What is the connection between positive workplace cultures and belonging? Corine Sheratte explains why improving diversity in recruitment will be fruitless if actions aren’t taken to make employees feel valued and welcome.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace has become a polarising topic. Organisations increasingly make headline news, often unwillingly dragged into the limelight due to damning insider allegations of toxic working cultures.
For example, we recently saw a number of ITV’s This Morning employees cite “bullying, discrimination, and harassment”, following former host Phillip Schofield’s high-profile exit from the show.
There are countless other examples: take X (formerly known as Twitter) where staff urged candidates to “stay away from Twitter 2.0” in anonymous employee reviews due to a toxic culture under Elon Musk; or Amazon, where workers staged a protest over pay and a toxic working environment in their warehouses earlier this year.
Belonging at work
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We also saw the outcome of a landmark external review which lifted the lid on EY’s culture of “bullying, racism and overwork”, with almost two in five staff considering quitting the firm in 2023.
Brand impact
In a competitive labour market, relying on a strong external branding team is not enough. According to Glassdoor, 78% of employees expect employers to be authentically inclusive.
Potential candidates proactively seek current and former employee opinions for an honest picture of the employee experience of the culture, often before choosing to apply for a role. It is therefore the power of an employee’s sense of belonging and inclusion in the workplace that helps employers sustain competitive advantage.
Whilst establishing, regulating, and tracking diversity targets is a good way of increasing accountability towards the DEI agenda, these targets are often partly to blame for the fixation that leaders typically have on diverse recruitment.
Investing in fair hiring practices is insufficient to prevent the revolving door of diverse talent, where diverse hires enter the workplace and then quickly exit upon finding themselves in a marginalised and hostile working culture, and where challenging the status quo and expressing their authentic selves is silently unacceptable. So what can organisations do to protect against this?
Inclusion and belonging
Let’s start by defining these two concepts. Inclusion refers to listening, respecting, and adapting to the opinions of all employees equally. It means valuing every employee’s skills, contributions, and perspectives and enabling them to challenge the status quo through systems, practices, and behaviours.
Belonging refers to the feeling of security and support when there is a feeling of acceptance and inclusion. It is an unwritten sense of empowerment to speak up freely without fear of career repercussions.
A culture of inclusion and belonging is no longer a nice to have – it is a necessity in order to retain diverse talent in the workplace and ensure that DEI becomes business as usual rather than a side of desk activity that gets lost in the bustle of busy working life.
And no – bake sales, ping-pong tables, meditation and free yoga classes are not good enough.
Ultimately, if a parent feels that they can’t be trusted to leave an hour early to pick up their children for fear that their work commitment will be questioned, or if a disabled colleague doesn’t feel confident enough to request a reasonable adjustment for fear of being seen as a nuisance, these employees will quickly look for an organisation that proactively provides the equitable treatment they need in order to carry out their roles productively.
Building a culture of belonging
Although far from exhaustive, here are some best practices to invest in a culture underpinned by inclusion and belonging:
Measure impact: Whilst measuring day-to-day inclusion and belonging is considered less quantifiable than diversity, it is critical that organisations do so at regular intervals, both quantitatively (such as surveys) and qualitatively (such as focus groups), and analyse engagement by diverse groups to really understand any pain points across the talent lifecycle. This is important in order to tailor and monitor the progress of inclusion recommendations for any prioritised minority groups.
Supportive practices: How we apply written rules in the workplace and leverage the power of discretion differentiates inclusive leaders from the rest. Supportive practices might include anything from how managers delegate and recognise work, run and schedule time zone-inclusive meetings and events, to how key decisions are made.
Bake sales, ping-pong tables, meditation and free yoga classes are not good enough.”
Many global organisations are currently launching progressive parental leave policies, for example. The supportive practices that serve the true inclusion of these policies will determine their impact, such as the level of flexibility provided by managers in around the leave provided. Cultivating a culture of psychological safety and trust is important in doing so.
Inclusive language: Words matter; in fact, the words we use can represent an entire culture and these words can change depending on what is deemed socially acceptable at the time. Non-inclusive language in the workplace can rear its ugly head through what is referred to as micro-aggressions.
These are small, subtle, often well-intended, statements that can have a devastating impact on the inclusion and sense of belonging of minority groups, particularly if persistently demonstrated.
It is important that we all make a conscious effort to call these out sensitively, especially if we are in the dominant group, to ease the burden on minority groups. Of course, we all make mistakes, and a fear of ‘getting it wrong’ shouldn’t stand in the way of a growth mindset and drive to learn in this area.
Effective feedback: Whilst a practice that is often de-prioritised, receiving actionable and direct feedback in order to grow and develop in-role and beyond is vital for job satisfaction and retention.
However, research conducted by Textio in 2022 shows that women, those from Black and Hispanic underrepresented ethnic groups, and people over 40 systematically receive significantly lower-quality and biased feedback at work than their majority-group co-workers and are more likely to leave their organisations as a result.
Not all people managers feel confident or sufficiently competent in giving effective feedback, and many of us worry about potential conflict. Therefore, it is important that organisations invest in making sure that managers have the support required to provide feedback to their teams and are kept accountable in doing so. This means providing managers active coaching on their ability to give effective and equitable feedback.
If organisations want their investment in DEI strategic efforts not to go to waste, it is important that they shift their attention towards a culture of inclusion and belonging. It is not enough to hire a more diverse team, as they are unlikely to stick around long enough for organisations to see the true value of that diversity injection.
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