Building diverse and inclusive companies, part 2: future solutions

The year 2020 led to renewed focus on racial justice in the United States. This was another phase in a long history of social movements focused on inequality.?Sadly, few of these movements fully achieved their goals (e.g., the recent gender pay equity movement).?Part 1 of this article outlined challenges to creating diverse and inclusive organizations. Highlighting why diversity efforts often fail to achieve their goals. Part 2 discusses how to ensure future diversity efforts are more successful than those of the past.?

A recent research study examined how four different approaches to diversity programs affected workforce demographics, equity and organizational culture. The four approaches were labeled colorblindness, assimilation, meritocracy and multiculturalism. Colorblindness downplays demographic and ethnic differences between employees and calls attention to how we are all similar. Assimilation encourages employees to act in similar ways regardless of demographic characteristics or cultural backgrounds. Meritocracy focuses on using job-relevant criteria and well-defined decision processes to promote equitable, unbiased treatment of employees.?Multiculturalism promotes acknowledging, respecting and valuing different groups to promote inclusion and engagement. The study found that colorblindness and assimilation tend to make things worse, not better. Meritocracy had the strongest effect on reducing bias but little impact on creating more inclusive cultures. Multiculturalism had the strongest impact on creating inclusive cultures but far less impact on bias compared to meritocracy.

The results of this study align with my own experiences. Specifically, making a difference in diversity and inclusion requires organizations to implement two strategies at the same time.?One focused on meritocracy and one focused on multiculturalism.

Creating meritocratic processes that address bias across the employment lifecycle. Bias is error in decision making. It is result of demographic characteristics that are irrelevant to work influencing work-related decisions. This includes decisions about what jobs people apply for, who to hire or promote, and how to manage, develop and reward employees. Although meritocratic processes increase diversity, the focus of meritocracy is not about diversity. It is about making better decisions. Which means making decisions free from bias of any kind.?

Two things influence the success of meritocratic programs. First, to be highly effective they must address bias at every step of the employment life cycle starting with job design and continuing through recruiting, selecting, managing, rewarding, developing and promoting employees. This is because bias at one step can create bias in others. For example, bias in leadership development processes will decrease diversity among senior leaders. The lack of diversity of senior leaders will then decrease attraction and retention of diverse candidates. It is not enough to eliminate bias at one area. Companies must root out bias everywhere that it occurs.

Second, meritocracies are most effective when they emphasize fairness and accuracy as the primary reason for changing company processes. The goal is to make fair and effective decisions. It is not to favor some groups over others. This is important for several reasons.?It sidesteps the hypocrisy of diversity programs that say “demographics should not influence decisions” then institute policies based on demographics of employees. It makes the program more personal to everyone because bias can harm all people. As one person commented, “if you don’t think bias will ever matter to you then you must not think you will ever get old.” And it’s not just about personal bias. It’s also about bias affecting friends and family members. For example, one factor that has contributed to a rise in gender equity programs is male executives’ concerns about the careers of their daughters .

Promoting multi-cultural awareness and creating supportive and inclusive cultures. People tend to feel more comfortable when those around them display similar cultural behaviors and beliefs. Consequently, people whose cultures and backgrounds differ from the dominant cultural group in a company often feel less comfortable and less accepted. The experience of work can be very different for someone with a different demographic and cultural backgrounds compared to their colleagues. Promoting multi-cultural awareness helps overcome this problem by creating inclusive cultures where differences in backgrounds, values and behavioral norms are recognized, accepted and even celebrated.?Multiculturalism does not mean the company has no dominant culture. To the contrary, a key part of an effective multi-cultural organization is commitment toward common core values that all people are expected to share. These values are consciously chosen to support the company mission and vision. And are clearly communicated to employees. What makes a company multi-cultural is an explicit focus on welcoming and encouraging diversity of values and behaviors as long as they do not conflict with the core values of the company.?

Multiculturalism affects diversity and inclusion in several ways. First, it helps reinforce meritocracy by clearly distinguishing between what behaviors and norms are considered important to the company’s strategy and mission versus behaviors and norms where diversity of thought and expression is expected, encouraged, and welcomed. An example is the shift in attitudes toward the presence of children in the workplace. In traditional masculine company cultures, there was often an implicit assumption that children should not “interfere” with work. That having children around inherently made a person less productive. This attitude created significant bias against women who tend to have primary childcare responsibility in most societies . In recent years there has been significant change in this attitude. Companies celebrate and support employees in taking care of their children. And communicate that it is possible to be both a highly effective employee and a highly involved parent.

Another benefit of multiculturalism is creation of diversity allies and advocates . These are people who typically belong to the dominant demographic group in a company, but who act to eliminate the challenges and biases faced by people in minority groups. Allies and advocates call attention to cultural norms or behaviors that exclude others. They may proactively reach out to minority group members to help them develop work relationships and find career opportunities through leveraging their social network. A third benefit of promoting multiculturalism is its impact on the attraction and retention of diverse candidates.?Considerable research has shown diverse employees are more likely to apply and remain at companies that expressly state and demonstrate a commitment to building a diverse workforce.?

The way forward involves taking two paths at once.?Solving a problem as complex as diversity and inclusion requires both multiculturalism and meritocracy. Multiculturalism is developed through intentional communication and dialogue about the nature and value of diversity. Meritocracy is created through changing the processes the company uses to attract, hire, manage and develop talent.?The problem is many companies tend to keep these two activities separate. For example, I have met with diversity officers who talked extensively to employees about the importance of equitable pay decisions, but who never worked with their companies’ compensation departments to actually change the process the company uses to make pay decisions.?

Multiculturalism is about how we socially interact, and meritocracy is about how we make decisions. They impact diversity in different ways and neither is more important than the other. We need both simultaneously if we are to truly make progress on diversity. We need to both walk the talk (meritocracy) and talk the walk (multiculturalism).?And never stop.?Because being a diverse and inclusive company is not a task that one completes. It is a quality that is developed, maintained, and lived every day.