Putting Diversity and Inclusion at the Heart of Employee Engagement

Putting diversity and inclusion at the heart of employee engagementJuly 2015

“ Engagement is not a one size fits all…”

Doug Crawford

Difference creates opportunity

Inclusion creates the culture to sustain it

Diversity: what is it in its broadest sense?

Every way in which anymixture of people has bothsimilarities and differences

It begins and ends with the individual.It is about a culture where people feel respected and valued, and can contribute to their fullest potential to help their organisation achieve its objectives.It involves sustained and long-term strategic effort that, when led and managed effectively, will improve performance and problem solving.It’s happening when individuals’ different perspectives and experiences are embraced in finding the best ways to serve the public and customers.

InclusionDiversity

Why is it important?The UK workforce is diverse, e.g.

WOMEN MAKE UP 46% OF WORKFORCE

81% OF 25-49 YEAR-OLDS ARE IN EMPLOYMENT

14% OF OUR POPULATION IS NON-WHITE ETHNIC

SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THOSE WHO FOLLOW NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS (5.5% TO 8.2%)

THERE ARE OVER 1.7 MILLION GAY PEOPLE IN UK WORKFORCE

67% OF 50-64 YEAR-OLDS ARE IN EMPLOYMENT

MILLENNIALS WILL COMPRISE MORE THAN 50% OF WORKFORCE BY 2025

1 IN 6 OF THE UK WORKFORCE CURRENTLY HAS A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE

Why is it important?

The legal case

The moral case

The business case

Organisations which are more diverse and inclusive perform better…

People

• Reduced recruitment costs and a wider talent pool from which to recruit

• Raised employee motivation, productivity and enhanced employee wellbeing and employer brand

Product

• Generation of new ideas and better products and services for customers

• Better understanding of customers and markets

Performance

• There is a positive quantitative link between gender diversity at senior levels and financial performance

• An inclusive culture is a key underpinner of successful major

What’s the reality?

According to ‘Diverse Voices’ report by IPA and astar-fanshawe

• Despite facing a labour market disadvantage and barriers to workplace

equality, women were more engaged than men, although they feel less able to express their voice at work.

• The youngest workers tended to score higher on employee engagement and this decreased progressively with age until the former default retirement age of 65 from where it rose sharply.

• There was a significant and worrying gap in terms of disability – with disabled employees far less engaged than their non-disabled colleagues.

• There were no significant differences in terms of sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion.

Engagement data may not always reflect equality, opportunity and performance, e.g.

While 90% of NHS staff surveyed feel ‘trusted to do their job’, almost a quarter (24 percent) of NHS staff said that they experienced harassment, bullying or abuse from their manager or other colleagues in 2014. Black and minority ethnic staff in the NHS are more likely to be bullied and harassed.

“ The greater the proportion of staff from a black or minority ethnic (BME) background who report experiencing discrimination at work in the previous 12 months, the lower the levels of patient satisfaction.” Yvonne Coghill, August 2013

Diversity & inclusion is not always embedded into working behaviour, e.g.

The 2014 Power of Diversity research found that while 84% of City workers said their company was committed to diversity from the top, only 15% of mid-level managers felt their leaders’ actions were consistent with their words.

The challenge is to mainstream diversity and inclusion

What are some of the barriers?

DISCRIMINATION

IN-GROUPS, OUT-GROUPS

D&I IS NOT INTEGRATED WITH ORGANISATION

LACK OF RECOGNITION

WHITE MANAGERS ANXIETY

LACK OF FLEXIBLE WORKING

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

LACK OF AWARENESS OF WHAT D&I MEANS

NO CONSIDERATION ABOUT DIFFERENCE

NO LINK TO ORGANISATION

PURPOSE OR MISSION

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

LACK OF COMPLIANCE

NO DIVERSITY AT BOARD LEVEL

ISSUES OF BULLYING AND HARRASSMENT

Put D&I at the centre of your strategy

Strategic Narrative

Engaging Managers

Employee Voice

Integrity

The best organisations show how diversity and inclusion is central to the lives and success of colleagues, customers and the organisation

Managers can better engage and develop their people through greater understanding of difference and creating a more inclusive working environment

Voice is critical to tackling discrimination and bullying, opening up opportunities, generating innovation and creating a listening culture

The ability to treat employees with respect, acknowledging difference and managing inclusion truly reveals an organisation’s integrity

Leaders lead on the narrative and change

Leaders need to make a direct and conscious choice that increased diversity will enhance their organisation’s performance

Leadership should start a conversation throughout the organisation to develop the story of what diversity means and how it will enhance the organisation’s performance

Leaders need to recognise that to increase diversity they need to drive change in structures and processes and allocate resources to that change

Help managers to build inclusive team cultures

Engaging behaviours

Developmental behaviours

Hearing their concerns, ideas

& opinions

Finding out what their talents are

Appreciating their culture

Coaching them for

performance

Empowering them

Developing them for

promotion

Research shows that employees score their managers lowest in those behaviours which help people foster inclusion (Ian Dodds Consulting)

Show employees that their voices are heard

Formal or informal employee

networks

Surveys and feedback

Managers and performance

reviews

Show the integrity to sustain the culture

Tackle discrimination and bullying

Provide training to raise awareness of unconscious bias

Proof the recruitment, career framework and promotion and performance appraisal processes to ensure they are conducted in a bias-free manner

Measure progress

The engagement opportunity

A whitepaper to take the debate forward

Give organisations and practitioners the insight, responsibility

and confidence to mainstream diversity

and inclusion.

A conference to help companies make

D&I the engagement opportunity

Share case studies and best practice examples through

Engage for Success

Leveraging the Power of Inclusion for high engagement takes long-term strategic effort, involving 5 stages

STAGE 1

UnfreezeSTAGE 2

MobiliseSTAGE 3

RealiseSTAGE 4

EmbedSTAGE 5

Sustain

Diagnostic to find out what is helping and hindering inclusion for different diversity groups

Set up a D&I Steering Group to formulate a vision of success through inclusion & a strategy to deliver it

Implement the Diversity & Inclusion strategy

1. Senior managers role model inclusive behaviour

2. Ensure management processes & systems are inclusive

1. Communicate Diversity & Inclusion success stories

2. Keep up to date on Diversity & Inclusion best practices