Covid 19 highlighted an awareness of our interconnection with each other as one human family. It has also shone a real light on the many social, racial, and economic inequalities present in our local and global communities.
Our increasing awareness of climate injustices, coupled with the world-wide Black Lives Matter protests in recent years, have also been drawing forth values into our collective that emerge from the ground of our True Nature, calling for a united stand for equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging in all spheres of life – including our workplaces.
Our shared witness together of these stark inequalities present has evoked a call from our depths for values such as Truth, Peace, Dignity, Freedom and Restorative Social Justice for all.
These values emerge from our essence. They are expressions of the inherent unity underlying each of our unique and diverse existence, interbeing with the wholeness of all that is.
Some of us may call these authentic, universal, or core values. Spiritual or religious people often call them faith or soul values. By whatever pointing term we may refer to, such essential values are unity-centric. They serve and support our shared existence.
Many of us advocating for some time for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) in the workplace quote from consistent findings in research that continue to demonstrate how a diverse workforce is critical to every organisation’s innovation, performance and success.
We very rightly advocate for change by highlighting that DEIB also encourages greater employee engagement, increases job satisfaction, and leads to better business outcomes.
These are all very important and valuable drivers, and absolutely necessary to be included as part of our conversations.
However, as someone interested in the root causes of human behavioural change, I’m persuaded that any real and lasting shift in our society requires a re-orientation of the inner place from which we operate first.
Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. Wisdom traditions have been teaching us for centuries that our outer world is a reflection of our inner world.
We need to look at root motivations and values that are beyond purely personal gain to break out of ‘business as usual approaches’ and drive the much needed change in our workplaces long-term into the future.
I also like to give us human beings more honouring and dignity than to just to emphasise motivations that stem purely from personal and organisational benefit.
My experience is that our True Nature is inherently loving and focused on selflessness, and I believe there is a natural reverence towards equal opportunity for all present in the essence of our hearts.
Recent neuroscience research reveals that our values influence how we perceive, decide and act. Executive centres in our brain that drive creative problem solving switch on when we are living true to what matters most to us.
I’m persuaded that what is most needed is for more of us to awaken to the reality that our work for DEIB in our workplaces is a real form of peaceful social justice work.
We are all still in the movement for equality and freedom that many of our ancestors have stood up for before us.
As we each contribute our unique part to DEIB in our workplaces from a commitment to living true to this soul value of restorative justice, great souls like Harriet Tubman, Javed Abidi, Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk, Susan B Anthony, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr are walking by our side reminding us even now that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’ [1]
In reading these statistics, do you also feel that justice is too long delayed in our workplaces?
- Out of all Fortune 500 companies, just 5 have African American or black CEO’s, as reported in June 2020. [2]
- Closing the global gender gap has increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years due to negative outcomes for women in 2020, according to the World Economic Forum in March 2021 [3]
- Although 90% of companies claim to prioritise diversity, only 4% consider disability in those initiatives, 2020. [4]
- The unemployment rate for the blind and visually impaired stands at over 70% as of June 20201. [5]
- While LGBTQ+ women make up 2.3 percent of entry level employees, they comprise only 1.6 percent of managers and even smaller shares of more senior levels. June 2020. [6]
- Three in 20 LGBTQ+ women believe that their sexual orientation will negatively affect their career advancement at work. For LGBTQ+ men, this number is even higher, at six in 20. [6]
- Transgender workers are subject to different types of unfairness at work including bathroom accessibility, being deliberately referred to by incorrect pronouns, and having to tolerate inappropriate questions, which can lead to employee disengagement and avoidance. June 2021 [7]
- For female veterans in the USA, the unemployment rate dipped in 2020 to just 3%, and for male veterans 3.5%. [8]
Our hearts hurt when we hear of inequalities like this because we are all interconnected, and the inherent goodness and beauty of our True Nature calls us to respond.
As Bryan Stevenson, American Lawyer, Social Justice Activist and Founder/Executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative states so eloquently: “We cannot be full evolved human beings until we care about human rights and basic dignity. That all of our survival is tied to the survival of everyone.” [9]
We each understand that diversity, inclusion, equality and belonging is a long-term journey for any organisation to truly embody across all the categories of under-representation and marginalisation.
Every DIEB strategy must be multi-faceted, planned and phased in it’s approach and implementation.
Yet it is also time—past time, for us to do the systemic work of building justice, equality, inclusion and belonging for all.
Whenever there is a shift in our individual or collective consciousness like there was at the start of the pandemic, an unspoken invitation emerges to embody the values that this new awareness asks of us to now live in accordance with.
If we choose not to embrace the values of our belonging to each other as one human earth family, and live true to this awareness in our daily lives – we risk regressing back into the old separate consciousness. We miss an opportunity for evolution, and things return to the same ‘business as usual’ mindset and individualistic values that has created the division and inequalities in our world.
For real long-lasting change to happen I suggest we as leaders need to be willing to go back to the Source and re-inquire into the original intention for our work.
We need to uncover the sacred purpose of our work, and open to the ever greater emerging potential for business to be an agent for social change, peace and regeneration in our local communities and ecologies.
Each unique business has an inherent consciousness that is alive, and impacted by the intention and attitude we each bring to it. This is especially true for the leader(s) of the organisation.
As leaders, we need to embrace the honest and vulnerable inner work that’s needed to re-assess our personal worldview and values, and our organisation’s values, and witness how these values have been guiding the perceptions, decisions, behaviours and company culture up to now.
Exemplary leaders at this time are listening, learning, unlearning, and engaging in connected heart-felt conversations on racism and inequality, understanding that we are all part of each other. This work is about celebrating human difference, and our underlying unity.
Outwardly, we are seeing many commendable organisations making leaps and strides in recent times by turning pledges into clear actionable strategies and committed, living action plans.
As a freelance recruitment management consultant and executive coach to internal recruitment business partners, I recommend touchpoints like these are important to be included into an organisations approach to DEIB:
1. Executive Leadership Awareness, Learning, Commitment and Involvement.
Achieving change will require transformational inner and outer shifts. CEO’s and the Executive Leadership Team can start by listening to and learning from people who have been at the receiving end of racism, oppression, marginalisation, colonisation, and injustice.
Own and name where the organisation is currently, and tackling inequality as a core goal for every service, while humanising people’s difference, moving towards salary equity, and promoting inclusion in the workplace so everyone feels safe, truly welcome, and free to be themselves.
2. Solid D&I Data and Reporting across all the diverse categories. Identify data gaps and create a plan to address them.
3. Write and Publish a 5 year overarching DEIB strategy for the organisation, and an associated 3 year action plan. Set SMART goals, performance indicators, and a sustained budget dedicated to the implementation.
4. Drive Engagement. Create an DEIB Committee/Steering Group to help drive the agenda. Meet regularly. Report annually on DEIB progress. Appoint and empower DEIB allies, and innovate ways to encourage and invite Staff Involvement across the whole organisation. Ensure all staff have a personal objective on diversity and inclusion.
5. Create an DEIB strategy in every department, with associated action plans. Invite managers to attend a diversity and inclusion educational training programme to explore objectives, allyship, microaggressions, unconscious bias, and more.
6. Create DEIIB networks/hubs. Allocate budget to each to support their activities.
7. DEIB training, DEIB toolkit, and DEIB statement.
8. DEIB Recruitment Policy, Strategy, Processes, and Practices. Conduct an audit of recruitment policies and practices to make them more equitable and bias free. Design and embed DEIB centred recruitment processes in every stage: advertising, shortlisting, selection, interviewing, offer, onboarding.
Deliver interview panel member training in positive action and unconscious bias. Ensure partnering recruitment agencies are aligned with your DEIB principles, and that they provide relevant monitoring data.
Align your careers page, job descriptions, adverts, recruitment employer branding, and marketing with your DEIB centred focus. Ensure there is connectivity between the recruitment ATS and the HR system for clearer monitoring, benchmarking and reporting data.
9. Internal Development. Consider mentoring, reversed mentoring, sponsorship, coaching, learning and development initiatives for marginalised groups. Create a structured DEIB centred management/leadership trainee programme.
10. Encourage an organisation culture that cultivates psychological safety, inclusion and trust. Nurture an environment that values welcoming feedback, and actively seeks out a constructive critique of ideas, actions, and behaviours in a way that is positive in intent and non judgemental.
11. Invest in Mental Health and Wellness for Staff. Ensure your wellbeing strategy includes additional support for marginalised groups in acknowledgement of the effects and trauma of systemic oppression.
12. Continuous reporting, reviewing, innovating, learning, and improvement.
In a conversation on diversity and inclusion such as this, it would be anthropocentric of me to exclude an honouring of the rights of Nature for diversity, equality, inclusion, belonging too. The ecological diversity of the living earth is another expression of Life’s diversity, and wholly interconnected with our social diversity.
Thankfully many of our organisations are becoming more aware of our interdependence on Nature and our ethical responsibility to respect, protect and support to regenerate the diversity of life in our local workplace community ecologies.
Challenging inequalities both within and without is a central focus for all companies who want to protect human rights and earth rights, and help to build a fair and inclusive society.
I look forward to continuing to learn from each other in the times ahead as we work together for diversity, inclusion, equality and belonging in our workplaces and beyond.
Endnotes:
[1] Quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Junior: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
[2] Fortune.com: https://fortune.com/2020/06/01/black-ceos-fortune-500-2020-african-american-business-leaders/
[3] World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2021
[4] World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/3-ways-disability-inclusion-can-shape-the-new-decade-of-innovation/
[5] World Service For The Blind: https://www.wsblind.org/blog/2021/6/16/employment-barriers-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired
[6] McKinsey & Company: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/how-the-lgbtq-plus-community-fares-in-the-workplace#
[7] Catalyst: (https://www.catalyst.org/research/lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-workplace-issues/)
[8] Built In: https://builtin.com/diversity-inclusion/diversity-in-the-workplace-statistics
[9] Bryan Stevenson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an American lawyer, a social justice activist, and a law professor at New York University School of Law. Quoted, with permission, a phrase from Bryan Stevenson’s Ted Talk, 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2tOp7OxyQ8