As part of growing the strategic and practical contribution to their businesses, many HR leaders have appointed people responsible for diversity and inclusion in their organisations.

The incidence of creating such roles is growing and there is no doubt that the importance of diversity and inclusion is firmly on the HR agenda in most progressive businesses. In doing so, it’s important to remember that diversity and inclusion are two separate concepts with connected but different goals. 

Diversity is aimed at recognising and taking account of the diverse needs of individuals from different social, economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds, genders, disabilities, sexual orientations, religions and more. All these factors can provide relative measures of performance, and many businesses now report on these as part of their annual reporting cycle.

The business case for diversity has been around for decades, but the practice of Diversity Management only really began to take effect in the 1980s particularly in the USA with processes like affirmative action gaining momentum. The work of researchers such as Kelly and Dobson (1998) made the point that diversity wasn’t just the right thing to do, it was good for business.

Inclusion is the process of creating an environment in which individuals or members of groups feel welcomed, heard, respected, supported, valued and able to reach their full potential, whatever their background or identity or whatever disabilities they have. 

Gallup undertook research in 2018 and stated that ‘’recognising that diversity and inclusion are very different things is the first step in the journey toward creating a uniquely diverse and inclusive culture.”

In our experience, the necessity of managing diversity and inclusion well goes far beyond the remit of human resource management. A number of concrete steps are needed for diversity and inclusion to become an embedded part of corporate culture, which HR can lead on and drive, but should share ownership with business leaders.

Some of the steps we recommend that clients take are:

• Demonstrate and communicate that senior management is responsible for Diversity and Inclusion, and for fair and equal employment 
• Develop and publish policies which have input from people at all levels in the organisation to establish clear procedures on non-discrimination and equal opportunities 
• Have outstanding recruitment and on-boarding processes which provide opportunities for all

• Create effective ,accessible and innovative training programmes at all levels 
• Support ongoing sensitisation and unconscious bias campaigns to combat stereotypes.
• Hire and develop leaders who promote a diverse culture
• Set measurable goals and specific time frames to achieve aims.
• Speedily address complaints, manage appeals, and provide support to employees in cases where discrimination is found.
• Listen to your people ,establish internal groups and forums to get real and valid feedback and celebrate differences.

Clearly, there is a lot more to do besides this, but having a well-structured, planned and measurable diversity and inclusion programme is fundamental to achieving success.

Within Work Horizons, we are fortunate to have outstanding and respected consultants who have world class diversity and inclusion experience. Recent success in this area includes working with a client on reviewing, refreshing, and enhancing their established approach to diversity and inclusion. A really positive feature of this work was that we were able to bring people of all levels together to share their thoughts and experiences through facilitated workshops. This was a fitting example of how to get diversity and inclusion more fully embedded in the organisation culture and to make this happen quickly.

Work Horizons would be pleased to support your diversity and inclusion efforts with our experienced and credible team. 

As turmoil surrounds us, uncertainty is the only certainty. The complexity of change and its potential impact are gaining pace every day. Today’s uncertainty will become tomorrow’s history.

2021 Edelman Trust states that “business becomes the only trusted institution. When the government is absent, people clearly expect business to step in and fill the void, and the high expectations of business to address and solve today’s challenges has never been more apparent. The heightened expectations of business bring CEOs new demands to focus on societal engagement with the same rigor, thoughtfulness, and energy used to deliver on profits.”

As we struggle to understand how national and global change affects us personally. As we try to keep up with the impact that change will have on the business/organisation that we lead, how much attention do we give to the needs of our people? Those who work for us have an added expectation…that at work they will receive clarity.

Consider your approach to managing change in your business.

For each of the three areas in the diagram below, answer the following:

In our experience, to increase productivity, most companies invest their time, energy and budget in technology and processes, when the reality is:

Your people, grow your business

If your people are struggling to understand how change is affecting the business they work in, it can be the tipping point for those who are overwhelmed when everything in their life appears to be out of control. A lack of communication from leaders, creates speculation and assumptions to fill the gap. Some may choose to leave. Others may share their uncertainty with your customers (who are also the people who grow your business, through their loyalty and recommendations).

It is often your staff who have the solutions to grow your business. Engaged, loyal staff will work with leaders to help the business navigate and respond to change. First they need to understand the impact that uncertainty is having on the business, have the opportunity to contribute and know what is expected of them.

We have identified Top Tips for you, to achieve highly productive change:

Leaders lead – people need to understand how uncertainty is affecting the business. If not commercially sensitive, they need to understand the good, the bad and the ugly. Unless they understand the impact, they are unable to engage in contributing to and adapting to the changes needed.

Start with the purpose – describe the need for change, in a way that energises your people to want to contribute to making it happen. All communication and decisions that follow have to underpin and mirror this statement.

Followership – your people follow your leadership, they copy what you do and how you behave. Identify what you need to be doing differently and how you need to adapt your individual and collective leadership behaviours to demonstrate your own commitment and ability to change. This must include what you do (your actions) and how you do it (your behaviours).

Managers manage – it is your managers who have to respond to the changing needs of your business and the reactions from their people and customers. What support do they need to be able to adapt to the changes so that they and their staff continue to deliver business results?

Communicate, communicate, communicate – communication can be a cancer or a catalyst for change. Too little and people create their own version of reality. Their reality is often worse than reality itself. Lack of information and clarity fuels high levels of negative conversations and wasted time. At worst this can lead to key staff leaving the business and problems attracting and recruiting talent.

Be open and honest in your communication. Create opportunities for two way face to face communication so that people can ask questions, to clarify and really understand what is happening and how they and your business need to adapt to grow.

Involve, involve, involve – your staff have the solutions to your challenges and opportunities. Create an environment that trusts them to develop the right solutions to achieve the changes needed. This is an environment that encourages staff to take risks and innovate, in the knowledge that they will be supported. An environment where mistakes are an opportunity to share and learn.

Line of sight – create a line of sight that sets clear expectations for everyone. This must include what they do (their actions) and how they do it (their behaviours). Set clear objectives that are defined, agreed and reviewed with each team member during regular 121 catch ups. Equip managers to support their teams and hold staff to account. Invest time in developing individuals to achieve their work and personal goals.

Feedback – equip everyone with the skills to provide effective feedback. Feedback that is underpinned with the intention to help the other person improve. This has to include both what they do (their actions) and how they do it (their behaviours).

Alignment – identify the priority changes needed to align people, technology and processes to embed your changes and deliver business benefits.

Example: how does recruitment and reward need to change to attract and retain people with the right skills and attitude?

Written by our associate, Fiona Anderson, from My Change Expert and Valuing You.

Personality profiling is an important part of any HR leader’s toolkit, helping us to focus on personality styles and preferences as we manage teams and individuals. But there can be pitfalls and problems with personality profiling, if it is done inadvisedly.

Some years ago, an acquaintance was asked to complete a ‘personality test’. When the results were revealed, the assessor exclaimed, ‘I can’t be friends with someone with your profile!’ I cannot think of any less appropriate interpretation of a personality profile!

There are numerous iterations and versions of personal style assessments, such as Myers-Briggs; at Work Horizons we happen to use DiSC. However, in reality the value that comes from these profiles isn’t the individual’s preferred style that matters, it is the understanding that people can gain into themselves AND the recognition that to make proper connections with colleagues we need to adapt our communication behaviour.

So, if you are relatively new to using personality profiles, you may find these dos and don’ts useful:

Dos

• Do coach the subject through the results, test their validity and help them understand that this is a guide and help, not a cast-in-stone picture of themselves.
• Do emphasise that this gives clues regarding the best ways to interact with colleagues, clients and suppliers.
• Do see this as a way for teams to have a mix of styles, which may lead to cognitive diversity and better problem solving and creativity.

Don’ts

• Don’t take the results as scientific proof and an absolute description of the individual and their guaranteed pattern of behaviour.
• Don’t imagine people don’t try to rig the outcome to reflect the person they would like to be or to be seen as by others.
• Don’t let people interpret their own results because, again, there will be natural skewing for preferred perception.
• Don’t let the individual think that their on-going behaviour must always reflect their notional result.
• Don’t let people think that there are better or worse profiles.

These are tools, not answers. They are easily misunderstood and are best used in coaching sessions as a great stimulus for focused discussion.