Diversity initiatives have been around for some time now. However, they still have a long way to go in terms of working out as per the intentions of people who are passionate about its purpose! At times the term is thrown around without proper knowledge of what it truly means. So, what are diversity initiatives? Why are they so important? And what is the missing element in diversity initiatives? Let’s explore this subject to find out more!
What are diversity initiatives?
Simply put, diversity initiatives are practices and policies that are designed and meant to enhance the working experience of a particular group of members. The 'group members' alluded to in our definition
can be any category of individuals with the likelihood of suffering mistreatment, disadvantage, or exclusion from the society we live in. Women, racial minorities, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, people with different sexual orientations, etc. all fall under this focus group for
diversity initiatives. The most common type of diversity initiatives postulates that each company must hire a certain number of people belonging to minorities, which interestingly depersonalizes the problem and reduces it to a matter of statistics and numbers.
Why are they lacking?
The current form of diversity initiatives demands cold & hard calculations to be carried out. Hire this and this many ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, and the leadership will most often pat themselves on the back and move on. While this is the easiest 'solution' and can even be codified and passed as a law, it fails to account for how those people will actually perform in their new jobs and align in their work environment. The more common issues faced by them would be with continued isolation and marginalization in the workplace. Most do not quit, and that is enough for the executives to feel satisfied. But it is still not a satisfactory way to handle the missing element in diversity initiatives. Thus, it brings up the need for increasing self-awareness on the part of executives.
What is the missing element?
The missing element of diversity initiatives is the true acceptance and incorporation of minorities into the workplace. The sub-optimal impact of diversity initiatives stems from both the conscious and unconscious bias of the ‘majority group’ employees. Even after years of attempting to correct the issue through education and insistence on acceptance, underlying prejudice and contempt persist in society. It is latently seen in the media, in the educational system, and today’s politics is rife with not-so-subtle racism and a variety of other issues. All of this only serves to further repress the minorities instead of helping them. Then how could we expect the diversity initiatives to truly work as we are ignoring what is wrong with the initiatives in the first place. And how to best overcome this when practically the various aspects of our ecosystem further exacerbate the issue.
How to better incorporate it?
What is truly important is gathering insights from past mistakes and moving forward with new and revised diversity initiatives. The ‘inclusion and integration’ element in diversity initiatives is not easy to make up for when the bias and contempt are hard to root out entirely. The insistence and commitment on the formation of teams with 'mixed' members and bringing on-board members from minority groups is a great step. In order to build up the momentum, we need to count on the executives and team leaders to further move the needle. It is vital for them to leverage their position and encourage the involvement of minorities by tapping into their creative and diverse ways of thinking. This would surely benefit the minorities since it will empower them and boost their presence as valued members of the team. Furthermore, the organization will benefit from a different perspective and outlook, and thus it would help take advantage of opportunities that otherwise would have been lost.
Is it possible to entirely overcome the issue?
In the short-term? sadly no. It will take time and persistent effort to alter generations and generations of biases that are deeply rooted in the thinking. Fortunately, there are strides and signs of improvement. A part of this comes as a result of the internet, its global accessibility, and the ability to craft a website quickly in multiple languages that is popularizing previously marginalized cultures. The bias underlying our system is at least mitigated by the spark of interest and curiosity driven by the internet. It is with the same rationale that we can conjecture that similar improvements can be made in the workplace. By showing the value and positive contribution of minorities and their uniqueness, we can eventually root out the issues that ail diversity initiatives.
Why is this important?
The question remains: Then why is this so important for organizations and their top executives? A simple reason is for creating a more conducive and happier workplace. A more compelling reason is to increase the bottom line! Without true inclusion, a gap remains between minorities and other employees. You are missing out by not tapping into the potential of all your employees. Moreover, you are stuck with an uncooperative and unaligned team that you cannot easily get to do their jobs well. This makes building a high-performing team much more difficult. So, even from a purely efficiency-inspired viewpoint, getting diversity initiatives to properly work is highly beneficial.
Final Word
Hope this sparked a few different approaches on how to make diversity initiatives more successful in your organization. Even though it is daunting to quickly achieve the goal of integration and inclusion, if we collectively persevere and invest our efforts in people-focused ways instead of number-focused ways, the outcomes will be in line with our intended purpose.
