Embedding effective Diversity & Inclusivity behaviours needs to be driven from the Leadership team. The following strategies are well established actions that Management can adopt to help introduce positive and meaningful change:
Appoint a Board-level Sponsor to visibly ‘champion’ diversity and take responsibility for key actions such as setting targets and championing D&I initiatives.
Develop Inclusive leaders. Training should be considered as early as possible for all levels. Awareness of the benefits of inclusivity and fostering the behaviour that imbeds a diverse culture (and challenges that conditions such as unconscious bias can create) should begin as early as possible.
Establish Diversity as a KPI and include action on diversity as a clear objective in all leaders’ annual appraisals to ensure they take positive action seriously.
Set defined targets. This will immediately provide focus and potentially an ‘easy to use’ checklist of potential steps that an organisation can take to enhance attraction and retention of staff with protected characteristics.
Get buy-in from employees and ensure that the whole organisation understands the benefits of a company-wide approach to Diversity so that inclusive behaviours become second nature.
Clearly support protected characteristics in recruitment. Demonstrate your support for diversity in a meaningful and authentic way in all recruitment literature and allow HR to offer the most constructive support possible to operational heads as they become exposed to their D&I responsibilities.
Create Employee Networking Groups that allow employees to network and support each other. Ideally, there should be a groups appropriate for the community they serve and at least one group for each protected characteristic.
Take a leadership role in inclusivity and help your organisation to establish a reputation for sponsoring legislative and cultural change that promotes inclusivity both in your sector and across the broader working environment
To read more about how to improve Diversity and Inclusivity in your organisation download this report.
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