The era of corporate social justice is arrived. We are starting to see corporations fully embrace social action, with the commercial case for diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) becoming more important than ever. While social justice was, and rightfully should have been, the initial push, businesses are now seeing the commercial rationale for diversity programs.
According to McKinsey’s recent research, companies with the most ethnically diverse teams are 36 percent more likely to outperform those with the least. This is because variety enhances revenue, innovation, creativity, and improved decision-making. However, the more diversity you have, the more difficult it might be.
The issue is that corporate leaders and advocates for diversity have failed to create a strategy for diversity that goes beyond “add diversity and stir.” Diversity is not only about increasing the number of traditionally underrepresented groups in your workforce.
Now is the moment to quit pretending that out-of-date diversity initiatives function while the globe changes to the epidemic. So let us look at some of the steps leaders may take to eliminate prejudice and subjectivity from the start, and instead embrace a “radical objectivity” strategy that combines data and human science to ensure that skill and merit always triumph.
An inclusive culture is the foundation for workplace diversity. Unfortunately, many businesses make this mistake. This is because diversity is a numerical concept — it refers to the degree of variability in your workforce. Inclusion, on the other hand, reflects the experiences of various employees and the extent to which they are welcomed to participate.
As a result, delivering on inclusion requires more than just reaching diversity recruiting targets. When done correctly, an inclusive culture may aid in the development of a sense of belonging and shared values.
Forward-thinking firms may create an atmosphere where people of all backgrounds can succeed by equipping themselves with data and knowledge rather than diversity quotas. So, how are they going to get there?
Diversity programs are frequently unsuccessful because they arrive too late in the employee journey to have a lasting impact. Change must ingrain in the talent acquisition process, which entails changing the way you communicate with potential workers, beginning with language.
The words you use to describe your company will make a difference: Words are powerful ambassadors for the culture of your organization. Technology and data analysis can assist you in this area, offering detailed information on the messages you are delivering.
Are you, for example, employing gender-coded or inclusive-coded language to attract people who are interested in inclusion? Are you frequently updating your messages to ensure that they are aware of varied cultural settings — not just gender and ethnicity, but also organizational and generational?
It is not only the language you employ in your marketing that important, have you thought about the terms your hiring managers and recruiters use. We employ technology at Inbeta to help companies go beyond the fundamentals when it comes to inclusion.
In our recruiting interviews, for example, we bury particular questions whose replies may linguistically evaluate to uncover the true attitudes and behaviors of candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers.
This eliminates the need for simple “bias tester” software, which often based on obsolete research and has minimal data integrity safeguards. Keep in mind that the finest applicants have choices. So, what would you say to get them to join your team?
