Undoubtedly, many organisations are striving to have a diverse workforce. This includes individuals of different religions, races, ages and views. It is a meticulous process; it requires much effort and time. Unfortunately, it is not easy to make every member of your workforce feel authentically welcomed.
For your company to have a flawless service delivery, employees need to have a feeling of being appreciated, respected as well as accepted. With the challenge, many organisations struggle to determine how to place diversity and inclusivity (D&I) into practice.
What does inclusion in the workplace mean? To create a culture where employees will feel welcomed, respected and appreciated is something that requires a robust approach. Look, while getting the right talent in your organisation may seem a solution, it may turn out to be a problem if the employee doesn’t feel included totally.
Inclusivity is a culture that is slowly built, and well accomplished, it leads to reduced turnover and higher performance. Try to recognise unique backgrounds, personalities, experiences as well as the things they do incredibly well, i.e., their strength.
Holding effective meetings
Trust me how employees relate amongst themselves show how much a workplace is inclusive as compared to anything else. The experience that one gets when he/she interacts with colleagues is more impactful on their performance.
When people meet, they share ideas. How they share them can help understand a raft of issues and how to improve them. How meetings are handled again may show the level of inclusivity. Everybody must feel part of a meeting. To so you can:
- You can distribute the material and agendas to be discussed beforehand. This gives time to the slower calibre to internalise.
- In case you have remote workers rotate meetings in different time zones
- Have the right technology for virtual meetings in cases of teleworkers. Allow them to fully participate in the meeting.
- Resist the assumption that you know more than others.
Embrace and celebrate employees’ differences
In a diverse workforce, you expect to have many differences. This is usually the cause of many misunderstandings. To avoid that:
- Treating each other with respect is essential, regardless of your position in an organisation. Whether they are ideas or opinions, take them with kindness even if you do not agree.
- Value strength of each of your employees; when you point out the strength of an employee, it motivates them to perfect on it. As such, they’ll do stuff more naturally and effectively. By demonstrating that you value their strength, it can make them identify blind spots related to observing, evaluating or showing respect for others.
Practising fairness
Organisational leaders are obligated to be fair in their undertaking. This starts with hiring workers. If any unfairness is shown, then it alters the angle of inclusivity. Similarly, when it comes to assigning duties, making promotions, or evaluating compensations, every employee needs to be treated fairly.
It is vital to hold Managers accountable for what they do because it is up to their leadership techniques that to foster an organisational culture of transparency, confidence, respect and freedom of expression.
Any organisation must:
- Try a strength-based work culture – such a culture will encourage, embraces and celebrates each employee’s unique contributions.
- Focus on the manager: managers are like coaches. They need to cultivate strengths and fostering cohesion and inclusivity continually. Managers appreciate the unique character of each employee.