How to make your equality, diversity, and inclusion efforts authentic and meaningful

Our guest speaker at this month’s 24 Ideas event, Heena Mistry (National Centre For Diversity Practitioner of the Year 2022) talked to us about authentic approaches to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).

Her session helped to inspire and inform us with the goal of avoiding performative actions that serve only to tick a box. According to McKinsey & Co, companies that are more diverse and inclusive drive value creation and performance in four key areas:

• A diverse and inclusive workplace is central to attracting, developing, and retaining talent. Diverse organisations have broader talent pools to successfully compete in this changing world.
• Diverse groups make faster, better quality decisions, which in turn, pushes better business performance.
• Inclusive and diverse teams are more creative and innovative. They can give a better customer insight into diverse customer markets, serving the community better and increasing value.
• It improves employee satisfaction, collaboration, and loyalty, creating an environment that’s more attractive to high performers.

Here are a few examples of performative allyship:

• Making a commitment to creating/cultivating an equitable workplace whilst doing little or nothing about it – no resource, no budget etc
• Yoga classes during mental health week without robust wellbeing support measures underpinning these one-off engagement events 
• Changing your company logo and branding for Pride Month but withholding support for LGBTQ+ colleagues/service users for the remainder of the year 

Some ideas for how to be more authentic in your approach:

Authenticity involves aligning your actions with your organisation’s values and purpose and ensuring that your efforts are not superficial or driven by a desire to appear inclusive. 

Having sincere conversations and reflecting to understand the specific needs and challenges within your organisation will be a step in the right direction to enable you to develop initiatives that address those needs in a meaningful and impactful way. 

Assign clear accountability for the implementation of your EDI strategy to ensure success by:

• Identifying individuals or teams – a dedicated EDI officer or committee, HR professionals, or other relevant stakeholders – responsible for driving the initiatives forward.
• Communicating the importance of EDI to all employees and emphasising their individual responsibilities in creating an inclusive environment.
• Encouraging employees to report any incidents of bias or offensive behaviour and establishing processes to address such concerns promptly and appropriately.
• Be proactive and not reactive – don’t wait for a scenario where you have to implement policies or provide facilities for diverse groups – make it part of proactive planning. (gender neutral toilets, faith rooms, menopause policy, mental health and wellbeing support etc)
• Putting EDI training and development programmes in place is crucial to building awareness, understanding, and skills in this area.
• Training for all staff, specialised training for managers and leaders, refresher training, assess the impact and effectiveness regularly. Key topics could include: Allyship, Unconscious Bias, Inclusive Leadership, Mental Health Awareness.

We hope you found this content informative and uplifting – if you’d like to attend the final ‘24 Ideas for 2024’ event in October please email us to register your interest.