9 Organizations Promote Diversity and Inclusion

9 Organizations Promote Diversity and Inclusion

How does your organization promote diversity and inclusion, either internally or externally? 

To help organizations better promote diversity and inclusion, we asked business leaders and HR professionals this question for their best advice. From embracing uniqueness to prioritizing equal pay, there are several tips that may help your organization better promote diversity and inclusion internally and externally. 

Here are nine tips for organizations on promoting diversity and inclusion:

  • Make Sweeping Changes
  • Start From the Top
  • Embrace Uniqueness
  • Support Diverse Organizations
  • Take Social Responsibility
  • Advertise Your Commitment
  • Offer Opportunities
  • Prioritize Pay Equity
  • Be Comprehensive

 

Make Sweeping Changes 

Our company does a number of things to promote and encourage diversity and inclusion. For starters, we celebrate Chinese New Year, Diwali, and many other cultural celebrations through employee-led events. We offer free courses and certifications to employees who are interested in learning more about unconscious biases or becoming a “Certified Change Agent”. We have added a number of different hiring initiatives to ensure that we are inclusive of all groups including minorities, veterans, and people with disabilities. Additionally, as part of our interview feedback survey, we ask all candidates how our interview process could be more inclusive to ensure we are always improving. We also felt it was important to share some of our key diversity and inclusion hiring statistics with the public and potential job seekers which included the following: in 2020, an impressive 60% of hires identified as being part of a minority group. We also try to showcase employees of all races and genders on our website and social media platforms as it best reflects our diverse company culture.

Alex Arkarakas, KUBRA

 

Start From the Top 

It begins with the active support and commitment of the CEO and senior leadership, then the tools and resources to create and implement a comprehensive strategy for improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This encompasses recruiting, hiring, onboarding and retention, training and development, and marketing and communication. It’s important to set goals, measure progress, and continually evaluate. 

Andrew Rawson, Traliant

 

Embrace Uniqueness 

One of our company core values is “You are Unique”. While this is a broad statement, it encompasses many different meanings that we talk about and celebrate often. We foster a culture where every employee feels they can be authentic and can express themselves as this unique being no matter what age, race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Diversity and inclusion focus starts in the recruitment process and carries throughout the lifecycle of each employee. This is a vital part of the growth of our company. 

Jenn Christie, Markitors

 

Support Diverse Organizations 

Our business promotes diversity and inclusion by volunteering monthly at a diverse organization. This provides inclusion as everyone from the company is involved and it promotes diversity because we are often at a minority-run organization. It is a great way for everyone to learn and grow together and become more unified as a whole.

Chris Gadek, AdQuick

 

Take Social Responsibility

Be aware of what type of companies you’re working with, buying supplies from, or investing in. If you want to take social responsibility, make sure that these companies have a positive mission and are actually following through with their words. Some companies have been known to support a positive mission, but then are donating money or contributing to companies that completely go against their mission. It’s important to do your research, see where exactly funding is going, and make sure you’re not accidentally contributing to a cause you don’t support.

Brandon Brown, Grin

 

Advertise Your Commitment 

One of the best ways that an organization can build a culture of inclusion is to express its commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion when recruiting new employees. Write a strong statement about your commitment and publish it with your job ads. In addition, during your interview process, ask the question: “We are committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. What would you do, as a member of the team, to support that commitment?” “Diversity” means that your team is composed of many different types of people–diverse ages, races, religions, people with or without disabilities, etc. In some ways, the easy part is hiring diverse team members. Leaders who want to really champion inclusion will need to make space for people who have been traditionally marginalized to speak up and share their ideas and help lead the organization. You can do this when you hire people who are committed to doing the same; so start the process by recruiting employees who share your mission!

Niki Ramirez, HRAnswers.org

 

Offer Opportunities 

We hire the best talent and look at experience rather than degrees. We also make sure that we offer opportunities to all people regardless of background. Promoting and encouraging our team members to have open conversations and talk about experiences is also great to learn from one another and have insight. 

Olivia Young, Conscious Items

 

Prioritize Pay Equity 

Our organization promotes diversity and inclusion internally by stressing the significance of pay equity. Here managers are liable to give a fair chance to all the team members so they can do their best. By doing so, they can find out which workers are underpaid for similar duties or responsibilities. With the help of people analytics, our managers take help and get to know about any pay gaps within our company. They can analyze patterns within multiple departments to get to the root of hidden issues that are deep-rooted. This insight can help our company to determine the patterns or trends that may exist where certain groups of workers, such as people of color, are being underpaid within certain business areas by getting to know about the loopholes to be addressed for the welfare of our firm. It would be best if we had the administration safeguard the rights of everyone without any bias. By doing it, we will be able to play a productive part and will see beneficial results.

Caroline Lee, CocoSign

 

Be Comprehensive

We are a small but diverse team and believe that having diversity in our company has helped us achieve more creativity and innovation. Here is how we accomplish it: We promote inclusivity by acknowledging different religious holidays or celebrations of all of our employees. We show respect to all cultures by being more flexible towards different employee needs. For example, we schedule meetings keeping those holidays in mind. We also have a #general channel on Slack where we make sure that we wish each other on special occasions. This builds awareness of diversity and fosters greater inclusivity.

Igor Avidon, Avidon Marketing Group

 

 

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