Inclusivity in organizations does not happen by accident. It involves a series of deliberate efforts from removing unconscious bias of all key stakeholders in an organization, to strategically steering their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours to attain exceptional outcomes. Embracing differences and leveraging on them are imperatives for conscious inclusion.
Human brain is wired in such a way that it processes 40 pieces of information per second consciously while 11 million are being processed unconsciously. This results in numerous unconscious biases that are manifested both in personal and professional lives. Personal identification details such as name, gender, ethnicity etc are some of the major triggers for unconscious stereotyping at workplace. Blind hiring is found to be an effective tool in avoiding such initial discrimination and improving diversity in organizations. However, in most cases, blind hiring is seen to only delay the unconscious bias from occurring at the first instance to in-person interviews or until the candidate enters the workplace, and not erase it at once. This is where the need for conscious efforts for inclusion comes to light. Conscious inclusion goes beyond being aware of the possible biases that would arise. It is also about ensuring that everyone who has a seat, also has a voice at their workplace.
Recognizing that conscious inclusion is crucial for diversity at workplace, major corporations are coming up with initiatives for employing and engaging human resources with diverse identities. Recently, 38 top-notch fashion and beauty brands including Athleta, Tommy Hilfiger and L’Oréal signed up to partner with the newly formed Black in Fashion Council (BIFC) wherein the brands have committed towards creating an enriching workplace for Black employees. Toyota increased its diverse spending by 30% for cultivating a diverse talent pipeline and to support the organizations that empower women in STEM careers. Spotting a recent increase in online searches for black-owned businesses, Google added the attribute ‘Black-owned’ business appearing under “Highlights” in Google Maps and Search along with other attributes such as “Women-led” and “LGBTQ-Friendly”.
However, it should be noted that conscious inclusion serves beyond the function of representing the underrepresented.
Latest reports also reaffirms the fact that organizations with an inclusive workforce are most likely to outperform their less inclusive counterparts in terms of profitability, owing to their cognitive diversity.
Despite these visible advantages, the trajectory of diversity has showed only a slow growth since 2014, due to growing polarization among organizations with conservative values. This points towards the need for more systematic and business-driven approaches to inclusion, untethered from Marginalization and Tokenism.
The Diversity Navigator is a unique feature in Draup platform that helps the recruiters to identify professional profiles based on gender and ethnicity parameters for creating diverse teams. Using a simple NLP search query, the users could filter the corresponding profiles highlighting the professional’s background, skill set and analysis of the professional capability of the executive through Draup’s proprietary metrics along with their gender and ethnicity.
