While promoting EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) is essential for fostering a positive working environment, it also presents a strong business case for making EDI an integral part of the organisation’s fabric. An approach that contributes to building a positive organisational culture where employees are engaged.

Equity means ensuring that both current and prospective colleagues have access to all the opportunities in the organisation. On occasion this may require some adaptations or the development of new ways of working. For example, through the provision of equipment or adapted ways of working.

Inclusive workplaces centre around ensuring that practices and policies support an environment where employees have high levels of engagement.

Employee surveys can capture data which provides a measure of engagement and can help the organisations to understand the issues and prioritise them as appropriate. A big question that remains is whether inclusion will mean the same to all employees and managers. If they are working within a global organisation there may be cultural influences which interpret things differently or there may be national legislation that must be adhered to.

Diverse workplaces embrace employees with different characteristics and there may be a focus on tackling under-represented groups. There are many benefits to having a diverse workforce and it is important to communicate this message regularly and with sincerity. Managers and organisations need to ensure that the appropriate laws are followed if they are considering what could be termed as positive discrimination.

There are some countries where there is a requirement to achieve a certain percentage of employees from under-represented groups, often in relation to gender and age. The debate around quotas is ongoing with good arguments from both sides.

Whilst data can show where the organisation is now, EDI can’t be just about number crunching. Policies and processes are important in showing how the approach should be captured but it is more important for it to be lived within the organisation. Collecting feedback is particularly important in identifying potential challenges or reflecting on good practices.

Measuring EDI

• Employee retention levels
• Progress against specific EDI targets
• Breakdown of characteristics of job applicants and employees
• Number of applicants from under-represented groups 
• Percentage of staff who have undertaken EDI training
• Percentage changes of current employees who have applied for and/or received internal promotions
• Results from workplace surveys

It is increasingly common for employers to develop an equality impact assessment policy. This contains guidance for each of the key important areas of HR to enable managers to identify if there are any barriers to participation – for example in recruitment and selection or reward arrangements. If this approach is new to an organisation, appropriate training must be provided and the HR team need to be available for support in the creation of the policy and following through on the agreed actions. 

Understanding employee experiences is absolutely critical. This may be captured via 1-2-1 meetings, departmental events or the use of a survey. As there could be confidential information disclosed in surveys, the use of an external organisation may reassure employees about their anonymity. As with all people management issues, it is important to have a clear route of complaints and/or grievances and for all all to be considered carefully and impartially. 

To develop an inclusive and diverse workplace, organisations could consider:

• Consulting with employees on a regular basis
• Making sure an equity impact assessment is utilised
• Sharing and/or publishing data (in some countries this is mandatory). Care must be undertaken to ensure that individuals or small teams cannot be identified indirectly.
• Reinforcing that it can’t just be a paper exercise
• Celebrating the diversity of the organisations’ workforce on a regular basis
• Reviewing  HR data more regularly and constructing action plans where appropriate
• Having EDI champions (who aren’t necessarily in management roles)
• Providing training for all employees including managers. This should include areas such as unconscious bias.
• Making sure that managers receive additional training as they will need to consider EDI from both strategic and operational perspectives
• Requiring managers to role-model the organisation’s values around EDI
• Ensuring that all relevant policies are being adhered to and are reviewed and updated in a regular cycle
• Reviewing internal data for example on employee promotions
• Taking swift action to resolve any complaints or concerns 
• Providing signposting to external resources.

Of course, for small organisations it may not be practical or appropriate to try and cover all of the areas above but it still provides a useful overview. Whichever approaches are taken, it would be a good idea to assess them on a regular basis so that employees can see the organisation’s commitment.