The journey of diversity, equality and inclusion turns into an inefficient process for organizations when not implemented with correct strategies.

What is Diversity, Equality and Inclusion; Several organizations across the world, particularly multi-national corporations, adopt diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) principles in workforce. This approach, which helps the organizations attract the best talents and achieve innovative results, implies treating everyone equally, respecting all individuals and managing equally without any discrimination in the workforce.

According to the researches, majority of the companies, which adopt diversity, equality and inclusion in their culture reach a homogeneous workforce with a wide scale of deployment, and high performance values. On the other hand, companies, which turn their back to these concepts in question, are not only disclosed to the public thereby losing their capability to employ, they are also become non-preferable by the new person. Well then, what is diversity, equality and inclusion? Let’s first address each of these concepts.

7 tips for managers, who want to improve corporate culture:

Defining diversity

Diversity is the presence of differences that include race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, language, nationality, age, or political perspective. Today, the term “diversity” is often used for non-dominant identities or less privileged groups. For example, identities such as being white or light skinned, speaking English, and heterosexuality are considered as the dominant or privileged groups. Identities such as being dark-skinned and transsexual are regarded as non-dominant or less privileged groups. As a matter of fact, people are not diverse, but companies and teams should be.

Defining equality

Neutral and fair distribution of resources by procedures, organizations and systems is called equality. However, approaching all employees at an equal distance and treating them equally does not fully explain the equality approach. In a company that has incorporated diversity into its culture, people have differences. Equality also requires accepting that everyone has different needs, different experiences and opportunities.

Defining inclusion

Welcoming those, who feel different, and making them feel like everyone else, is called inclusion. In some cases, diversity and inclusion may be confused with each other. If diversity is an invitation to a party, inclusion is to dance. Companies cannot simply include people to their culture, they must first design it. Diversity may be adopted in a company, but that does not mean that less privileged identities are welcome or valued. Inclusion is not a natural result of diversity. Therefore, the organization must build the environment of inclusion on its own.

Merging diversity, equality and inclusion in the corporate culture

Building a more diverse, egalitarian and inclusive workforce for organization implies to which extent people are valued in the workplace. Managers, who wish to include this approach in the corporate culture must address 4 stages. First of all, determining the need for change through data collection and analysis is of critical importance for the organization to come up with an accurate roadmap. Following this, managers must design strategies in accordance with business objectives to help aligning diversity, equality and inclusion to the company’s journey in the business world. After proceeding with the third stage, implementation, the process of assessment and continues audit starts. If diversity, equality and inclusion is not maintained continuously, we cannot talk about an efficient or effective implementation. At this point, managers must build a corporate environment, which embraces a common language and perspective, and continuously improve it.

• Create a sense of belonging for everyone

A corporate environment, where individuals can manifest their ‘selves’ freely, develops one’s sense of belonging, and stimulates creativity. Also, in such an organization, the personnel feel better psychologically.

• Include the outsiders

Organizations may focus on diversity in employment processes, but that does not simply introduce inclusion. Managers must create conditions that encourage participation and scale the active involvement of people.

• Maximize communication

Although fear is a strong motivator, it also narrows people’s perspectives. When an inclusive work environment is built, managers must make use of the power of storytelling, entertainment and communication.

• Reimagine, redesign

To create a corporate culture that can bring the workforce to its potential, the systems and processes must be researched, problematic aspects must be reimagined and redesigned, a process that introduces several surprising benefits.

• Listen to your brand

In which aspects are the employee base, customer base not aligned, which experiences are excluded and misunderstood? The products and services created may reflect the values and prejudices of the company.

• Update the definitions of work

Conferring to the opinions of the employees about approaches related to diversity, equality and inclusion may help understanding their sensitivities and needs. Including their opinions to work definitions make them feel safe.

• Encourage employees to learn

organizing trainings for the employees on these subjects help increasing the positive outcomes in practical terms to embrace diversity, equality and inclusion approaches within the corporate culture.