5 Steps to Building a More Diverse and Inclusive Workplace

In the inspirational movie Hidden Figures we learn of the immense contribution three African American women had on the US space race.

Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson were the 'human computers' who performed complex mathematical equations by hand to calculate orbital trajectories. Persevering in the face of immense discrimination they each played an integral role in propelling humankind into space.

The story provides a powerful lesson on the importance of capitalizing on the potential talent around you, in your team, in your organization and in wider society.

So here are five simple steps for developing and delivering a D&I strategy for your organization:

1. Situation

Step one is knowing your current status. In simple terms this means knowing your numbers, for understanding where you are is the start of the story...

This data can be represented by various demographic categories including: gender, ethnicity, age. Consideration should also be given to allowing for self-reporting for less observable aspects such as disability and sexual orientation.

Employee surveys also provide a rich source of data on both direct barriers to diversity and inclusion, but also indirect hidden challenges to overcome.

This critical step provides the baseline from which you can lift of into your own race for the stars of becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization.

Inclusion is not a matter of political correctness. It is the key to growth.
                                                         Rev. Jesse Jackson         

2. Objectives

This will differ between companies and the context in which they operate and their starting position. But targets should be aspirational in nature using the SMART methodology for goal setting.

Goals can be set both for the organization as a whole and departments, consideration also for targets for individual members of the senior leadership team to drive the agenda forward at the top of the organization.

3. Strategic Interventions

Strategies will differ between organizations depending on their current situation, ambitions, resources, and business context.

Internal communications should play a big part in the strategy by focusing on gaining buy-in from everyone in the organization. This will focus heavily on the numerous benefits to be had from a wider range of perspectives and building a more inclusive culture of engagement.

Individual initiatives should be developed and launched to deliver on the wider strategy, examples to include:

• Employee Representation Groups - to provide a diverse range of views and to provide the crucial upward communications to the Board.
• Attracting Talent - reviewing current recruitment practices to ensure there are no embedded biases and diverse talent is being attracted to the organisation.
• Investment in Training - develop managers to be inclusive leaders who demonstrate compassionate leadership. This is about making mangers great coaches who develop the 'active listening skills' to be truly inclusive.
• Unconscious Bias - Raise awareness through unconscious bias training and encourage open form discussions. This has become a more controversial topic in recent years but the truth is our brains are a 'pattern recognition system' so everyone has bias at some level. Many of these of course relate not to race or gender but higher levels of consciousness of bias can help us avoid the cognitive biases that often can arise.

4. Action

Simple - implement your plan and deliver what you said you would do!

The one word of caution in the age of 'big data' is avoid the paralysis of analysis. Many companies will spend so long being spellbound by the charts and trends provided by various surveying tools they forget the critical step - ACTION.

Once action is taken the feedback loop begins and HR leadership can learn the lessons and continue to evolve and progress ahead.

5. Measuring the impact

Now you want to measure the impact of your actions. So tracking the performance of the numbers should be a key metric. Changes in representation at each level of the organization and the levels of advocacy are strong performance indicators as well.

Enhancements in scores on such areas as the employee survey and recruitment tracking are all 'grist to the mill' on progress made. Successes should also be celebrated and fruitful initiatives should be doubled down on.

Take these five simple steps and you can start to attract the hidden figures to your organization to achieve greatness.