Why Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Should be Part of Your Everyday Work

Have you pondered what to do when customers and your board of directors ask, “What are you doing with diversity, equity, and inclusion?”

Before you close your computer worrying that this is another piece to blast you for not doing enough, or for ignoring people of color (or anyone who does not look like you), let’s together take a step back.

I worked with a diversity leader long ago who used to say (in a much more colorful manner than I will), “One of your goals should be to be a little better today than you were yesterday.”

So, what did he mean by that? 

Diversity is more than just race, ethnicity, and language. It includes sexual orientation, religion, and differences of thought among other areas. Let’s examine some of our limited beliefs, shall we?

• How many times have you dismissed the new person in the room just because they do not think like the majority of the leaders who have been in the organization for years and years?

• How often have you said, “We haven’t hired any minority (fill in the ethnicity) employees because we cannot find any?”

• How many times do we consciously (or unconsciously) decline to interview an applicant in person or take them to the next level because their name “sounds” like a different race than either yours or other employees in the department?

• How often have you not kept an employee because they were “not a good fit” when what you really thought was, “They were too inquisitive and questioned the norm?”

And here is the one that really gets me going… how many times have you not disciplined an employee, put them on a performance improvement plan, OR terminated them because you were afraid they would “pull the race card?”

So many questions and scenarios to discuss… so little time.

Here’s what I believe, have practiced for years, and have seen organizations do that are successful in having a diverse workforce.

You have to start somewhere!! Education alone will not change behavior and practices no more than a patient being handed a prescription will change their medical outcome. We have to do something.

I can hear the questions….

• What do you want us to do?

• We put at the bottom of our applications that “we do not discriminate.”

• In fact, we even hired a chief diversity officer

• We have a diversity Healthstream module that is updated every year.

• Diversity is included in all of our department orientation packets.

Here’s my response. All of those actions are just the very itty-bitty beginning.  This a journey.  While it begins with some of the above-listed items, those are often done to just “check a box” on the diversity plan.

What your employees are looking for is action.

Here are a few questions to consider in order to have concrete action steps:

• Look at your community data. Who are your customers? Does your employee population match the community?

• Have you shared your race, ethnicity, and language (REaL) data with the leaders and staff and obtained their input on action steps?

• Look at your senior leadership team. Does the c-suite match the community, or does it mirror the same type(s) of leaders the organization has had for years?

• Are all of your minority employees in the service departments OR do you actively recruit to have diversity in ALL of your departments?

• Are differences in thought respected around the meeting table?

• Do you have fair and equitable performance management practices everywhere or do we only focus on a certain group of employees (i.e., Do the seasoned employees get a pass on bad behavior while the new employees that look or act differently get counseled or terminated for not “fitting in” with the culture?)

Let’s begin a discussion about some concrete action steps to make diversity, equity, and inclusion action words in your organization. 

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me if I can assist you in achieving your leadership goals.