Understanding, Promoting & Practicing Inclusion
Discover how employees, HR professionals, and leaders can create a more inclusive culture.
What do Google, Uber, and GitHub have in common? Each one of these tech-leaders faced serious allegations of gender discrimination and hostile work environments. These incidents led to investigations uncovering systemic issues, prompting internal reforms and significant leadership changes. Afterward, these companies adapted their cultural shortcomings. Learning from their failures, Google, Uber, and GitHub have improved. Creating an inclusive culture is a global concern, not just a hot topic in the US. Working in the tech industry, which is not yet gender-balanced, impacts the culture it creates. We’ll explore the broader concept of inclusion and how we can practice it.
Assessing Inclusiveness
Start by asking: How inclusive are we? How do we create safe spaces for sharing experiences? What are the costs if we ignore inclusion and diversity? Let’s start with the – sometimes - hidden costs of having a non-inclusive culture.
5 Costs of a Non-Inclusive Culture
1. Loss of Talent: Non-inclusive cultures drive away talented employees, especially from underrepresented groups who seek respectful environments.
2. Limited Creativity and Innovation: Diversity fosters new ideas and innovation. Non-inclusive cultures stifle creativity, leading to stagnant progress.
3. Decreased Engagement and Productivity: Excluded or undervalued employees lose motivation, harming team performance and competitiveness.
4. Negative Reputation: Non-inclusive cultures damage reputations, making it hard to attract talent and customers, and eroding stakeholder trust.
5. Legal and Ethical Risks: Non-inclusive workplaces face legal challenges and ethical scrutiny, including discrimination complaints.
If you are interested in more details and an analysis of the real costs for your company, you can dig deeper. Read this article to find out more!
Let's examine the impact of fostering inclusion and understand how essential it is for long-term organizational success.
Promoting an Inclusive Culture can bring your company many benefits as e.g.:
Motivate and attract employees
Raise innovation and foster creativity
Enhance employee satisfaction and retention
Improve decision-making processes
Bolster reputation and brand image
Cultivate a loyal customer base
Increase market competitiveness
Contribute to economic growth and success
Self-Reflection and Action
Reflect on your workplace culture. How inclusive is it? And most important, what can you do individually to improve it? You already know, by doing nothing, nothing will improve. Out of our practice and thanks to the input of our Clusity community members, we created tips how employees, HR-professionals and C-Level Executives & Team Managers can increase inclusive behavior.
3 FREE Tips for Employees:
Practice Empathy: Understand and appreciate colleagues’ perspectives, especially from diverse backgrounds. Listen actively and show empathy.
Speak Up Against Bias: Challenge stereotypes and discriminatory behaviors. Advocate for inclusivity and fairness.
Amplify Diverse Voices: Support underrepresented colleagues by acknowledging their contributions and advocating for their ideas.
3 Tips for HR Professionals
Implement Inclusive Recruitment Practices: Ensure recruitment processes are inclusive and bias-free. Use blind resume reviews and diverse interview panels.
Provide Training and Education: Offer training on legitimate behavior, unconscious biases, and systemic barriers to foster awareness and understanding. A lot of free trainings are offered by Lean IN
Establish Policies and Resources: Develop policies supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, including flexible work arrangements and resources for employees facing discrimination.
3 Tips for C-Level Executives & Team Management
Lead by Example: Show commitment to DEI through actions. Advocate for inclusive policies and use tools like the "Legitimacy Map of Inclusion."
Allocate Resources and Support: Provide sufficient resources for diversity and inclusion initiatives, including funding for employee resource groups and training programs.
Embed Diversity & Inclusion into Business Strategy: Integrate DEI goals into the company's strategy. Use clear metrics to evaluate performance and ensure DEI is a core component of the culture.
Conclusion
In light of these examples, consider how inclusive your workplace is and what steps you can take to improve it. By promoting inclusion, you contribute to a healthier, more successful organization, for you and for everybody in your organisation!
Want to experience inclusion? Check our Including Behavior Workshop where teams sized 10-150 can actually experience, in a fun and informative way, how inclusion feels like.