Diversity or just a tick in the box?

One of the latest hot topics at the Human Resources Department lately is Equality, Diversity, Inclusion. Do we know what that means?

EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion)?ensures fair treatment and opportunity for all. It aims to eradicate prejudice and discrimination on the basis of an individual or group of individual's protected characteristics.

I am sure that everyone will say yes of course we are a diverse and equal company, but are they? First of all one of my best experiences traveling and working around the world was that I understood what culture intelligence means.?

Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is?the ability to recognize and adapt to cultural differences. It can give you the confidence to operate successfully in a wide range of settings. There are three types of CQ the cognitive, pyshical, emotional/motivational. The framework for cultural intelligence. It consists of four parts:?knowledge, strategic thinking, motivation, and behaviors.

Once I had a meeting with people from Israel and as we are Greeks, we have the tendency to hug people as if we know them for years. You see that’s part of our culture but Israelys are different. When I hugged my client, I could feel that he felt uncomfortable. That was my mistake as I had to study his culture before I meet him. That was my lesson. Since that day and after I always study the culture f the people that I am working with and it is not just about to know their greeting style but to understand them as human beings.?

It fascinates me how we are so different and yet we have so many similarities. Stop for a minute and think of your friends, colleagues, associates. Where are they from? What do you know about them? Many times, I had to explain to people that for Mediterranean people is normal to move our hands and that we are very expressive in our way of communicating. For some people that could come across as being aggressive. You should listen how we talk in Cyprus with my Dad hahaha. It is just that we talk loud and passionately.??

You can judge people without first get to know them. Hence, we have equality which is based on google:

Equality is about equal opportunities and protecting people from being discriminated against.?Diversity is all about recognizing respecting and valuing differences in people.

Being different doesn’t make you are better or worse. You are just different, and we have to respect our differences. That’s the beauty of diversity. That’s why life is more colorful when you have people from diverse backgrounds and can share different perspectives and learn from each other.?

This though is important to be applied when it comes to a promotion, relocation and anything else might going on in the workplace.?

There are many areas regarding Diversity, I will mention 5 of them.

• Cultural Diversity. The modern working world has been defined by one central phrase: culture fit.?

• Racial Diversity.?

• Gender Diversity.?

• Physical Disabilities.?

• Diversity in Interests.

Let's look at a few examples of equality and diversity in the workplace:

• Male and female workers doing the same job and receiving the same pay.

• Physical disabilities not restricting the carrying out of a role i.e. someone in a wheelchair doing the same job as someone sitting in a chair.

There are many barriers to inclusion like:

Lack of role models

One of the big barriers to employees feeling included in a workplace is a lack of relatable role models in senior positions. If your leadership team is entirely from one gender or race for example, people are less likely to feel at home in your company if they do not come from the same backgrounds.

Inclusion is defined?as the state of being included or being made a part of something.?When a book covers many different ideas and subjects, it is an example of the inclusion of many ideas. When multiple people are all invited to be part of a group, this is an example of the inclusion of many different people.

What I am trying though to emphasize through this article is the fact that due to the fact that it is a hot topic the equality, diversity inclusion that many companies are claiming that they are equal, diverse, but are they?

It is not about ticking the boxes for the facat and then find a “back” door to continue your old patterns. It is all about genuinely understand the diversity gain cultural intelligence and create a genuine positive culture in your company.

People can feel if they are being discriminated against or been excluded even though if the managers did it the “right” way.?

The main issue is to create a genuine positive culture not just to tick the box or else we are creating more insufficient meaningless boxes.?Have a look on a video that I created re equality, diversity, inclusion.

Love & light

Nadia

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