Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace: 5 Ways to get started

If you have ever shied away from taking the first steps on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at work for fear of getting it wrong, you are not alone. We know it is a topic that many have a strong opinion about, it can be deeply personal, it can be sensitive and sometimes people can get defensive. Easier to stick to a data security project, right?

Unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of constantly kicking the can down the road. I won’t back up my point here with a business case, or stats, the imperative comes from the simple fact that being at work doesn’t excuse us from kindness, fairness and consideration. Qualities we all demonstrate on a daily basis in our personal lives! So let’s tear up the excuse that we are nervous, or the task feels overwhelming…and let’s get started!

Here are five beginner level entry points to workplace EDI:

• Your engagement survey

If you don’t already, add both qualitative and quantitative EDI questions to your employee engagement survey. What does that mean?

1. Include some questions on demographics, if your team is big enough, this will allow you to check if your engagement results differ depending on demographic group. For example, if you find that men are more likely to recommend the company as a place to work than women, then there is some more digging to do! Another example might be seeing that your Black team members do not see the same opportunity for progression at the company as their White colleagues, another red flag. This may lead you to roll out unconscious bias training to your line managers or speak with your line managers to find out how they communicate openings and whether they have a good balance of applicants from the team.
2. Include some questions about how people experience the workplace, this is especially useful if your team is small and you can’t disaggregate the data without losing anonymity. For example “How often do you feel out of place at work due to your ethnicity, skin colour, age, religion, sexual orientation, culture, language, accent, disability or any other characteristic?” Another very valuable tool is an open ended question such as “Is there anything we could do to be more inclusive?”.

Crucially, you should share with your team what is going to be done with the feedback they have shared. Not responding to feedback can be damaging for trust.

• Policy review

Pick up some of your workplace policies e.g. your policy on holidays and leave, progression, parental pay, etc, and review them from an inclusion and equity angle. Looking at the terminology used in your policies and also consider if there are any communities left out here. For example, does your holiday policy address some religious holidays celebrated by your team but not others? Does your policy on parental leave assume that a father will take a secondary role in the early years or does it allow for a mother to take on the secondary caregiver role?

• Review your hiring process

Take a look at the journey of a potential employee. There are some small steps that you can take to make that journey more inclusive and equitable:

• Include some detail about your company’s commitment and measures on EDI in the job posting
• Only include requirements that are absolutely necessary
• Don’t ask for salary history or preferences
• Give all hiring staff and managers unconscious bias training
• Set goals for the demographic make-up of your application pool
• Inclusive communications

If you hire non-native English speakers, consider getting very important documents translated into their native language. This might include employment contracts, health and safety policies and policies on benefits and leave. You can take this line of thinking further and consider if any groups are inadvertently excluded from company comms or events due to their primary workplace (e.g. working in the field or from home) and explore ways to reach those groups to make your culture more inclusive.

• Don’t go it alone!

There may be a particular challenge in your industry or in the place you are based. Chances are, someone else has already begun organising to help solve that challenge. Diverse Sustainability Initiative is one example of that, but there are many across different industries. Usually these organisations host talks, share resources and facilitate networking so you can come up with possible solutions together.