To do this, they must consult employees when developing D,E&I programs.
Find out why this drives higher engagement, and improves retention rates.
Share
We know there are a diverse range of communities across each business – made of different genders, abilities, ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, and more. In order to make a true difference across the organization, leaders need to reflect, empower and benefit everyone across the business when they create diversity, equity and inclusion (D,E&I) initiatives.
Leaders can sometimes come up against challenges, particularly around performative actions, for example, when it comes to awareness days such as Juneteenth and Black History Month. Companies often feel like they need to say something to show their support, but this may be misplaced.
Everyone must be given the opportunity to feel valued and seen at work. This is often a big learning for business and HR leaders, but it is vital work that needs to be actioned now to make a difference in the long run.
Organizations need to start doing more to create D,E&I initiatives with everyone in mind, prioritizing everyone across the business and making their actions count – so how can they achieve this?
Create D,E&I programs that focus on all identity groups
To help tackle challenges, bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have created detailed guides that help businesses make sure they are creating D,E&I strategies that cater for everyone’s needs, as well as advise on the work leaders need to put in to make this a reality.
The most effective D,E&I programs recognize and focus on making progress on areas with the greatest gaps, while also attending it perspective and initiatives for a multitude of communities. This requires critical thinking – both in terms of catering to different groups of people, and also making progress regarding different ethnicities and genders.
This is a big learning for leaders who may find they have communities in their workplace they didn’t know existed. This boils down to investing in and spending time with everyone on an individual basis to better understand the range of people they have in their workplace, and their needs.
For example, hosting drop-in sessions with the people team taking regular pulse surveys, and leaders holding one to one sessions with people across the company can all help to paint a clear picture of who the organization is made up of.
When implementing any policies or procedures that are going to impact different communities, HR leaders must consult with employees before they draft any formal guidance.
For example, there may be policies that leaders think are beneficial to working parents, such as putting a specific paternity leave framework in place. However, working parents might not see this as helpful.
Instead of making decisions on behalf of their people, leaders need to openly consult with their employees to understand the types of guidance and framework that are going to work for them.
Elsewhere we are also seeing a shift to focusing on the best way to work with people from neurodivergent backgrounds. Often, these workers are overlooked – with Deloitte finding that in the US, it is estimated that 85% of people on the autism spectrum are unemployed, compared to 4.2% of the overall population.
For too long there has not been enough guidance on how leaders can create alternative ways of working for people who need this adaptability, especially as these professionals have the potential to provide a different way of thinking and make teams more productive.
In fact, the same Deloitte research found that teams with neurodivergent professionals in some roles can be 30% more productive than those without them.
This is another example of how catering to different needs must be considered all the way along the employee lifecycle, from hiring through to keeping everyone happy and engaged on a day-to-day basis.
Raising awareness while supporting employees
As leaders start to develop intentional and inclusive D,E&I strategies, it is essential to collaborate with the people team to gather and incorporate feedback and employee sentiment. Leaders can leverage this and incorporate it into actionable frameworks aimed towards increasing employee wellbeing and value.
As leaders take action, it’s important to make sure any action taken here isn’t misplaced or seen as performative.
As mentioned above, most recently we saw many companies giving their employees a day off for Juneteenth so they could use the time to think and reflect on the past, and what they want to achieve in the future. But this is sometimes taken advantage of and becomes problematic if the ‘work’ stops there.
Instead, awareness days must be leveraged to focus on a group of people with a view to highlight and empower this community during this time and beyond.
Leaders would benefit from involving the perspective of individual communities in the planning process, asking them the best way to celebrate or commemorate this time.
They should see these awareness days as opportunities to educate both people outside of these communities and also themselves as well.
Use data to get a holistic view of employee needs
Determining the needs of employees needs involves listening. This is not only through making space for people to be honest about how they’re feeling, but using employee data to gather insights will have a positive impact on wellbeing.
This is something we are seeing being implemented more and more across organizations who understand the key to retaining talent is keeping people engaged – and the only way to do this is by knowing what they want and need from the business. Whether this is more career development, increased flexible ways of working, or more regular check-ins with managers.
Programs can include pulse surveys, sentiment monitoring and focus groups to understand things like biases and the issues that are impacting employee happiness across the entire talent lifecycle.
This data can then be segmented by demographic to ensure there aren’t pockets of the employee experience that cater towards one group of people more than another. This will help leaders become more intentional with implementing feedback and creating a more inclusive working environment.
No matter how much an organization is supporting its people, there is always more to be done.
For leaders, it’s about setting time aside to put processes in place that give them tangible information on what their people want, and then using these insights to show employees they care. Only by doing this can they recognize every employee in the way they want to be celebrated.
