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Diversity & Equal Opportunity
Overview
An organization that believes in diversity and equal opportunity works to ensure that employees, suppliers, partners, and customers are treated fairly and valued, despite differing personal beliefs, qualities, or backgrounds. In a diverse and increasingly connected workforce, organizations need to be able to manage differences and reap the benefits that can come out of understanding and respecting differences. This requires skilled and sensitive engagement when setting diversity goals, designing training programs, and addressing diversity issues that arise.
Diversity and equal opportunity are unique mechanisms for supporting systems thinking, a key concept in sustainability. When fair treatment is a core value among people from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives, the group has a greater capacity for identifying risks and opportunities and finding good solutions to complex problems.
Fueling innovation
What a rigid and highly structured work environment delivers in terms of efficiency may not be as valuable as one that embraces listening to a diverse workforce. Often, companies perpetuate echo-chambers when it comes to project ideas or organizational change by identifying too closely with a “this is how it’s done” mentality. Promoting open-mindedness to fresh ideas and different perspectives can cultivate creativity and lead to breakthrough innovations.
Problem solving benefits from an array of viewpoints coalescing to create solutions in a complex world. Without such diversity, one person’s solution often has the unintended consequence of becoming another person’s problem. To combat this cycle of solutions creating new problems, organizations rely on diversity in knowledge, perspective, and experience to innovative.
Promoting diverse thought within the workplace does not mean anything goes. In a business, the focus is business. A company should create guiding principles that foster a work environment where diverse thought is valued in relation to business operations and strategy. Individuals within a company should understand how best to share their voice, without fear of being reprimanded for having a diverse perspective. The ultimate goal is to create an environment where disruptive innovation is fostered without disrupting the safe workplace that is required for those advances to happen.
Business risks
Companies are similar to natural environments, where diverse ecosystems show increased resiliency. In the face of change from outside forces, diverse communities can adapt better, changing with their surroundings. Ecosystems with only one species have significantly more trouble adjusting when conditions change around them. In business, this manifests as an echo chamber that cannot hear tell-tale market signals. Companies that value diversity and actively incorporate it into their business are far more likely to adapt and flourish when confronted by market forces to address environmental, social, or governance issues.
Incorporating diversity throughout an organization can also serve as a competitive advantage with potential employees and customers. When recruiting new employees, they want to know that their future employer values different perspectives. This will attract diverse employees and top talent. Establishing a diverse workforce that reflects and can help reach a wider customer base will help a company maintain and grow its business. If customers feel as though their thoughts and needs are represented by employees within an organization, they will be far more likely to support become and remain a customer.
What can businesses do?
Improving diversity in the workplace does not happen overnight. It is a transformative and ongoing process that needs support at all levels of an organization. To start this process, organizations may wish to establish formal policies that address diversity within and surrounding the organization. A diversity and equal opportunity policy establishes expectations among current and future employees, and provides a framework for future diversity work.
In addition to policy considerations, organizations can offer training programs to help employees recognize biases. These programs educate employees about inherent biases we all carry with us from our culture, upbringing, and experiences. Recognizing inherent biases cultivates empathy and helps individuals see people and situations differently. It is a first step in learning not to respond in a discriminatory way, but to let whatever is of value to the business emerge from people’s differing perspectives. Although comprehensive diversity within an organization may be complex and difficult to achieve, the end benefit is well worth the effort as true diversity is key to a thriving business.
Resources
Balance of diversity
The promise and value of diversity is that a depth and variety of perspectives will better inform decision making and strategy. A key issue for businesses is to define what constitutes a healthy and productive balance of diverse traits to spur innovation and creativity. Core aspects of diversity include race and ethnicity, gender and sexual identification, religion, disability, socio-economic status, veteran status, and age. Attention should also be given to building diversity in other traits that are beneficial to the business such as experience and educational background. Companies that value and achieve a healthy balance of diversity across stakeholder groups enhance their ability to attract and retain talent and customers. Consider how diversity is represented within stakeholder groups such as functional elements of business operations (e.g., departments, managers, and boards) and suppliers. Strive to make sure that these stakeholder groups reflect the diversity represented in the organization’s market(s).
Resources
Fair & equal treatment
Fair and equal treatment starts with workforce recruiting and hiring, and extends to equal opportunity for workforce and career development and advancement. To foster fair and equal treatment, organizations create systems to ensure inclusiveness, expose implicit biases, combat discriminatory behavior, and maintain a diverse workforce. They regularly train the workforce on how these systems operate and protect them. Smart companies understand that promoting inclusiveness and supporting communication about and respect for differences make the company a more comfortable and productive place for a diverse workforce.
Diversity & EO basics
Diversity means respecting differences among stakeholders. This includes differences in race and ethnicity, gender and sexual identification, disability, religion, socio-economic status, veteran status, and age. Most businesses focus diversity efforts on employees and suppliers.
Equal opportunity means fair and equal treatment. This is particularly applicable in business settings to hiring, compensation, and promotion decisions.
Laws and standards related to equal opportunity and diversity outline the requirements and best practices to avoid discriminatory and unfair labor practices. Many organizations ensure compliance with these baseline requirements through policies and workforces training programs.