In order for your company’s diversity practices to be successful, you need an equitable and inclusive work culture. Diverse teams tend to have stronger employee engagement, productivity, and problem-solving skills than homogenous teams. The different perspectives offer unique approaches to solving business challenges in new ways. This leads to greater innovation and financial performance.
The following are some discouraging results from the McKinsey & Company study Women in the Workplace 2021:
- For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 86 women are promoted.
- Between the entry-level and the C-suite, the representation of women of color drops by more than 75%.
- LGBTQ+ women are significantly more likely than women overall to experience microaggressions.
- Women with disabilities are more likely than women overall to have their competence challenged or to be undermined at work.
All of these factors impact the level of diversity, equity, and inclusion in an organization.
In order to experience real organizational change, your company needs to build a truly equitable and inclusive work culture. This means providing equal opportunity and treatment throughout the employee experience, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, ability, religion, or other characteristics. All employees deserve to be respected and appreciated for their differences.
Implement the following action items to increase the effectiveness of your company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Promote Pay Equity
Use data analytics to identify which employees are underpaid for similar roles or responsibilities. This may involve the use of people analytics to help managers uncover any pay gaps that exist within their teams.
Work with company leaders to find patterns within the departments and determine the root of the issues. This lets you know whether certain groups of employees are being underpaid within certain areas of the organization.
Immediately correct the problem. Then, take steps to ensure that pay equity remains the standard for all employees going forward.
Implement Training on Unconscious Bias
Schedule training for managers and leaders to understand and build awareness of unconscious bias. This includes associations or feelings of bias that tend to be hidden in the subconscious. They typically do not align with conscious or declared beliefs.
The managers and leaders can use this training to educate the employees on how they and their coworkers are impacted by unconscious bias and the actions that reinforce the biases. Your entire workforce can use these discussions to encourage employees at all levels to review, question, and analyze their own unconscious biases and assumptions.
You may suggest that each employee keep a thought journal to process their biases. Writing down instances of stereotyping as they occur increases awareness of them. This helps employees replace their biases with facts and end the stereotypes.
Need Help Hiring Diverse Employees?
High Profile can match you with the candidates you need to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in your company. Get started with us today.
