Diversity, Back to Basics

Diversity, Back to Basics

Disclaimer: This article has been written specifically with a race and ethnicity focus.

For those of you that can, we want you to cast your mind back to about 10 years ago, perhaps even to the time of the Macpherson era when people talked about Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). You’ll realise the conversation was only about diversity back then, and there was little to no conversation around words such as “inclusion” and “belonging”. When individuals or organisations talked about diversity, it was mainly for increasing representation of underrepresented groups.

Over the years, we have seen a plethora of new phrases and terms being introduced within the diversity space. Words like: Inclusion, Belonging, Intersectionality, Cultural Intelligence/Agility, Inclusive Behaviours, Unconscious Bias, Microaggressions, Privilege, Equity, Respect, and Neurodiversity, to name more than a few. These terms, phrases and words were born out of various studies, and it may come as a surprise to some that they have been around for longer than we may think. For example, the term “Intersectionality” was first coined 1989 but has only become a topic of mainstream diversity space in the last decade.

At face value most of the words seem simple and straightforward, but when you look at them with a diversity lens, they are anything but simple. We speak to a lot of people, from all industries, on various employee-related challenges – and post these conversations, it’s clear that some of them are still not up to speed with their understanding of the more commonly talked about barriers that marginalised groups face. For example, many are still unclear about the critical difference between positive action and positive discrimination.

For those of you that are wondering, there is one key difference: positive action is lawful, and positive discrimination is unlawful. Positive discrimination would be where an employer recruits a person because they have a relevant protected characteristic, so let’s say, for example, because they are Black, rather than because they are the best candidate. Positive action would be designing a programme which allows people from under-represented groups a fair chance at securing a role within a firm, simultaneously ensuring they have the right skills for the position. There are some exceptions for positive discrimination though – for example, it would be acceptable for a Muslim-women’s domestic abuse charity to hire Muslim women as this will avoid causing distress to those seeking support.

It’s even more imperative to ensure we are raising awareness about these terms (basic and advanced) across our firms and using them correctly and not just to fill gaps in our strategies. Research by Bright Network, in 2018, titled What Do Graduates Want? shows that graduates consider a firm’s people and culture as one of the most important things when choosing an employer. So, employees need to be confident in using terminology specific to D&I to be able to confidently articulate their firm’s values to the future workforce. But how?

Well, we can take some simple steps. For example, let’s try to include definitions of words wherever we can, no matter how simple the words may be to us – for instance, at the end of every document or at the beginning of every D&I report. Another solution could be maintaining consistency across the D&I specific terms that you use in communications – avoid using too many synonyms as this might over complicate the messaging. Thinking more broadly, we could review the content of our training and fluency sessions internally or even start right at the beginning and look at the language used during the onboarding process or inductions. You see, very simple steps.

While the D&I sector is racing ahead (which is a good thing, as it shows signs of learning and advancement) we shouldn’t forget that there are people out there who will still need help with the basics. To get you started, at the end of this article are, in our opinion, some the more commonly talked about terms that we gathered from various reputable sources such as Harvard Business Review, Oxford Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary. Check it out here!

Zaheer Ahmad MBE and Sana Butt