Today, the terms Diversity, Inclusion and Equality (or DIE) are becoming synonymous with a happy and balanced work environment. Since the pandemic, incorporating DIE has become an incredibly significant aspect to ensure that today’s taskforce is not left hanging amidst chaos. DIE forms a key triangle to encourage workplaces to implement a holistic work environment and bolster growth.
Workplaces today are standing to atone and ensure a workplace which helps improve productivity, creativity, and boost innovation in the work environment. Diversity can be seen as a culture which respects uniqueness’ in all respect starting from acknowledging people from different backgrounds, cultures, genders, races and perhaps also age. The second arm of the triangle ‘Inclusion’ reflects on organisations inviting diverse groups to position themselves and spearhead the company’s journey. However, ‘Equality’ establishes itself as a critical piece of triangle. Implying that each individual is given equal opportunity to feel accepted for who they are and therefore given equal opportunity to thrive in any given company’s work environment.
Business leaders believe that DIE brings together a pool of talents which thrive with ideas and diverse skillset to encourage productivity and innovation in a team. However, under the flashy exteriors of positioning oneself as a Diverse organisation lays an epidemic of misinformed leaders with poorly formulated DIE strategies which fail miserably adding up to the overall mismatch of talent pool globally. It is time that corporates around the world use their discomfort to learn and understand the key to transitioning their workplaces into a dynamic, inclusive, equal, and diverse organisation.
Hiring and retaining diverse talents, listening to employees, and integrating DIE in the employee work ecosystem have become key focus areas for today’s HR force. The current business world is rapidly expanding and changing alongside exploring expansion opportunities. Efficiently embedding DIE into the system is the need of the hour whether it is a startup, SME or an established MNC. Before Covid impacted the lives of people across the world, all recessions revolved around ‘Men accessions’ or affecting both men and women equally. However, with the pandemic bringing the world to a standstill, there is an alarming number of job losses for women and/or women taking a step back and opting to pursue their primary ‘care-giving’ responsibilities given the work competitiveness taking a toll on their overall mental health. Covid has triggered and worsened the situation of women employment overall.
The growing infatuation and usage of diversity in today’s corporate vocabulary leads to a misinformed group of people who advocate diversity without realising its true potential of benefiting an organisation. PMR has always believed in tackling the underlying issues to ensure an all-inclusive work environment for our taskforce. Starting from our humble beginning to now, we have always emphasised on a gender equal scenario. While majority of companies only look at it superficially, we have brought it down to our internal leaderships, culture adaptation, tweaking our policy infrastructure and extending it much ahead from just paying a lip service.
The positive outcomes of Workplace Diversity are not just obtained by the presence of Diversity but along with this, effective leadership is required to tackle the conflicts and manage the different cultural and gender mindsets of the diverse group. For PMR, we have always ensured that we are consistent in our positioning both externally and internally having proper policies and practices with respect to both men and women at office. Starting with policies for pregnant employees at work, discouraging the usage of racist language, having performance-based compensation structure, having a diverse interview panel, making work-life balance a priority for our employees, having strict policies against harassment at workplace and raising awareness against stereotyping of work.
Our implementation begins right at the hiring process where key resources are hired in a bias-free and merit-based environment. Our corporate leadership is well-balanced and distinguished with respect to skillset, age, gender, and experience. Our teams are sensitised to work efficiently and cohesively to avoid conflict. There are classic examples of companies which are marketed as diverse and yet blindside from the reality. Our culture on the other hand is built on the foundation of ensuring equal work opportunities for both men and women and understanding their key challenges and working together with them to solve the same. Having a balanced, focused and diverse team encourages that any challenges and growth opportunities have a 360-degree viewpoint.
Decades of research on the impact of DIE in a company’s ecosystem suggests that corporates with a diverse functioning outperform less-diverse organisation. These are on the basis of not just profits but also the quality of employee engagement, experiences, creativity, culture, and productivity. However, the key is to implement DIE tactically and sparingly rather than treating it as a miracle cure to one’s organisational challenges for growth.
The author, Aakanksha Bhargava, is CEO of PMR.
Source: https://hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/workplace-4-0/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-inclusion-equality-transitional-steps-for-a-balanced-work-environment/82355816
