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10 Ways to Establish an Organizational Diversity Infrastructure

Amanda Jerelyn • Aug 29, 2019

Inclusive and diverse (I&D) organizations drive profitable and innovative results. Most of the companies enact I&D programs to change their infrastructure to deliver business value; however, those who launch inclusion and diversity initiatives actually outperform those with a more homogenous workforce. It helps to shape organizational policies and programs as well. Hence, the change can be challenging, but it’s rewarding.


A research study conducted by McKinsey proves that a more diverse workforce generates higher profitability with value creation. These approaches hold a similar approach for every management level. The study statistically found a significant correlation between diverse leadership and financial performance.


Companies with ethnic diversity on the executive level were 33% more likely to experience above-average profitability compared to those who were not in the top quartile and bottom quartile, respectively. Also, considering gender diversity, top-quartile companies were 21% more profitable than those who were in the bottom quartile.


Considering the above statistics, let’s explore ten ideal ways to establish diversity infrastructure in an organization to generate a healthy ROI.


1. Show Empathetic Leadership

Diversity is often considered as an initiative that must be owned exclusively by the human resources department. However, for a real institutional change, every departmental leader must buy into the concept of the idea of empathetic leadership, both emotionally and intellectually. The in-depth inclusion of diversity in the entire C-suite will lead the organization to practice empathy and strive for success.


Top-level management has to make sure that leaders are well equipped with the tools to convey the whole story and can elaborate on equity matters or provide practical solutions to common issues such as bias, exclusion, etc. They must identify the relationship between feelings and performance as well as decipher when to make exclusions.


2. Create a Sense of Belonging & Ownership

A sense of ownership and belonging must be established before bringing the best out of employees. Connecting with your team and the organization makes you feel like yourself and encourages you to engage, adding creativity to your workplace. It is more than a corporate need, it’s a psychological need.


Teams may have to go through hard times, and they need to plan and tackle tasks and situations together to meet deadlines. This helps to create an inclusive culture to enhance the essence of ownership and belonging among them. It may not be a fit-for-all approach, but it is significant to get interconnected with your peers and have the surety of having reliable people around you in times of need.


3. A Top-Down Approach isn’t Enough

A top to bottom approach is suitable to drive compliance, but it is not recommended for commitments. Every individual in the company is meant to understand their role regardless of being in senior management or frontline communications. This enables decision-makers to identify differences in experiences and core values across the organization. Also, it makes sure that a change is made relevant for every employee so that it could last longer. 


4. Quotas Don’t Automate Inclusion

Recruitment may boost numbers for diversity; however, it will not create an inclusive culture. “Retaining and nurturing talent is key”, believes Richard Damon - Academic Writing Services Consultant.  Leaders must evaluate an employee’s end-to-end experiences. This will lead them to design ways to measure inclusive excellence, as well as compare efforts to outcomes.
 
When top-level management understands that an emphasis on positivity changes everything, they will assess every aspect of work including culture, team building, performance reviews, planning, mentoring, onboarding successes and failures, as well as everything else that is needed to build a value-oriented organization. This will be an ideal place where every person is contributing in a unique and meaningful way. Moreover, it will make employees feel secure and motivated.


5. Foster Ongoing Inclusion

It is not enough to teach employees’ inclusion and diversity. Just like every other form of behavior change, the right decisions must be made in crucial moments and it needs to be implemented as habitual micro behaviors through actions. This will support healthy tension, honest conversation, and visible change.


An ideal way to accelerate ongoing inclusion is to identify cohort changes in your organization outside of management and the executive level. Then equip leaders with the information and skills to make them experts of change into their respective departments. This method is proven to be more effective than an off-day training session. Moreover, it is beneficial to incorporate positive ideas and beliefs into the daily lives of your employees.

6. Maximize Joy, Minimize Fear

When beliefs are challenged, managing fear becomes the task at hand. However, fear is a powerful motivator if used in the right way. It encourages people to reframe their perspectives, and this leads to the desired effect of creating a more diverse and inclusive work ecosystem. It gets them to view change via a lens of possibilities and elevates their shared experiences with massive potential and positive change.


The momentum created leads the individual to focus on enjoying little moments. There is just the need to spotlight moments of success and joy within the organization instead of only pointing out flaws and areas of improvement. Let your team celebrate everything that makes them feel uplifted.


7. Help Individuals Thrive

Trying to get FIT every time can be dangerous because it can exclude. Identify talent needs and allow them to nurture organizational values, norms, vision, mission and goals. Also, define FIT so that everyone can adhere to it as per their personality. You need to understand that everyone is different. Power structures, inequities and norms can be embedded in a culture comfortably; management can do this by hiring, training and rewarding those who FIT. It will uncover blind and sore spots as well and let you find ways to re-imagine possibilities and treat employees fairly.


8. Consider the Brand

Brand and culture are connected intimately and hence essential to transforming efforts. Your products and services reflect your values, struggles and biases. In the journey of building a diverse organization, it is essential to consider the happenings within and outside of the organization. Analyze what your brand is all about and relate it to your culture. By this, you will be able to integrate your brand image within the diversity and inclusion realm.

9. Keep it Strategic

An ideal diversification strategy should include all departmental elements of your business. These approaches need to be included in the long-term plans of the entire organization, as they will positively impact the policies, investments, and profits. An ideal way to keep strategies non-cosmetic and more diverse is to combine marketing and strategic initiatives to drive value in the company’s operations.


10. Avoid Pigeonholing

Nothing can be more harmful to a diverse culture than to stereotype employees because it can derail a decent initiative. Hence, take extra care to ensure the impact of every move is not stereotypical. This is the responsibility of HR to make sure people can come together without being identified and tagged via a single lens.



Conclusion

Start implementing the above ten ways to make your organization more diverse and to get your employees onboard with assurance and positivity. It will ultimately impact revenues and the business as a whole.

 


Author Bio:
Amanda Jerelyn is a qualified social science analyst. She loves to work for social issues. Amanda is a former academic writer. Currently, she is working as a Social Science tutor at KingEssay in the U.K.

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Disclaimer: Content on this blog is authored by multiple sources. While we do make every attempt to proofread and fact-check, unless authored our staff, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of The Society for Diversity and the Institute for Diversity Certification.

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