Diversity initiatives can come in many forms, even if the staff are working remotely. Careful planning and reforms can reap the benefits of a diverse workplace.
Let’s look at the ways we can make going to work better with improved diversity ideas.
Create a collaborative environment
Before a plan is announced to the employees, support from management is crucial for success. When there is buy-in from the top down, the execution can gain more significant momentum and achieve quicker results.
Then, it is good to get the right people in to get the programme going. While hiring a diversity consultant to get things going is more manageable, consider getting your people on board to run the initiatives.
Employees will know the culture better and probably some of the issues that their colleagues face. It creates a greater sense of camaraderie seeing familiar faces and bridges the gap between departments.
Make it a priority
To ensure the diversity reforms move forward, make it a priority in the workplace. Recognise the importance of inclusion are the core of the business and integrate it into the operating model, policies or assessment.
Some ways to get started is to collect data, investigate, and create a baseline.
During data collection, employees’ life cycle in the company can be researched to highlight challenges and pain points in their careers. Questionnaires can be given out to survey and compare different groups of employees.
In other areas, policies and procedures can be relooked at through focus groups to ensure relevance in today’s context.
The information gathered can be used to guide new commitments, programmes and targets.
