Unit 9 Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
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Overview
This is LDRS 617 unit 9! During COVID-19, diversity and inclusion (DI) in the workplace was a very popular topic. In some cases, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is used to cover the topic. Proverbs 2:9-10 says, “Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and equity, and every good way; for wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will please your soul.”. Equal opportunity issues are important for individuals, teams, and organizations. The definition and benefits of DEI will be discussed during this Unit, along with how to implement DEI at work. Let’s get started.
This unit is divided into the following topics:
- Definition of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion;
- The Benefits of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Employee engagement;
- How to Implement Diversity and Inclusion at Work;
- The REAL framework.
Learning Outcomes
When you have completed this unit, you should be able to:
- Critically reflect upon engagement practices and stewardship responsibilities of leaders in relation to their organization’s human resources (people), including addressing both the task and people factors within an organizational culture.
- Examine the effectiveness and shortcomings of an organization and its current engagement and stewardship practice.
- Investigate the critical roles of the leadership group and immediate supervisors towards creating high employee loyalty.
- Develop critical thinking skills and best practices application in relation to employee engagement and stewardship from the operational leader’s point of view.
9.1 Definition of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
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Today, it is challenging to find an organization that does not discuss Diversity and Inclusion (DI) or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Organizations value organizational culture, success, as well as improvement as a business priority along with their goal, mission, and value as a differentiator from people in the same field. Focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion is important for companies looking to create workplaces that reflect the world in which we live. Diversity, equity, and inclusion investments, on the other hand, can be associated with increased profits and business performance.
Equity, inclusion, and diversity are more than just buzzwords or corporate values to aspire to, or a means to heightened business results. Most companies view DEI as one of their key cultural pillars. Many people believe that this is a human rights conversation. And in LDRS 617, we believe Diversity, Equity and Inclusion should be a focus because it is the right thing to do.
What is diversity?
Diversity can be defined as the presence of differences. It can include demographics, cultural origins, skills, abilities, attitudes, ideas and philosophies, beliefs, experiences, and perspectives.
This information is often embedded in HR and talent data and can be related to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, socio-economic status, experience, skills, certifications, and geographical location. This data is sometimes found in your core systems, like your HR or your learning management system, other times it’s found in surveys or qualitative data.
How to measure diversity in your organization? To be informative and actionable, this information has to come together into one, unified data set, which is very complex to do. Once one has access to the data, and it is being constantly fed and updated, one can develop a better understanding of how you are delivering on your diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
What is equity?
Equity involves looking at programs, initiatives, and individual cases where opportunities may or may not be consistent and fair. In the Bible, Proverbs 2:9-10 says “Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul”. It is important to treat individuals with equity. This can be characterized by inequities or gaps in pay, promotions, opportunities for development, opportunities to lead, and more. It also includes an articulation of who holds the decision-making power - and whether that’s representative of your cultural values, your community, your customers, and who you want to be.
Equity involves looking at all processes in your business - from hiring, firing, promotions, task assignment, team creation, recognition to other less obvious aspects like how meetings are run and how groups interact. It looks at these processes for bias or inequity - either conscious or unconscious.
What is inclusion?
While diversity is about differences, inclusion is about embracing those differences. Inclusion is the deliberate action aimed at creating a workplace culture where all differences are welcomed, accepted, and appreciated. It’s about creating an environment where people feel valued, leveraged, and welcome. In an inclusive organization, all people are respected and appreciated for their unique contributions. You can spend hundreds of thousands or millions even on building a diverse workforce, but if you don’t invest in the inclusion practice at your organization, you’re missing out.
How to measure inclusion at your organization? Information about inclusiveness tends to be driven by experience data and surveys which can be mostly qualitative; however, can also exist in a hybrid where qualitative and quantitative data are combined.
While diversity tends to be objectively assessed (how many, where), inclusion is more qualitative. Based on personal experience. Inclusion is about the lived experience of people and groups within your organization. It involves asking questions and observing people and processes with a critical lens. It’s about experience, perceptions, and feelings, and it’s necessary to create the right environment.
Why diversity, equity, and inclusion are important for organizations?
When diversity, equity, and inclusion are combined it creates a workforce with a sense of belonging. Belonging is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. Belonging is part of our inherent desire to be part of something greater than ourselves.
People are social creatures and we’re driven by a need to belong. This need to belong has its roots in our evolution. Think of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There were obvious advantages to belonging to a group - hunting, gathering, building shelter, protection, procreation. In fact, for our ancestors, not belonging to a group or being ostracized was usually a death sentence. This direct connection between group belonging and survival resulted in a strong psychological need to belong.
While today our environments don’t demand belonging as a key to physical survival, we are still wired for connection and belonging. Belonging makes us feel safe and connected. Studies show that belonging to social groups and/or having close relationships with people, makes us happier and healthier. Belonging has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. It is associated with lower rates of sickness and disease, lower levels of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, and higher levels of physical activity. Belonging has also been linked to increased performance among students and employees. And, in some cases, a real feeling of belonging and attachment to co-workers is a stronger motivator than money.
Even more, the benefits of belonging extend beyond the individual to the health and well-being of the workplace. People who feel they belong are more likely to participate and become engaged in their work and work activities, and have better health outcomes. People who feel they belong are also more likely to donate their time and energy to improving the workplace and helping those around them.
All of this points to an imperative to strive for belonging in the workplace. Especially in today’s world where we spend more time at work than at home or any other place, fostering a true sense of belonging can have huge payoffs. At the individual level, a sense of workplace belonging can contribute to your employees’ mental and physical health, and it can make for happier people. Not only does this benefit the company in terms of reduced absenteeism, increased engagement, higher productivity, and a company culture that attracts top and like-minded candidates, it benefits the larger community through a ripple effect.
9.2 The Benefit of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Employee Engagement
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Analytics: Business Benefits
When diversity, equity, and inclusion come together there are numerous benefits through employee engagement to the business. Some of these include:
Representation and Reputation
Building a company where equity is a core value and whose diversity is representative of the communities we live in is a logical, moral decision and can help with your organization’s reputation at-large.
Culture: Customer Alignment
To extend upon community alignment, building a company that is representative of your customer base is also beneficial and can help you deliver better products, branding, and pitches. While these “benefits” might make the argument easier to invest in DE&I, the bottom line, however, is that the decision for focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion should be because it is the right thing to do, not because there’s a business case.
Belonging
A sense of belonging creates a positive culture that yields results for the individual employees, teams, and the overall organization. This can be quantified by a commitment to the organization, increasing net promoter score, and total lifetime value of an employee.
Talent Attraction and Retention
Simply put, diversity begets diversity. With equitable HR programs and diverse talent attraction channels, your employer brand will be the flywheel to create the outcomes you are looking for when it comes to organizational demographics and retention.
Financial Performance
Last on the list, but the key to sustainability, well-being, employment opportunities, and community investment, diverse companies deliver positive economic impact in the form of wages to underrepresented groups and taxes to all levels of government.
Areas Could be Improved at an Organization
- Employee creativity;
- employee co-operation;
- employee engagement;
- employee retention;
- loyalty to the organization;
- morale and employee satisfaction;
- productivity, and recruitment.
9.3 How to Implement Diversity and Inclusion at Work?
In order to promote IED at work, employers have used a wide variety of strategies and initiatives. Initially, the motivation may be the obligation to do so, but when organizations are determined to do so to create diverse, equitable and inclusive environments, they gain enormous benefits that are reflected in the environment, development and performance of their departments.
Within the previous topic, we discussed what diversity is and what inclusion means. In high-diversity environments, inclusive teams enhance team performance by around 30 percent. According to another study, companies with diverse management teams have 19 percent higher revenue than their counterparts with less diversity.
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is challenging to implement despite its clear benefits. There are already many companies that place a high priority on diversity and inclusion, but that belief is not widespread. Most employees agree that their manager encourages the concepts of an inclusive workplace, but only 40 percent report their manager takes action in that direction. See https://www.achievers.com/blog/diversity-and-inclusion/.
In order to determine one of the routes to implementing these concepts in the workplace, you must view Learning activity 9.3 and read Downey et al. ’s article which explains how trust and employee engagement are both crucial to fostering diversity and inclusion.
Learning Activity: Reading - The role of diversity practices and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement
- In this learning activity, you will read the assigned article by “Downey et al.” on “The role of diversity practices and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement”.
Please use the following framework to review this article (p.41).
Learning Activity: Reading - How co-creation increases employee corporate social responsibility and organizational engagement: The moderating role of self-construal
- In this learning activity, you will read the assigned article by “Simpson et al.” on “How co-creation increases employee corporate social responsibility and organizational engagement: The moderating role of self-construal”.
Please use the following theoretical model to review this article (p. 332).
Learning Activity: Watch and Reflect - Color blind or color brave
To begin this learning activity, watch the following video (Note: this video is 14 minutes in length)
Watch: Color blind or color brave? | Mellody Hobson
- After completing the activity above, reflect and include your analysis in this week’s Compendium.
9.4 The REAL framework
Source: Center for Creative Leadership.-Para 1.
1. Reveal relevant opportunities (paras. 4-6).
The first step is about discovery — not setting an agenda or duplicating diversity initiatives that seemed effective in other organizations. It involves gaining awareness of the types of diversity within and across groups, and the context in which diversity, equity, and inclusion play out for individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole.
To set a direction, create alignment, and generate a commitment to DEI initiatives in the workplace or other types of organizations, top leaders should take the first steps: articulate their individual and collective perspective, identity, values, and culture; consider how experiences of power and privilege may affect their approach and effectiveness — and that of others; and evaluate how dynamics of DEI may affect their marketplace and their business strategy.
By exploring their specific context, senior leaders can engage others in the organization to identify the most relevant opportunities for change and then select 2-3 strategic actions that will drive the desired results.
2. Elevate equity (paras. 7-9).
When discussing diversity initiatives in the workplace or other organizations, many professionals reference the term DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. At CCL, we recognize this terminology but prefer to shift the order to EDI, placing equity before diversity and inclusion — for a reason. You may see us use the terms interchangeably; however, we believe that without equity, efforts to promote diversity and inclusion are laudable, but not sustainable. To enact equity is to provide all people with fair opportunities to attain their full potential. To make progress on DEI, senior leaders first need to acknowledge societal inequities and recognize that, unintentionally, their organization isn’t a level playing field.
People enter the world of work and advance through their careers with the unevenness of advantage, opportunity, privilege, and power — so what is “fair opportunity” is not the same for everyone. When organizational leaders express their motivation, as well as acknowledge any barriers, for countering inequity; set clear goals toward greater equity; and then take action, they signal a commitment that becomes the foundation of the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts.
3. Activate diversity (paras. 9-11).
Diversity is the collective of differences and similarities that includes individual and organizational characteristics, values, beliefs, experiences, backgrounds, and behaviors.
Activating that diversity is a process that involves recognizing and engaging differences within the employee and customer base. It equips managers and teams to explore the impact of diversity on perspectives, assumptions, and approaches, and identify ways to enhance the contribution of all. And, it includes defining expectations or metrics and setting clear goals.
4. Lead inclusively (paras. 12-14)
Inclusion requires active, intentional, and ongoing efforts to promote the full participation and sense of belonging of every employee, customer, and strategic partner. It involves policies and practices, but also the ability to envision and enact new ways of leading.
Across levels and functions, leaders need to learn what is now required, interpreting inclusive leadership for their various groups or different roles. They also need tools, resources, and support as they improve their ability to identify and mitigate bias, respect differences, build empathetic relationships, foster “allyship”, manage conflict, and bring out the best in others.
Summary
During this unit, we explored Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) - the definition and differences of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion concepts; why DEI practices are important for organizations; and how to make DEI practical for organizations. The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) promotes the REAL framework to encourage individuals, teams, and organizations to practice “inclusive leadership”. The REAL framework has four steps: Reveal relevant opportunities; Elevate equity; Activate diversity; Lead inclusively.
Assessment
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Refereneces
- Bridger, E. (2018) (Chapter 8) - Employee engagement: A practical introduction.
- Downey, S., van der Werff, L., Thomas, K., Plaut, V. (2015). The role of diversity practices and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45, 35-44.
- Peters, J. (2019). Employee Engagement: Creating High Positive Energy at Work (eBook).
- Simpson, B., Robertson, J., White, K. (2020). How co-creation increases employee corporate social responsibility and organizational engagement: The moderating role of self-construal. Journal of Business Ethics. 166, 331-350.