23-29th September marks National Inclusive Employers week. In this post, we explore what inclusiveness means for individuals, teams and organisations.
It is important that as a society we understand and reflect the diverse and changing population of the UK.
We are far too narrow in our thinking and in our actions when we think that inclusion is merely about BAME initiatives, or policies on disability, or women in leadership. It is bigger, far bigger, than mere tick-box exercises around ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability.
One of the best definitions of this wider understanding of inclusion is this one:
Inclusion is about ensuring that no one feels left out because of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, or other factors such as social background. Ultimately an inclusive working environment allows people to be themselves at work.
Two phrases I take out of here, which are critical to our understanding not only of inclusion but of well-being are “no one feels left out” and “allows people to be themselves”. We lose sight of this but think back to those times when you literally had to play out a part that simply wasn’t you, or where you felt isolated and ignored. One of the most telling and debilitating effects of being socially excluded, for example young girls being trolled on social media, is the impact it has on mental wellbeing and on personal self-confidence.
So, let’s think about inclusion away from target numbers and piecemeal initiatives. Let’s think about whether our workplace really allows people to “be themselves” and whether we really made a positive effort to ensure that no-one feels left out. For whatever reason.
According to Diversity and Inclusiveness White Paper 2016 by Do Something Different, workplaces that are inclusive foster enhanced employee wellbeing and employees with high levels of wellbeing are more inclusive. Similarly, someone with high inclusiveness was very unlikely to have low wellbeing (only 3% chance). The research suggests that individuals who proactively build new relationships at work plays a particularly significant role in wellbeing, being a generous listener, taking the time to get to know new colleagues or work with people from other areas of the business all help in building inclusive workplaces and also for openness to change.
So, people make a difference in the workplace. Not just managers, or leaders, or the powerful, but anyone at all who goes out of their way to reach out to others, to make them feel welcome, to purposefully seek out people who think or act differently to them simply to see a different perspective on the world, or work in a different way.
Such inclusive behaviour profoundly affects wellbeing – literally, they feel better. And of course, they influence the feelings of others around them. These are initiatives with minimal or no cost, they need no elaborate tools or processes, no experience training programmes or mentoring initiatives. Simply put, by going out of your way in your workplace to ensure no-one is left out, to being a generous listener, and by taking time to get to know others you make a difference to your own wellbeing and to the wellbeing of those around you. It’s infectious!
This underlines the oft-cited CIPD Research (2014) that employee wellbeing is linked to employee engagement and staff surveys continue to highlight that when employees feel that their employer cares about their health and wellbeing, engagement, as well as productivity levels, increase.
But we are still a long-way off being truly inclusive. There remains a gender pay gap of 11.9% (Financial Times 2019) and only 9.7% of women senior executives in FTSE 100 (Cranfield 2018). There are 12 million disabled adults in the UK but only 3.4m are in employment and according to the CIPD in 2018, 33% of Black employees believe discrimination has hindered their career progression compared to 10% white British staff reporting the same issue.
We must continue to focus on these large-scale social and organizational initiatives. Most of all we must challenge the slowness of change, the sheer waste of talent and inequality of opportunity. During National Inclusive Employers week, we do well to celebrate success and caution against complacency.
But let’s also focus on what each and every one of us can do. We all have a role to play in making the workplace a more inclusive place to thrive and we can all make a difference by reaching out. We’ll feel better for it, and our impact will be entirely positive. There are numerous benefits that diversity and inclusion can bring, these merely highlight a few – not least that it is simply the right thing to do.
Further reading: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/do-something-different/201609/diversity-and-inclusiveness-is-good-your-well-being
