How do you demonstrate commitment to diversity and inclusion

Studies show a strong commitment to supporting diversity and inclusion is now one of the first things candidates look for in an employer. With the war for talent getting fiercer, you need to be able to demonstrate that commitment. Here’s how.

Table of Contents Show

How do you demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusion in your work?
How have you demonstrated your commitment to diversity?
What does it mean for you to have a commitment to diversity and inclusion?
What are good examples of workplace diversity and inclusion?

Be honest about your gender pay gap

If there’s a gender pay gap in your organisation, being open about it will win you trust and respect. It demonstrates that you genuinely care about pay equality and are committed to achieving it. Try publishing a pay gap analysis report, equalising performance-related pay reviews, and/or including salaries in job postings.

Be aware of unconscious bias

To make your hiring practices genuinely diverse, you need to counteract unconscious bias by using a variety of interviewing styles, making data-driven decisions, removing explicitly and implicitly gendered language from job ads, and advertising on diversity-focused job boards.

Acknowledge cultural differences and holidays

Inclusion is as important as diversity. It’s about making diverse employees feel valued: take a flexible approach to holidays, and give people time off for important cultural and religious occasions. You’ll find it boosts your employee retention.

Encourage employee feedback

Encourage your employees to give you frequent feedback on how inclusive you’re really being – and be inclusive when asking for this feedback by offering people different ways to give it, like in conversation or via an anonymous survey.

Create a multigenerational workforce

Ageism is an often-overlooked form of prejudice. For example, the tech industry tends to promote millennials over older workers because of a biased assumption that they can’t keep up with innovation. Build a more diverse workforce by hiring people from different generations, and you’ll get the benefit of their diverse worldviews, ways of working and life experience.

Create strong anti-discrimination policies

If you want your employees to report discrimination, you need to make them feel safe to do so by creating and enforcing strong anti-discrimination policies – and making sure they’re accessible (for example, having braille and audio versions).

Celebrate difference

Get involved in events like Black History Month, International Women’s Day and Pride, consider offering multicultural prayer or meditation spaces, and try hosting lunch events where employees can share foods from their different cultures.

Acknowledge pronouns

Show you’re committed to including people of all genders by encouraging all your employees to share their own pronouns, and making sure leadership sets an example. That very much includes the she/hers and he/hims! Add your pronouns to your email signature, your social media, and your business card. It may seem like a small gesture, but it has a big impact.

Spot and eliminate ableism

Ableism may get less attention than sexism or racism, but it’s just as damaging. Take a look at the Equality Act 2010, which requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities. Make sure you have adequate wheelchair access, remove ableist language from your company policies and literature, and think about how you can bring more disabled talent into your organisation.

Take collective responsibility

It’s vital to hold each other and the leadership accountable for putting diversity and inclusion plans into action and working continuously to improve, otherwise it becomes an exercise in box-ticking. Making inclusion one of your core values will create a sense of collective responsibility that will itself foster inclusivity.

I was chatting with a client today about the critical role that talent acquisition plays in helping to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace. What I learned is that many employers are still looking at diversity and inclusion as a project. A commitment to #diversityinclusion is not a recruiting campaign where you decide to target certain demographics a couple of times a year. If you're truly committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace, you need to weave this into the fabric of your organization. It needs to be an overall cultural change starting from the top. It need to be an ongoing 365 day commitment and strategy.

So what can you do now? Well, here are just a few ideas for #humanresourses and #talentacquistion leaders that can get you on the right path.

1. Find ways to be more inclusive in your job ads and language to appeal to candidates from different backgrounds. It's perfectly fine to write job ads with certain demographics in mind. That why there's such a thing as talent persona's.

2. If you're looking to create a more diverse workplace, why not specifically outreach to employees already on your team and who are part of that demographic. Encourage them to refer candidates from their network. People love working with people they know and love.

3. When you build your campus strategy don't forget to identify student groups or programs on campus that support diversity. Connect with these groups, build awareness and authentic relationships.

4. How often do I audit websites where photo's or video's do not show a diverse culture but there is a diversity and inclusion commitment statement at the bottom of the web page. Way to often! Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. Show your diverse workplace.

5. Which brings me to this next point and I think it's probably the most important to creating a D&I culture. It’s one thing to say you value diverse teams but is your organization actually living those values each and every day? To weave D&I into your organization, it's important to implement process' and policies that appeal to not only diverse candidates but also to your own employees.

These are just a few recommendations we recommend but hopefully that gives you some ideas on how you can immediately build a D&I workplace - 365 days of the year.

How about your organization? Anything you're doing that's making a difference?

Advance Human Capital Solutions - Your culture is your brand

How do you demonstrate a commitment to diversity and inclusion in your work?

List of Ways to Demonstrate Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion.

Create formal work plan presentations on diversity and deliver to internal teams: ... .

Ensure diversity is talked about in day-to-day business operations: ... .

Talk about diversity outside the company/organization: ... .

Form a Diversity and Inclusion Council:.

How have you demonstrated your commitment to diversity?

I demonstrate my commitment to diversity by sharing my story and experiences and inviting others to do the same. I also share my preferred pronouns to show that the use of pronouns matter. For leaders that want to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, I suggest space and grace.

What does it mean for you to have a commitment to diversity and inclusion?

A commitment to diversity means that there are no artificial barriers in place. It allows anyone and everyone to join the group or do things, so long as they can do things. Diversity commitment says that nobody can be artificially barred based on race, sex, creed, etc.