Steps to Improve Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity and Inclusion – a huge topic currently and for good reason.
Regardless of business’ trying to navigate through unprecedented times with the ongoing pandemic, D&I has remained a priority.
It has been proven that a diverse workforce improves creativity, productivity and enables a better decision-making process. What business wouldn’t want to benefit from this?
Most recently Legal & General have warned the FTSE 100 companies over the lack of ethnic diversity, with the fund manager stating they will use voting power against those that fail to have one BAME board member by 2022.
With the UK’s biggest fund manager taking this stance, many business’ aside from the FTSE 100 are having an inward reflection period and assessing how they can increase their diversity offering.
What steps can a business take to understand more and become inclusive and diverse?
Let’s start with the hiring process.
A data driven recruitment strategy which focuses around harnessing recruitment data, analysing the diversity statistics at each recruitment stage and compiling a post project report based on the information is imperative for a robust and successful recruitment campaign. This data acts as a benchmark for future talent pipelining and the diversity statistics can be aligned with a tailored business strategy in order to attain a gender balance or attract BAME candidates to a certain opportunity for example.
Executive Network Group understand how imperative diversity is to a successful business which is why both data and diversity underpin our 3D Ecosystem. You can read more about that here.
Broaden geographic locations when hiring.
With home working becoming more prevalent and the increase of virtual onboarding with the assistance of technology, organisations can now look at a broader geographic when hiring. This can help attract a more diverse candidate pool and therefore can assist in a diverse workforce.
Measure diversity.
Including diversity figures within regular reports allows a business to view the statistics objectively and therefore plan around this including creating a D&I agenda from internal structures at management level to new hires.
Demonstrate inclusiveness.
A diversity agenda is fantastic to have, however firstly a business needs to demonstrate inclusivity. This meaning a welcoming workplace where people of diverse backgrounds can work happily by feeling included. This can be including different religious holidays, support for returning new parents to work, multilingual opportunities where possible and creating employee benefits that are inclusive and attractive for your workforce you can ensure your organisation is welcoming and plays a larger part in talent attraction and retention. By expanding your offering from a “one size fits all” business model will attract a more diverse candidate pool and play the part in retaining them too.
Reverse diversity mentoring within a workforce.
This is a superb way to retain top talent by gaining a better understanding of your workforce and ultimately improve inclusion. By reverse mentoring this increases engagement and therefore results in retaining the diversity in your workforce.
Evaluate your executive team.
The management structure within a business speaks volumes about the culture and diversity of a business. If your management structure operates with an “open door” policy and communicate authentically and transparently this encourages inclusion, whilst a driving effort should be made to gain a gender and racial balance within management structures – this will also link to promoting a D&I agenda and encouraging diverse candidate attraction.
Encourage awareness through training.
Understanding diversity & inclusion and moreover how to improve this can be achieved through education. Whether that is an internal champion, a committed team on the board to discuss D&I strategies or liaising with a D&I consultancy, education is the key to future change.
The above suggested steps can form part of how we can evolve the current D&I offering within an organisation. It would be interesting to hear how you have reimagined diversity and inclusion and if you have taken a conscious step into a diversity led recruitment strategy.
