What is one strategy to promote diversity and support workplace equality?
To help your company better promote diversity and workplace equality, we asked business professionals and DEI leaders this question for their best insights. From inclusive job descriptions to resource groups, there are several workplace strategies that may help you improve your company’s diversity and equity programs.
Here are twelve strategies to promote diversity and support workplace equity:
- Inclusive Job Description
- Listen to Your Employees
- Create a Cross-cultural Communication Program
- Prioritize Mentorship and Sponsorship Opportunities
- Emphasize the Benefits of Diversity
- Promote More Inclusive Workplace Policies
- Create a Transparent Workplace Culture
- Replace Happy Hours With Cultural Celebrations
- Using Anonymous Surveys for Fair and Honest Feedback
- Celebrate With Your Workforce
- Cast Your Recruitment Advertising Nets Wider
- Create Resource Groups
Inclusive Job Description
Promoting and supporting diversity in the workplace truly begins with the leadership in fostering a healthy and inclusive environment, but if you don't have a well-rounded and quality team to move that vision forward, then it won't work. For me, it all begins with a well-written and inclusive job description that will attract the right candidates. The wrong language in job descriptions can cause your job posting to be overlooked or rejected outright. Have a look at your past job descriptions to see if your posts could be giving out the wrong impression. One under-utilized way you can begin to attract a more diverse candidate pool is by using gender-neutral language. Such a small, thoughtful gesture will say big things about your company culture and draw in more diverse talent.
Linda Scorzo, Hiring Indicators
Listen to Your Employees
You can support diversity and equality in the workplace by honestly listening to your employees’ thoughts on such matters. The likelihood is that your employees want to talk to you about diversity and equality, but they need to be reassured that they can do so openly. So, show them that they can. Whether the issue is discrimination or the gender pay gap, ask your workforce for their thoughts, and respond promptly to their questions and concerns.
Debra Hildebrand, Hildebrand Solutions, LLC
Create a Cross-cultural Communication Program
Today, more teams consist of employees across the globe who have diverse backgrounds and react differently to different management styles. For this reason, leaders will need to learn to communicate differently to create a more inclusive environment. What motivates workers in one country may not be as effective with those who live in another. For example, Western culture values competition and individual achievement. And leaders rely on direct communication to get their point across. Eastern culture places the importance of the group over the individual. And they strive to maintain harmony and avoid conflict at all costs. People in the East prefer using indirect and non-verbal forms of communication. And they value building personal relationships to help them succeed. With such complexity of cultural differences, promoting your brand's training in cross-cultural communication will continue to attract top talent from around the world.
Shaunak Amin, SnackMagic
Prioritize Mentorship and Sponsorship Opportunities
One of the best ways to support diversity and equality in the workplace is by providing support through mentorship and sponsorship. Often, diverse communities may not have the right career mapping for success and leadership. For those who are passionate and committed to getting into leadership, this is a great opportunity to coach and mentor them all the way to the top. Provide an example or be the example to diverse members of your team.
Rronniba Pemberton, Markitors
Emphasize the Benefits of Diversity
Ensuring that your workplace is as welcoming of diversity and as committed to equality as it can be is a team effort. You can easily get your staff on board if you emphasize the benefits of a diverse workplace. At the same time, be welcoming of input and viewpoints from all perspectives. Do your best to provide a safe space for all of your employees to talk about difficult issues and find common ground through constructive discussions.
Sharon Arne, Stuart Hall School
Promote More Inclusive Workplace Policies
It's essential to ensure that all employees feel safe and comfortable in the company no matter what their background is. One of the ways to achieve it is ensuring that the policies are flexible and can be adapted to different traditions, holiday calendars, health conditions, and more. There are plenty of things the company could implement, e.g., flexible working hours, non-gendered bathrooms, facilities inclusive of people with disabilities, a flexible holiday calendar, and more.
Ewelina Melon, Tidio
Create a Transparent Workplace Culture
Create a workplace culture that is authentic and transparent. Don't allow room for systems to grow that prevent diversity, equality, and inclusion. If you create a transparent culture, your employees will be able to see the functionality within your workplace in accordance with what your customers can see as well. If this is done intentionally and well, you will create a workplace culture that is inclusive and diverse.
Boye Fajinmi, TheFutureParty
Replace Happy Hours With Cultural Celebrations
Instead of having general happy hours in the office, celebrate international holidays, as well as history and heritage months. Enlist enthusiastic team members to plan individual events that include catering, games, and even dancing if the occasion calls for it. By participating in these cultural practices, even for short periods, people will better appreciate the diversity around them and will be encouraged to share more of their own diversity.
Matthew Ramirez, Paraphraser
Using Anonymous Surveys for Fair and Honest Feedback
As an organization with cross-cultural teams, we believe that conducting anonymous surveys is one of the best ways to promote diversity and ensure workplace equality. We use anonymous surveys as part of our performance management system to reduce biases and create a safe environment where employees can freely share their honest thoughts. This made our team feel heard and included, especially if their feedback is being acted on.
With an all-inclusive and holistic HR software like QuickHR, you can easily run and send out surveys as part of the company's performance management system. Through integrated HR software, it'll also be easier to streamline the process of implementing the survey results into the performance review and utilize the overall outcome to recognize deserving employees, without any biased effects. This way, organizations can ensure a data-driven approach during the review process as well as consistently provide equal opportunities to all employees.
Suki Bajaj, Enable Business
Celebrate With Your Workforce
It doesn’t have to be too daunting a task to promote diversity and equality. You can start with acknowledging each of the various religious and cultural holidays of your workforce as they pop up throughout the year. Use each holiday or cultural event as a chance to celebrate diversity together, and expand your employees’ awareness and horizons.
Ashleigh Wilkes, A World For Children
Cast Your Recruitment Advertising Nets Wider
Building diversified recruitment ads can ensure that a company remains a salad bowl of top talents from diverse backgrounds. This means drawing up ads for potential recruits from various demographics. In addition, you can also reward employed workers to bring talented people from their circles from diverse heritages. Finally, you can also offer internships to the candidates of target communities.
By doing this, companies attract every talent, including the underrepresented. Also, they can leverage this practice by directing skills to the company’s website page that features the company’s diversity practices. After all, the idea of diversity in the workplace is vital for reflecting a company's societal setup and giving it a more humane employer image.
Jonathan Tian, Mobitrix
Create Resource Groups
Encourage the creation of resource groups, and then ensure that your employees know they exist and can voluntarily participate in them. These groups can act as forums for concerned employees to get together, or even just serve as social starting points. Communication is a key aspect of creating and maintaining an inclusive and equal environment for all, so also encourage these resource groups to work together towards common goals.
Ed Stevens, Preciate
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