putting diversity and inclusion at the heart of employee engagement
TRANSCRIPT
Diversity: what is it in its broadest sense?
Every way in which anymixture of people has bothsimilarities and differences
It begins and ends with the individual.It is about a culture where people feel respected and valued, and can contribute to their fullest potential to help their organisation achieve its objectives.It involves sustained and long-term strategic effort that, when led and managed effectively, will improve performance and problem solving.It’s happening when individuals’ different perspectives and experiences are embraced in finding the best ways to serve the public and customers.
InclusionDiversity
Why is it important?The UK workforce is diverse, e.g.
WOMEN MAKE UP 46% OF WORKFORCE
81% OF 25-49 YEAR-OLDS ARE IN EMPLOYMENT
14% OF OUR POPULATION IS NON-WHITE ETHNIC
SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THOSE WHO FOLLOW NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS (5.5% TO 8.2%)
THERE ARE OVER 1.7 MILLION GAY PEOPLE IN UK WORKFORCE
67% OF 50-64 YEAR-OLDS ARE IN EMPLOYMENT
MILLENNIALS WILL COMPRISE MORE THAN 50% OF WORKFORCE BY 2025
1 IN 6 OF THE UK WORKFORCE CURRENTLY HAS A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE
Organisations which are more diverse and inclusive perform better…
People
• Reduced recruitment costs and a wider talent pool from which to recruit
• Raised employee motivation, productivity and enhanced employee wellbeing and employer brand
Product
• Generation of new ideas and better products and services for customers
• Better understanding of customers and markets
Performance
• There is a positive quantitative link between gender diversity at senior levels and financial performance
• An inclusive culture is a key underpinner of successful major
What’s the reality?
According to ‘Diverse Voices’ report by IPA and astar-fanshawe
• Despite facing a labour market disadvantage and barriers to workplace
equality, women were more engaged than men, although they feel less able to express their voice at work.
• The youngest workers tended to score higher on employee engagement and this decreased progressively with age until the former default retirement age of 65 from where it rose sharply.
• There was a significant and worrying gap in terms of disability – with disabled employees far less engaged than their non-disabled colleagues.
• There were no significant differences in terms of sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion.
Engagement data may not always reflect equality, opportunity and performance, e.g.
While 90% of NHS staff surveyed feel ‘trusted to do their job’, almost a quarter (24 percent) of NHS staff said that they experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from their manager or other colleagues in 2014. Black and minority ethnic staff in the NHS are more likely to be bullied and harassed.
“ The greater the proportion of staff from a black or minority ethnic (BME) background who report experiencing discrimination at work in the previous 12 months, the lower the levels of patient satisfaction.” Yvonne Coghill, August 2013
Diversity & inclusion is not always embedded into working behaviour, e.g.
The 2014 Power of Diversity research found that while 84% of City workers said their company was committed to diversity from the top, only 15% of mid-level managers felt their leaders’ actions were consistent with their words.
What are some of the barriers?
DISCRIMINATION
IN-GROUPS, OUT-GROUPS
D&I IS NOT INTEGRATED WITH ORGANISATION
LACK OF RECOGNITION
WHITE MANAGERS ANXIETY
LACK OF FLEXIBLE WORKING
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
LACK OF AWARENESS OF WHAT D&I MEANS
NO CONSIDERATION ABOUT DIFFERENCE
NO LINK TO ORGANISATION
PURPOSE OR MISSION
UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
LACK OF COMPLIANCE
NO DIVERSITY AT BOARD LEVEL
ISSUES OF BULLYING AND HARRASSMENT
Put D&I at the centre of your strategy
Strategic Narrative
Engaging Managers
Employee Voice
Integrity
The best organisations show how diversity and inclusion is central to the lives and success of colleagues, customers and the organisation
Managers can better engage and develop their people through greater understanding of difference and creating a more inclusive working environment
Voice is critical to tackling discrimination and bullying, opening up opportunities, generating innovation and creating a listening culture
The ability to treat employees with respect, acknowledging difference and managing inclusion truly reveals an organisation’s integrity
Leaders lead on the narrative and change
Leaders need to make a direct and conscious choice that increased diversity will enhance their organisation’s performance
Leadership should start a conversation throughout the organisation to develop the story of what diversity means and how it will enhance the organisation’s performance
Leaders need to recognise that to increase diversity they need to drive change in structures and processes and allocate resources to that change
Help managers to build inclusive team cultures
Engaging behaviours
Developmental behaviours
Hearing their concerns, ideas
& opinions
Finding out what their talents are
Appreciating their culture
Coaching them for
performance
Empowering them
Developing them for
promotion
Research shows that employees score their managers lowest in those behaviours which help people foster inclusion (Ian Dodds Consulting)
Show employees that their voices are heard
Formal or informal employee
networks
Surveys and feedback
Managers and performance
reviews
Show the integrity to sustain the culture
Tackle discrimination and bullying
Provide training to raise awareness of unconscious bias
Proof the recruitment, career framework and promotion and performance appraisal processes to ensure they are conducted in a bias-free manner
Measure progress
The engagement opportunity
A whitepaper to take the debate forward
Give organisations and practitioners the insight, responsibility
and confidence to mainstream diversity
and inclusion.
A conference to help companies make
D&I the engagement opportunity
Share case studies and best practice examples through
Engage for Success
Leveraging the Power of Inclusion for high engagement takes long-term strategic effort, involving 5 stages
STAGE 1
UnfreezeSTAGE 2
MobiliseSTAGE 3
RealiseSTAGE 4
EmbedSTAGE 5
Sustain
Diagnostic to find out what is helping and hindering inclusion for different diversity groups
Set up a D&I Steering Group to formulate a vision of success through inclusion & a strategy to deliver it
Implement the Diversity & Inclusion strategy
1. Senior managers role model inclusive behaviour
2. Ensure management processes & systems are inclusive
1. Communicate Diversity & Inclusion success stories
2. Keep up to date on Diversity & Inclusion best practices