Diversity is truly the flavor of life, but an organization that comprises of a wide variety of people from different backgrounds doesn’t hold much importance if it doesn’t practice inclusivity. The terms “inclusivity” and “diversity” are often used interchangeably, but they do not really mean the same thing.
The success of an organization largely relies on taking each and every one of these terms seriously and recognizing the ways and means in which a workplace can be made more diverse and inclusive.
If practicing diversity and building an inclusive culture is one of your missions to be achieved anytime sooner, then here are some suggestions on how you can work on building a workplace culture that supports everyone:
In order to make your employees feel comfortable about being themselves in the environment that they work in, it is important for the leadership team to feel comfortable about connecting with their employees at an appropriately personal level.
Ultimately, every employee in the organization wants to get noticed for the best of work they do. Being noticed means getting considered and acknowledged for the way they are individually different, yet similar in a lot of other ways.
This becomes an ongoing challenge to navigate and creates a way of practicing an environment where employees get to know each other for both their differences and similarities.
If you want to succeed at anything, you need to clearly make a commitment. The leadership team needs to carve out a clear purpose statement citing their commitment to an inclusive culture.
It is important that you communicate through your purpose statement that talks about how, who, what, and why, along with an FAQ that engages everyone with the benefits of adapting to a culture of this nature.
We all face internal biases, but it is important to acknowledge them to let the behavioral tendencies be let off. For employers, it is important to create a safe environment for employees to look into the same mirror and then identify their own biases that can be worked upon and eliminated in the near future.
This can be just as impactful as hosting a training session, and as subjective as expressing one on one. Identifying one’s own biases is a great start to end something; everyone can support each other in eliminating them.
An organization’s initiatives should extend way beyond the hiring process, and the HR department shouldn’t be the only one to enforce it. The entire organization, from top to toe, needs to implement this inclusive mindset.
Organizations that refrain from taking a company-wide approach to diversity might face an awfully difficult time in retaining their current employees.
Change can take place only if organizations begin to hear, comprehend, and formulate solutions that address the barriers that employees often face. Such initiatives can go a long way in creating a strong channel of diverse talent
