Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the workplace can help bring more innovative results while creating a thriving workforce. More and more companies are embracing D&I to attract and retain talented employees to stay longer in the team. Organisations that implement D&I policy also outperform to be a more homogenous workforce that enacts change. Sabrina Clark, a consultant in organisational transformation and principal at SYPartners said, “Research shows that even just the presence of physical diversity results in better performance and for companies that are data-driven, that extra performance boost can be extremely motivating.”

On the other hand, companies that lack of D&I are likely to be seen as unrespected organisation. They might have to face a major difficulty when recruiting owing to such bad image. Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4PC) conducted a study on Diversity and Inclusion and the result was 22 percent are failed in supporting diversity and inclusion in their workforce.

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One of a sign your business does not value D&I is that your company does not support employees growth and development. Another could be that your company does not support advancement opportunities for employees. Moreover, you do not foster a climate of inclusion in which diversity sharing thought is used to encourage organisation which means that you might have failed in understanding the value of differences among various cultures and backgrounds.

These are 3 other signs to know if your company fails to value D&I:

You pursue D&I to satisfy external audiences, not to support business goals. In other word, you do something only because it will make your company look good, not because you need it for growth. The study shows that company care more about external audience than internal. There are only 15 percent companies that support legal compliance or risk management while many corporations have it just for formality.  

You do not connect to D&I efforts to business-relevant success metrics. In other words, because you don’t know the problem, then it is not your problem. You most likely ignore employees’ diversity issues and your employees’ complaint regarding to the matter. There are 18 percent company that do not connect to business result and 25 percent do not measure D&I efforts at all, study showed.

You do not work to ensure diverse representation at corporate leadership team and functional leadership levels. There are almost half of respondents that do not represent cultural diversity. So, if your company really values D&I, your company should show that it represents diversity and inclusion among business unit leadership and board of directors.

If you find any of those signs, what should you do, then?

I4PC study added that if your company values and supports diversity and inclusion in workforce, the answer to the question ‘is D&I a stated core value?’ or ‘is your organization successful with its D&I efforts?’ should be a yes. However, from the study, it is showed that only 69 percent of company that said yes, the rest was saying no (25 percent) and don’t know (6 percent). Almost a quarter said that they are not successful in D&I efforts.

The best possible solution is to make your employees aware of how important diversity is in workforce, whether it is about culture or age. You can also acknowledge your employees by giving them training and example on how to work in diverse office. Most importantly, you should embrace communication in workplace, be it with your employees or other leaders. Communication can be a number one key in making diversity possible.  

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