Every aspect of your business influences your chance for success. Your employees make up all aspects of your corporate culture and the more welcoming you are, the more satisfied everyone will be. This means embracing diversity and increasing inclusion initiatives for everyone at every level of your company. There are things you can do to improve your company’s overall feeling of inclusiveness. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Develop and Communicate Workplace Policies
It’s one thing to say that your company will not discriminate, but it’s another to develop a culture where employees feel safe and welcomed. Diversity initiatives should be positive and proactive and begin long before someone starts a job. Inclusion should be a core value and an aspect of your mission statement. Communicate your commitment regularly.
Integrate Inclusion at All Levels
Representation matters. And if your entire upper management or executive team isn’t diverse, your team won’t see how they matter to the organization. You need to invite everyone to have seat at the table. Make sure your management team reflects the diversity in the organization, which will also give your employees a chance to see that they can work their way up in the company.
Understand the Barriers
Diversity needs to start with your hiring practices. The individuals conducting interviews and making hiring decisions should be trained to understand interview inequalities among different groups of people. Keep all aspects of what makes up a person, such as gender, race, age, or disability, in mind when creating hiring processes. Try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to see how various questions or activities can be perceived.
Account for the Needs of Your Team
Is your company doing all it can to ensure the environment is a welcoming place to a diverse workforce? Consider how your benefits impact the employee experience. How can you support your employees in and outside of your workplace? For example, if your employees have childcare concerns, consider adding an additional benefit that can reduce that kind of stress.
Expand Hiring Practices
Different cultural and age groups access information in different ways. Hiring should begin by reaching people where they already are. A community outreach program might be a good place to start sourcing talent from more diverse areas. Social media, internet searches, and job fairs can all target and reach different groups of people.
Provide Diversity Training
Your entire team has to be on board for diversity initiatives to function properly. It’ll be important that you reinforce the policies and continually show that your company culture is dependent on the diversity of employees. Provide training so people can learn to better interact and find common ground. It also gives your team a chance to discuss their concerns as well a share their successes.
Do you want to hire form a diverse pool of candidates? Call Nextaff today.
