Is your workplace truly inclusive? 5 Steps to know.

It's the peak of Pride month, which means many organizations are imbuing their logos with rainbow flags, and posting all that diversity-related content on social media.

I, personally, want to believe that year after year is more about truly supporting the community and striving for full equality, and gradually less just about the sheer commercial profits.

By now, most organizations have realized that the business case for diversity in the workplace is absolutely overwhelming (World Economic Forum, 2019), and thus the benefits to be ripped from diversity are sweet and sustainable. I.e:

• Companies with above average diversity scores have a 45% average innovation revenue, vs a 26% average innovation revenue reported by companies with below average diversity scores. (BCG Diversity and Innovation Survey, 2017. n = 1681)
• Women are 34% better at working compromises, and being honest & ethical, 30% better at providing fair pay and benefits, 25% better at mentoring. (Pew Research Center, 2015).

So nowadays the mainstream is for organizations to consider and promote themselves as diverse, inclusive and a place to belong to. And don't get me wrong, that's great! I love it, it's HUGE progress compared to where we were just some years ago

But are the majority of organizations TRULY, REALLY inclusive? Let's think about it.

When I was searching for free stock photos to make the cover of this article, I found this one:

What do you think? Does this photo TRULY represents inclusiveness?

Well, I asked some people here and there and got mixed answers.

The truth is, it doesn't.

First of all, we gotta state what might seem obvious but sometimes isn't: diversity is about all minorities or groups that have not been historically in the spotlight. That, of course, includes the LGTBQI+ community (which we are celebrating this month), but also people of color, women, migrants, ethnically minority groups, generational minorities, and so on. - A truly diverse organization is one that welcomes and fully embraces all individuals with equality and equity.

How's that? Look at the picture again. Do you think if the guy wanted to write in the flipchart he could do it easily? The flipchart has a low horizontal rod which might be an impediment, it might be set too high and well... the guy has a laptop on his lap. I'm not saying he couldn't do it if he wanted to (most likely he could), but I think it wouldn't be as easy and confortable for him as it would be for someone who isn't on a wheelchair.

That photo doesn't show inclusion, it shows integration.

Inclusion, exclusion, segregation and integration are concepts that I learned back in university in a Diversity class that was part of my Psychology bachelor coursework.

Just because minorities are allowed to be part of a group, doesn't mean they are truly included. In order to be included, the conditions have to be equitable for everyone, not necessarily equal.

Back in that course we talked about what happens when you bring neurodiverse kids (i.e: ADHD, Asperger, etc.) to a regular classroom and expect them to perform just like all the others. Will they? Not really, unless they are supported. That's why curricular adaptations exist, and are created so neurodiverse kids can learn and achieve the same as all other kids, but in a way that's feasible for them.

It should be the same in the workplace. Real inclusion in the workplace requires organizations to adapt to create equitable conditions for everyone. More often than not, those adaptations won't be as tangible or obvious as a curricular adaptation for a kid with ADHD, but that doesn't mean they aren't as important and necessary. That goes all the way from ensuring women get paid same as men, that men also get full paternity leave, that people of color aren't discriminated when searching for jobs because of their names in the CVs/Resumees, that LGTBQI+ individuals can get the same marital benefits as their heterosexual peers, and so on.

You might notice those examples are about equality: ensuring the same conditions for everyone. And yes, that's the ultimate goal.

However, at first equality might not be enough, and you need equity first.

Equality might not be enough at first because the system is already so biased towards a certain group(s). And that's why equity is needed with initiatives like, for example, special leadership workshops for women, or recruitment efforts intentionally aimed to minorities. In parallel, the system should be gradually fixed, justice must be served, so that eventually the system and conditions are truly fair and equal for everyone. And only when that happens, an organization can claim to be fully diverse, inclusive and a place where everyone belongs.

P.D: I couldn't find the author of the trees illustration, but I saw it circulating around and found it perfect to illustrate this point. If you know who the author is, let me know in the comments and I'll gladly credit them.

So how do we make that happen?

That's why big organizations have Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DIB) teams/departments, and while that's a step in the right direction, just having a department for it doesn't magically solve everything. The WHOLE organization must put the hard work needed to make it happen.

Now, I'm nowhere near an expert in DIB. There's people whose full career is dedicated to it. I'm just an advocate, and seek advise from people wiser than me to contextualize and implement within my context. For example, you can read Glauco Leal's article on the historical context of Pride and how to commit past Pride Month with specific actions.

However, I've put together 5 broad and general steps to make DIB truly happen in your organization (a.k.a: how to put the hard work in):

1. Truly redesign your policies.

You gotta tackle this the same way you approach any R&D, innovation or optimization project from a "customer" point of view.

• Define who's your "customer/user" (meaning the employees that'll benefit from the DIB policies redesign). Talk to them, ask their perspectives, be emphatic, put yourself in their shoes, etc. Meaning: identify their pains, their problems. Most likely you'll find several, for which you'll need separate redesign/creation projects.
• Define your research hypothesis, questions. Be clear on what you want to achieve.
• Set up and execute the projects. Deploy and communicate them. Then measure and ask your target "users" (the DIB people for whom you are doing this) if what you are doing is truly what they need. Based on those inputs, improve, iterate, keep doing it as much as needed.
• Be sure that your redesign isn't band-aid superficial. You have to go to the root of issues as much as possible and truly transform things around to reach the justice, and eventually equality, that we were talking about. While some initiatives focused on equity might be necessary, they should always be backed by system-transformation initiatives that seek that justice and eventual real-equality.
• Needless to say, this is huge work that your DIB department will need to do continuously (it's not a one time thing) across verticals, departments, functions and geographies of your organization.

2. Nurture an inclusive environment

Point 1 is all about systems and policies redesign, meaning structural redesign.

Point 2 is all about people, meaning cultural redesign.

No matter how many policies and systems you change if the environment where they exist won't embrace them.

• Here you need to do a serious, real and objective quanti+quali culture and climate research of your organization, seeking to answer the question: do LGTBQI+/people of color/women/ethnic minorities/etc feel confortable, free and open to be their authentic self in our organization? - This will help you understand your starting point.
• Then you need to conceive, plan, deploy, measure, improve and redeploy a culture evolution and change management plan. This is done the same way any proper culture change initiative is carried, just with a focus on DIB now.
• Logically, you have to involve and engage all needed stakeholders: senior leadership (so they can role model the change and support the projects with resources), key DIB users from the initiatives (the LGTBQIQ+, POC, women, ethnic minorities, etc.) to serve both as internal insiders for perspective and as voice amplifiers in the organization, maybe expert external consultants, etc.
• And keep going, keep going, keep going. You know culture doesn't change overnight, but it's the base of everything.

3. Confront toxic behavior

All the processes and people changes from points 1 and 2 will be useless if people manifest toxic behavior and it isn't appropriately stopped and corrected. It'll undermine all efforts. And that kind of behavior can come from anyone, be that a top leader or a new intern.

• Some people will behave inappropriately in a conscious and unconscious way (they might not even realize it), since mindset change doesn't kick in so quickly.
• You should create both Learning & Development initiatives as part of your culture plan, to educate people on these topics that are sensitive and often avoided in public; and also define before hand your policy to deal with people who display these behaviors despite the training (i.e: what will you do? Have a talk with the person? Register it in his file record? Fire him if the case is too extreme?). Having a clear policy beforehand will save you headaches, and guide you to react assertively when the time comes.
• When necessary, stop the toxic behavior (if it's conscious and intentional) right on spot, and communicate the outcome to the team. I.e: if you are in a team meeting and a manager makes a sexist comment, stop it right there. If it's lunch time and a gay coworker is talking about his boyfriend, and someone comments something homophobic, stop them immediately. This is something anyone in the organization should feel encouraged to do. It takes courage, but it sends a clear, unmistakable message to everyone: everyone fully belongs, diversity is embraced, and bigotry won't be tolerated in any way. Your DIB employees will feel supported and cared about by the organization, and those who made toxic comments will hopefully learn and improve, or at least think it twice in the future.
• It will not be easy when the toxic behavior comes from people holding power, but if your organization's intention and work for DIB is true and serious, it will hold everyone fully and ethically accountable, the same way they'd do it if, for example, someone would be caught stealing. You have to walk the talk.

4. Measure perceptions

I repeat: things won't change overnight. It's hard, continuous work.

So as in any change management project, you need to constantly measure the outcome of your efforts to know if you are in the right path.

• All your processes/policies redesign projects should have specific KPIs.
• The basic is measuring demographic statistics: % of DIB employees overall, across levels of the organization, business units, geographies, etc. But also their overall career advancement, for example, compared to the mean of non-DIB employees, to know they aren't being blocked somehow.
• Then go deeper. In your pulse and engagement surveys find ways to measure DIB employees perceptions of things. Have one to ones when possible, and focus groups, so you stay close to the people and have first-hand feedback.
• Logically, based on the measurement results, adjust and improve.

5. Listen to your people

This might seem too obvious: but listen. TRULY listen with the intention to understand, not to confirm what you think.

Don't assume, don't try to mansplain, don't think you know. Also, just because you are part of a DIB group, don't assume you know how it feels and what's the experience of another DIB group.

Just as if you were working in product and marketing for your external customers, the same principles apply when working on employee experience design for your internal customers.

You must have the humility to listen and serve others based on what they tell you.

_________

Some final thoughts:

DIB is an extremely complex and broad topic. It is rooted in the inequalities and injustices of society, that then get reflected in our organizations. While we might not have the power to change our whole society, we do have power and influence to change our organizations.

Here I just scratched the surface, and mostly tried to bring perspective and clarity to the topic, both to employees to reflect about the workplace they are currently part of, and to leaders and HR to reflect on how things are and what they can and should do.

If your organization is already somewhat diverse: great! Listen to your people, and start defining key actions needed to improve, besides keeping your workforce as diverse as possible.

If your organization is mostly homogeneous (non-diverse) right now: start with the basics, which is focusing your recruitment efforts towards diversity. I'm sure you'll find qualified DIB candidates who'll bring huge value.

Lastly, I just want to say that we are here, and that we won't stop. Thankfully the world is getting more and more diverse and inclusive (although not as fast as we could), and better overall for everyone. Let's make it happen together! #WeAllBelong