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Generations Recruitment strives to ensure Meaningful Recruitment. The first step of a Meaningful Recruitment strategy is to rethink the way companies approach their business by defining a purpose and thinking about their social responsibility on society.
In today’s society, diversity and inclusion is an essential part of each company culture. In our previous article, we already explained the difference between diversity and inclusion and their importance. Now it is time to take a look at tips for employers to ensure diversity and inclusion in their workplace. In this article we will discuss tips on inclusion as you can only attract diverse talent if your company culture supports this diverse talent pool first!
Tip 1: Rethink your workforce policies
An important step in getting to an inclusive workplace is making sure your policies match your inclusive mindset. One of the most important policies is related to payment and opportunities. Both should not depend on gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age and so on. The decision to give someone a promotion or a raise should only be based on facts, like skills and achievements. Another important policy is making sure that your employees can take days off to celibrate holidays that are not included in your official calendar.
Implementing these inclusive policies starts with educating your managers on the different policies and making sure new hires are aware of them. Ensure both know that the company doesn’t tolerate any form of discrimination and strict actions will be taken against it. Setting clear and measurable goals will enable you to witness your progress within your inclusion journey.
Tip 2: Mind your language
Language plays an important role when talking about inclusion. On the one hand, your should be carefull with certain pronouns in professional communications. Think about not asking your employees to check the ‘mr’ or ms’ box on documents. You could also give them the opportunity to adjust this pronoun within their email signature, for example. The same goes for assuming or asking the gender of their partner. Checking a box that says they have a ‘partner’ should be enough information to go on. Also make sure to avoid harmful or offensive language and appologize in the right way if you do make a mistake!
On the other hand, language barriers can be a big problem within your company if you work in a multinational environment. It can often lead to employees not fully understanding procedures or practices. If your workplace is not inclusive, your employees won’t dare to admit they have trouble understanding it. In turn, this can lead to practical mistakes or leave the employee with a feeling of being left out. Therefore, it is important to put measures in place where employees can ask for help without losing face or without having to fear being laughed at.
Tip 3: A diversity & inclusion board
An inclusive organisation should take the time to set up a diversity and inclusion board. This board can be in charge of promoting the importance of diversity and inclusion, but also follow up on the inclusion policies. They can be a neutral party in conversations between employees and managers. This will lower the threshold for employees to address their concerns.
The diversity and inclusion board can also conduct anonymous surveys among employees to discover what your employees may desire regarding diversity and inclusion within the company. It can be an opportunity for more introverted employees to have a voice too. Another way to include all employees is to install a meeting where every employeehas an equal right to address important diversity and inclusion topics.
Tip 4: Embrace differences & create safe spaces
Make sure your employees know that you embrace their cultures and traditions by organising inclusion events. Think about celebrating holidays that are not traditionally in your company calendar as well, by decorating the office or by sending out themed emails. Another example is organising diversity events, where employees can express their own culture to their colleagues. Also telling the story of your employees through different communication channels could be a great way to inspire inclusion.
Creating safe spaces is important too. This includes providing gender-neutral restrooms, distraction-free rooms, breastfeeding rooms, religious rooms and so on. This can be done while working remotely too. For example, encourage your employees to block time for prayer in their agenda’s so they don’t get distracted by work during those times. It is equaly important to make your building wheelchair-accessible for your visitors and your employees.
What do we do at Generations Recruitment?
As explained in our article about the difference between diversity and inclusion, we at Generations recruitment strongly value inclusion, diversity and sustainability in recruitment. It is actually even at the root of our company’s name.
In order to keep educating ourselves on the topic, the whole team took part in a training day last week on how to keep promoting Diversity and Inclusion within our recruitment processes. Whether it is internally, towards our candidates or towards our clients, there are still multiple things we can work on to make sure our personal or group biases do not lead to discrimination. As a consequence, in order to create solid guidelines and act on our commitments, we are drafting a Diversity & Inclusion charter. This will be used to guide our daily actions towards a better, more meaningful workplace.
If you are interested to know about this charter, it will be released in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
For any question you might have on the topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to any Generation Recruitment consultant. We are happy to discuss it with you in more detail.
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