The future of inclusion at work

Without question, the DEI landscape has changed. Some may say we are experiencing a radical departure from the established approach. Many of us are witnessing several US and UK companies in particular rolling back their diversity and inclusion efforts. 

Many of these business decisions are reactionary to the current political landscape, but they have real consequences for the goals we are trying to achieve. These goals for us at FAIRER Consulting are to create workplaces that are free from bias and inclusive in their design. The business case for inclusion is well established, and I don’t intend to rehearse the arguments here. 

But within this context of ‘shifting sands’, we as D&I and HR professionals, should take this moment as an opportunity to pause and reflect. Indeed, now is the time to reflect deeply, and to embrace the principle of radical curiosity, in order to create a future-looking approach. True reflection requires humility and a lack of defensiveness, which is, of course, all too natural within such contexts. We should reflect on:

• What is really driving the current backlash?
• What is it about the current approach to D&I that may have contributed towards this?
• Could we – or should we – have foreseen this?
• How do we respond to the current critique?
• How did we get here?

It’s important at this point that we embrace the moment with some honesty. The causes of the current backlash are many and complex, but my observations, having worked in this field for over 20 years, are as follows:

1. How we like to judge: The irony of working in a field of what I call ‘inclusion management’ lies in witnessing almost daily instances of judgement and bias. As a community of practitioners, our ‘language of DEI’ is guarded like a secret code. Terms like ‘othering’, ‘covering’, ‘white privilege’, ‘micro-aggressions’ or ‘micro-incivilities’, which are commonplace within the DEI world, have little meaning to everyday citizens.
2. D&I as a side-hustle: Despite the overwhelming business case for inclusion, few organisations have taken a culture-based or a systems-based approach to integrating inclusion into everyday thinking, policies, and ways of working.
3. The paradox of prioritisation: Although the logic for data-driven prioritisation within a business seems sensible, one of the unintended consequences of prioritising, for example gender and ethnicity, is the perceived (or real) exclusion of other groups.
4. The skills deficit: I think it is fair to say, if we are practicing deep honesty, that we, as a D&I community, do not have a consistent skill set on which we are operating. Too often we have allowed our passion for creating fair and inclusive workplaces to override our need to develop coherent frameworks for analysis. This is driven by the false logic that our personal identities drive competencies – they do not.
5. Organisational homelessness: One of the biggest challenges that inclusion professionals have faced to date, is the challenge of finding a natural home within an organisational context. Many colleagues sit within HR – which automatically positions inclusion as a people issue (as opposed to a strategic priority). It associates the profession with the soft side of strategy and culture, and therefore, is always vulnerable in times of strategic change and challenge.
6. High effort / low impact: Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of all, is that despite many years of effort, very little has changed. I began my career within the era of Macpherson and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

Creating a future-proof approach to inclusion management 

The D&I backlash is nothing new, but without question, the Overton window of acceptability has fundamentally shifted. Ideas that were once on the margins (‘DEI is simply about political correctness’) are now becoming more mainstream. This shift is having material impacts on jobs, budgets and regulatory guidance. It will impact people’s life opportunities.

To address this, we, as a community, need to do more than tinker and tailor around the edges of our thinking and approach. Instead, we should calmly reflect and question how we can regain and maintain our position as credible change-agents within organisational thinking and decision-making.  Based on my experience, my initial reflections to create a future of inclusion are:

1. It’s all about culture: We need to ensure that our work moves from the margins to the mainstream. As a community we should adopt the principles of system and culture integration, facilitated by a data-driven approach. The utilisation of data as a change-management tool repositions perceptions that D&I is an identity-based project. Instead, it helps to frame our conversations with evidence of good practice and impact. Additionally, organisations that do little to embed inclusion into their cultures are less likely to benefit from the principles of the ‘psychological contract’, as described by Denise Rousseau, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
2. Impact over initiative: Too often D&I has been initiative-led. It’s time to stop investing in the projects and programmes that make us feel good, and instead prioritise our time, energy, and resources in activities that research suggests have the greatest impact. We at FAIRER Consulting draw on evidence from behaviour science to drive our work with clients. A good starting point for anyone interested would be ‘What Works’ by the Harvard professor, Iris Bonnet.
3. Repeat and refresh the business case: It never hurts to continue to articulate the ‘why?’ of D&I. I recently facilitated a workshop on the new economics of inclusion. As part of discussions, Rachel Osikoya (Director of Diversity Equity & Inclusion at Lloyds Banking), stressed the critical importance of repeating the business case. I agree with Rachel.
   
   Additionally, this should not be driven by the economics of D&I alone. While research by McKinsey and BCG stresses the relationship between D&I and business outcomes, the wider business case is that between inclusion (not just diversity), fair working practices and human-centric leadership. We know that Google’s Project Aristotle found that psychological safety within a team was the most crucial factor in determining the team’s effectiveness and driving performance. This approach helps to reframe the conversation: Too often D&I is positioned as a ‘corrective measure’. The psychology of this is that something ‘bad’ needs to be fixed, and the D&I army of social warriors are here to help. This creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’ negative dynamic from the start.
4. Get skilled up: It is imperative that we as a community build the strategic skills and ‘executive presence’ that is required to lead and support other key stakeholders within our respective institutions. In a classic Harvard Business Review article, the academics Goffee and Jones, asked a key question: ‘why should anyone be led by you?’
5. Create a strategy that promotes corporate cohesion: Our current approach, while good in intention, has led to a separating out of diverse groups. It’s a strategic tension that we need to resolve. Current employee resource group (ERG) structures do little to promote intersectional connectivity. In many ways they promote competition for executive airtime and financial resources. Watch our webinar on ERG best practices.
6. Alignment with wider HR agenda. The connection between inclusion and wider topics, such as wellbeing at work and agile working, is clear. And yet there is too little strategic alignment between these areas of work. Inclusion professionals should seek to align our work within broader strategic pillars that seek to drive workplaces based on the FAIRER Consulting principles. 
7. Inclusive leadership: Building leadership capabilities and confidence through continued investment in the core skills of inclusive leadership will be critical as we move into the future. These key skills include curiosity, perspective-taking, fair decision-making skills and trust building. Without this investment the future of inclusion management will remain uncertain. Explore our inclusive leadership training.

A final reflection would be one of alignment around core values. Regardless of any external ‘noise’ and the ebbs and flows of legislation and regulatory requirements, aligning behavioural and decision-making expectations with organisational value can bring all communities together. To future-proof our work we need to adopt the skills of alliance politics together with a ‘wisdom of crowds’ mindset, as popularised by American journalist James Surowiecki.

For more information on building inclusion into your workplace, get in touch to arrange a complimentary one-to-one consultation. Alternatively, explore our range of DEI training programmes and consultancy services.