A beautiful resolution for the new year: you want to contribute to making your staff more inclusive and diverse. Sadly, not many succeed in doing this. Why? It extends beyond simply employing people from various backgrounds and cultures. Far beyond. If you think that it ends there, you’re only engaging in tokenism.
Diversity is hot, but we are seeing little results
We notice that diversity is now hot. Everyone is participating. But this societal shift seems to contribute little to the diversity issue. A case from the media: at NPO they create the program ‘The New Moon’, where people with a migrant background sit at the table. So, they are hiring people with a migrant background, only to then tell them: go make your own show. It occurs to me: this is not the way to attract a more diverse audience and make the media more diverse. Diversity may be the intention here, but the execution leads to exclusion. And you see this happening quite often amidst the diversity issue. Companies may form a diverse department, but the rest of the departments are still very white. Maybe the customer service has a diverse team, or other low-paid positions, but is diversity visible in the management layer? Far too little.
This is typical tokenism, bringing someone of color on board to pretend to show diversity. You see people of color in advertisements everywhere now. We see a particular movement arising, but we see no real results.
It starts with perception
How do we then succeed in making our companies more diverse? It starts with perception. Realizing that diversity really pays off. And feeling that it adds value to your business. What I often see is that companies often plug it into the outer shell but don’t support it core-heartedly. But if the people at the helm are still completely white, diversity, and its added value, is less well understood. The common argument I hear is: we can’t find them. But they are there. Stand at any university, and tell me then if they are really too hard to find.
In addition, it is important to realize that not only does diversity pay off, being non-diverse actually is a disadvantage. It brings along a white, blind spot. You don’t see certain things, you miss a whole other perspective. That’s very unfortunate for any company.
Diversity also requires inclusivity
There is a difference between diversity and inclusivity. Adding diversity to your company is like adding a cheese stick to your soup. Inclusivity goes further. If you want to be inclusive, you need to ask: what should we do differently here, so that everyone, regardless of their background, can feel at home here. And become a part of the family.
A check question that your company should ask: do people from other backgrounds feel at home here? Do we really make sure they can feel at home here? Sometimes effort is required for that. It doesn’t come naturally.