D&I: A cross-sector review | Event summary  

At a recent webinar hosted by The Whitehall & Industry Group, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) experts Clive Palmer, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at the Department for Education, and Nagina Kayani, Head of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at WWF-UK, shared principles and practices that help organisations’ diversity and inclusion strategies succeed based upon their experience of launching and embedding initiatives within their organisations. 

Key Takeaways: 

  • To truly create change and act on inclusion, organisations must listen to the concerns and ideas of staff and regularly update them on the progress being made. 
  • Building strong relationships between senior leaders or line managers and staff will increase the likelihood of successful implementation of change. 
  • Measurement of initiatives helps evaluate progress and determine which next steps to take  

Use a holistic approach  

To be effective, a diversity and inclusion strategy must be embedded across different aspects of the organisation. There is no one single solution; effective change requires long-term, planned and intentional efforts.  

Speakers also emphasised the need to remember to aim for tangible progress, not perfection. D&I initiatives exist within a changing landscape where new thinking and approaches to best practice often emerge and can be affected by changing world issues and economic situations.  This necessitates an agile approach. Building a solid foundation enables adaptability within a changing environment.  

Assess organisational readiness 

An organisation’s readiness to receive change will determine interventions’ likelihood of success. Change-ready organisations are open to thinking about things differently and ready to consider new ideas if a policy or procedure does not have the desired impact. Key factors in organisational readiness include employee attitude to policies and procedures, level of engagement, and belief in leaders.  

If there is not good organisational readiness, an organisation may need to address other issues before an intervention will be successful.  

Use data to understand impact and set priorities  

Measurement of initiatives helps evaluate current and previous efforts and determine which steps to take next.  Leaders should be realistic in their approach and prioritise goals; everything cannot be done at one time.  

Organisations looking to set priorities for their D&I strategy should look at the following approaches: 

  • Taking action if the data says there is an issue.  
  • Gathering evidence to review the impact of existing activities to determine which are creating culture change. This can be done across multiple channels – for example, evaluations from an external organisation, internal surveys, and staff engagement surveys.  

Transparency and accountability are critical for creating change, so evaluation and reporting are great tools for sharing progress across the organisation.  

Be aware of leadership’s impact 

The behaviours and perceptions of organisational leadership play an important role in successfully implementing diversity and inclusion policies within an organisation. 

One speaker noted that everything rests in the strengths of relationships. Building strong relationships between senior leaders or line managers and staff will increase the likelihood of successful progress towards change. 

The speakers note that leaders can increase the likelihood of successful implementation of interventions by: 

  • Being visible, believable and perceived as ethical, constructive, and fair  
  • Connecting well with staff 
  • Communicating expectations clearly 

Involve the whole organisation 

Organisations should involve all who want to engage with the D&I agenda and develop the notion that everyone is responsible for fostering a healthy workplace. Staff should be included and empowered as partners in change.  

Speakers emphasised that to truly create change and act on inclusion, organisations must listen to the concerns and ideas of staff and regularly update them on the progress being made.  

Ways to involve the entire organisation include: 

  • Encouraging a culture where everyone is responsible for preventing and addressing issues; Senior leaders are accountable, but all staff are responsible 
  • Taking a collaborative approach by involving colleagues through workshops, employee groups, and all-staff and development days 
  • Listening to colleagues about what DEI means to them and setting objectives based on their inputs 

In practice 

The presenters shared policies and programmes that have successfully led to changes within their organisations. This included: 

  • Reciprocal mentoring schemes where people with certain protected characteristics mentor senior leaders. Both parties must receive tangible benefits for this to succeed.  
  • Opportunities for employees to get involved such as staff networks, mental health first aiders, and fair treatment ambassadors 
  • Creating an environment where difficult conversations can take place; this can be a catalyst for change. Training for line managers to have difficult conversations will help this be effective.  

 

This webinar was part of our ongoing series of events looking at collaborative leadership and organisational development. We will continue to explore how best to move forward with the D&I agenda, including at our tenth annual Diversity and Inclusion Conference on 19 March. 

Originally published:

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