3 Best Practices For Creating An Equitable Workplace
As leaders we have a responsibility to create equitable and inclusive workplaces.
In addition to being the right thing to do, it’s critical to recruitment, retention, and workplace creativity.
According to a recent poll from Monster.com, “62% of job seekers would turn down a job offer if they feel the company did not value an inclusive and diverse workplace culture.”
If you are a leader who is actively reviewing your organization’s equity and inclusion practices, consider these three best practices as a starting point.
1) Start with an Employee “Pulse” Survey. Employee feedback is critical to determining where you need to focus your equity and inclusion efforts. An employee “pulse” survey is a quick, easy way to gather concerns and ideas from employees. The survey doesn’t have to be overly complex. It could even be just a few survey questions via a free survey software such as Google Forms or Survey Monkey. Questions could include: What are your biggest concerns, if any, about equity, diversity, and inclusion here at work? What ideas do you have to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion here? What else would you like the leadership team to know?
2) Make Sure There is Equity at the “Decision-Making Table.” If there is little or no diversity among the leadership team, reviewing hiring and promotion practices is important for your long-range equity plan. For now, consider setting up an Equity Task Force that is made up of diverse decision-makers to help your organization improve policies, protocols, and programs with the goal of improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace.
Forbes reported that “According to the research, teams outperform individual decision makers 66% of the time, and decision making improves as team diversity increases.”
3) Prepare Your Leaders for Difficult Conversations. Creating a safe space and facilitating difficult discussions is a tough leadership skill to learn and at the same time the skill is crucial to soliciting feedback from your employees and understanding equity issues that may be impacting them. Leadership training, leadership coaching, and discussion guides are all good tools for preparing your leadership team for facilitating difficult conversations at work. I recommend checking out the book, “Radical Candor,” by Kim Scott for practical tools on facilitating candid discussions. This article is also a great starting point for talking about Race at work.
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