted as a special situation or handled through segregated groups, but instead being part of the modus operandi

From my experience of this fast paced world full of cut-throat attitude,a step towards inclusivity & diversity needs a radically transformational approach.Only when selfish interest/rush/fulfillment are surpassed along with a clear measurable mandate from Board to make this universe a better place(specially for those not so privileged) can this journey be commenced.It is certainly not an easy journey.Not-so-privileged may be non-normal beings,low IQ people,may be deficient in their bodies etc...& making them part of a highprofile brilliant strategy team may be unacceptable.Even if accepted,elaborate policies on fair measure of their contribution & their growth with team are a must to ensure justice to the noble objective,else its all theory