The DE&I Plan!

Summary: Here I discuss 10 key steps to take your diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) programme to the next level!

“Action expresses priorities”

So you managed to organise your diversity and inclusion survey, congratulations, but now you need to take action on all those survey results and general employee feedback… not easy, right?

Your organisation as a whole may want to incorporate the findings into a global DE&I policy or action plan? Smaller businesses units may just choose to target the specific problem areas identified, without a formal written local plan?

When taking action on D&I it is better to have a top-down approach with the full commitment from senior leadership. It is only through this commitment and full support that you will be able to change the culture of your organisation into a more inclusive workplace. Together with senior leadership at the highest organisational level, a DE&I plan, that sets out the approach that your organisation is to take to ensure it acts as a fair and inclusive business and employer, needs to be established. Usually this plan is to show how the proposed DE&I values are to support your organisation’s broader mission and business goals.

There are different elements and ways of structuring a DE&I plan. I suggest the following 10-step action process for which your DE&I survey audit will provide key information necessary to implement each of these undertakings:

1. Alignment with the corporate vision / mission statement: Define or redefine if necessary what your vision or corporate values mean by the term ‘diversity and inclusion’. It may derive from your organisation’s Business Plan or a separate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion statement or policy. Whichever, the message should be that equality, diversity and inclusion are actively being pursued as a business objective. It should be linked to your organisation’s global business vision of what it intends to achieve and why this is important to employees and society.
2. Determine DE&I aims and desired business benefits/outcomes: Based on the DE&I Audit, once the organisation has identified those key areas for attention, it will need to define the necessary steps for change. The work plan needs to be very clear – with quantifiable and achievable objectives and set timescales (SMART format objectives). It should be flexible enough to accommodate business, social and legislative changes in all regions where your organisation operates.
3. Coordination and implementation of actions: Educate and persuade senior leaders to become ‘DE&I Champions’ within the organisation. Visible, tangible and accountable top-level commitment to change is vital in any change process. Senior leadership need to be committed to support and adhere / act according to the new DE&I oriented policies being designed. Some organisations use equality, diversity and inclusion ‘champions’ to drive the plan forward. Such people need to be senior enough in the organisational hierarchy, good communicators and well-networked across the business. They should also be willing to model equality, diversity and inclusion through their own behaviour by being inclusive and willing to challenge inappropriate behaviour at work. All champions will need to be managed by an equality, diversity and inclusion global task force team, headed by a senior executive member of staff who can solicit opinions about the plan and how it is working from across the organisation.
4. Identification of potential DE&I related obstacles: In organisations, barriers to diversity & inclusion fall into 3 categories: institutional (non-inclusive policies, processes and practices), cultural (sole concentration on traditional expectations and beliefs) and personal (prejudices) barriers. The DE&I Audit should bring all these potential challenges to light, in this respect, the internal communication of equality, diversity and inclusion auditing and analysis of outcomes is key. The understanding of these challenges and the accountability for implementing corrective actions need to be transparent. You will need to make clear to employees what is required of them and that they are accountable for delivery of relevant parts of the plan. The Implementation of the plan will need to be coordinated across the business. It is important that people are clear on who is responsible for addressing those obstacle and coordinating the necessary corrective actions.
5. Revision of HR / DE&I policies and practices: HR and more specifically DE&I policies are a written source of guidance on how a wide range of people issues should be handled within an employing organisation, incorporating a description of principles, rights and responsibilities for managers and employees. DE&I policies need to be dynamic, not static. Organisations need to revise them regularly, add to them, and in some cases, if necessary, even remove them altogether, to ensure they accurately address your organisation’s evolving mission and goals, as well as changing workforce trends, economic conditions and legislation.
6. Identify key behaviours/competencies to support a diverse and inclusive culture: Competence in DE&I brings together cultural knowledge, awareness and sensitivity. A culturally competent organization has the capacity to bring into its system many different behaviours, attitudes, and policies and work effectively in cross-cultural settings to produce better outcomes. All employees will be involved in delivering the plan, so make sure they are all well informed. Employees should understand the issues and challenges, the organisational vision and the benefits of promoting a diverse and inclusive culture within the organisation; they should be updated on progress at regular intervals; their feedback should be sought on how to deliver the plan; this helps generate new ideas which empowers and motivates staff; the information should be accessible to all your staff. Organisations need to work with managers to develop skills and improve behaviours on empowering team members, cooperation, freedom to speak up / openness & transparency, tolerance, knowledge-sharing, etc.
7. External communication of equality, diversity and inclusion auditing and analysis: The communication strategy, internal or external, need to have a clear message, purpose and objective. It needs to address a clear target audience through well-defined channels / media. Most importantly, the DE&I communication effort needs to measure the desired feedback from the target audience - how will that specific response be measured? Your organisation will want to make its business commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion clear not only to employees but also to clients, customers and the public. This can be achieved by having a specific statement on the organisation’s website, including references in annual reports and other public materials; at conferences; in advertising; in all public procurement solicitations / bidding processes to potential suppliers inviting them to submit business proposals; at external recruiting events by including (assessment of) supportive behaviours in recruitment, induction / training, development, promotion and performance management activities.
8. Aligning DE&I with manager performance: Embed DE&I in business reporting processes, HR and line business plans, and (senior) management bonuses. It is now a fairly common practice for organisations to link manager performance evaluations to diversity & inclusion audit / employee survey metrics to create greater accountability among leaders, and thus drive improvement and all necessary changes within the organisation to achieve all the agreed DE&I objectives.
9. Securing resources and budget to implement the DE&I action plan: Alongside securing people for the project team (making it possible for the right people to have enough time to spend on the project), the DE&I Champion leading the project also has a critical role to play in securing the budget to manage the project. If it is their budget that is funding the work, and they believe in the project, it should be relatively easy for him/her to put some of their cash aside for this initiative. However, it gets harder when the DE&I Champion needs to rely on funding from other departments / business units. The DE&I Champion should be able to rely on the organisation’s senior leadership to sort out anything like this and to get the adequate funding for the DE&I initiative, hence the importance of senior leadership commitment and participation from inception of the project.
10. Monitor and track progress of all planned activities on a regular basis: Regular evaluation will help ensure that feedback can be acted upon in a timely manner to confirm all is going according to plan guaranteeing this way maximum benefit. Employee opinion as well as data collected at the initial audit will enable comparisons of the situation pre- and post-plan. Information gathered should also be shared across the organisation, to highlight success and areas where there is still more to be done.

Most companies and organisations know their businesses, and the strategies required for success. However many organisations, especially the large ones, struggle to translate employee feedback into action plans that will enable the strategy to be successfully implemented and sustained.

The main idea behind these 10-step action planning process is to turn that survey data, into strategies, then into plans, and finally into individual actions necessary to produce that required cultural change. But it's not easy, many organisations repeatedly fail to truly motivate their people to work with enthusiasm, all together, towards their corporate DE&I aims, that will be the main challenge in this cultural change process.

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Disclaimer: The author is making this ‘Opinion Blog / Guide’ available in his personal effort to advance the understanding of best practices in workplace related matters. The author assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this ‘Opinion Blog / Guide’ or for the results obtained from the use of the information provided. The information is provided on an ‘as is’ basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness or timeliness and without any warranties of any kind whatsoever, express or implied. The views expressed are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of any entity whatsoever with which the author has been, is now, or is to be affiliated in the future.