Improving and promoting inclusion and diversity in the workplace is an important initiative in any business environment. When organizations value and embrace employees from different backgrounds, they reap benefits in innovations, creativity, a strong organizational culture and improved employee performance.
Inclusivity in the workplace ensures all employees feel comfortable and welcomed at the workplace. To ensure you implement diversity and inclusivity in your business, taking a DEI certificate program can provide a deep understanding to ensure you promote diversity and inclusivity in your organization.
That said, here are the best practices to build inclusivity.
Acknowledge and Eliminate Unconscious Bias
While most companies claim to be unbiased and that they treat all employees the same, do you know you can be unconsciously biased and non-inclusive sometimes? Well, there are several ways unconscious biases hinder inclusivity. For instance, you may be assigning employees duties based on how old they are with the belief that their age suits that kind of duty. Or from some employees’ perspectives, when a male senior shows assertiveness and confidence, it’s okay. But when a female senior portrays the same characteristics, she is bossy and arrogant.
From the above examples, you can notice how sometimes you can be non-inclusive and be unaware of it. Fortunately, there’s something you can do to turn this around. And the first step is to acknowledge and educate yourself (and employees) about unconscious biases that bring non-inclusivity at the workplace. Once you and your employees are aware of unconscious biases, rooting them out will be fast and easy.
Integrate Diversity and Inclusion in Your Mission Statement
To help promote diversity and inclusivity in your business, ensure you include them in your mission statement. This way, it will be clear to everyone (employees and outsiders) that diversity and inclusion are integral parts of your organization.
As a result, all your employees will feel free to be who they are at the workplace. They’ll be comfortable, happy and will not fall victim to discrimination or isolation.
Celebrate Diversity in Your Business
The best gesture of diversity and inclusivity in your business encourages employees to practice their culture and traditions. It shows great respect and appreciation for the differences in your workforce. Employees will see how you care for them. They’ll feel included and loved as part of your organization.
But how do you celebrate diversity? First, you need to recognize and celebrate the days different employees consider special. Also, arrange lunch events once in a while where people can bring food portraying their culture. Plus encourage them to voice their perspectives, thoughts and use their background experiences in decision-making processes in your business.
Form a Diverse and Inclusion Committee in Your Business
Saying that you embrace diversity and honor inclusivity in your business is not enough. Go a step further and create a department dealing with the two. The department will be responsible for supporting, promoting, and driving inclusion in the working environment. Here, employees can forward complaints of any kind of discrimination for necessary actions to be taken. In the end, you’ll maintain a happy and unified workforce.
Your employees want to feel accepted in the working environment. They want to fit in despite their differences. And this can be the driving force to ensure your business grows and keeps expanding.