An established definition for DEI is essential to the success of your team, helping avoid confusion or misinformation regarding this term.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are fundamental to creating an engaging work culture. According to McKinsey research, companies with diverse teams tend to be more profitable than those without them.
Definitions
As the dialogue surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) continues to unfold, it becomes essential that there be a common language to use when discussing DEI. This glossary offers definitions for some key terms frequently discussed within this discussion – helping inform conversations more intelligently while building an awareness that different people might interpret these terms differently depending on their lived experiences.
Making an environment where employees feel valued and included is a complex and ongoing journey that demands a change in thinking and behavior – from seeing diversity as “nice to have” to viewing it as essential to any organization’s success. Implementing DEI into mission and values statements is only half the battle – real impact of DEI comes when these values become part of everyday reality.
Diversity encompasses the wide array of characteristics that comprise an individual’s identity, such as race, gender, age, religion, cultural background, sexual orientation and physical ability. Diversity means acknowledging and appreciating everyone as individuals while appreciating each perspective presented by various people.
Inclusion means creating environments in your organization where all individuals can thrive and feel supported, respected and valued for who they are – creating environments which welcome, support and value differences as well as opportunities for participation and contribution from each member of society.
Equity refers to making sure that policies and practices are fair for minority groups. A company which practices equity may provide training on unconscious bias in hiring, or provide more mentoring or advancement opportunities to employees who feel underappreciated.
Egalitarianism refers to creating systems with fair distribution of power across all areas. Achieve this is not easy as many systemic issues contribute to inequities like patriarchy and white supremacy that limit women, people of color and other marginalized groups from having equal opportunities within an organization.
Inclusion
As a business owner, diversity, equity and inclusion should be one of your highest priorities. Employees will be more productive if they feel welcomed into your workplace; DEI shows consumers that you care about providing everyone an equal opportunity to showcase their talents.
However, it’s essential to realize the distinction between equality and inclusion: equality refers to treating all individuals equally; inclusion goes further by taking their unique needs and circumstances into account while providing equal access to resources and opportunities.
Inclusion encompasses all aspects of human difference, from race/ethnicity/gender to religion/spirituality, culture, sexual orientation and age – whether race/ethnicity/gender identities to socioeconomic statuses/veterans statuses/education levels/geographical locations/physical abilities or political perspectives. A diverse and inclusive workplace seeks to allow each employee the chance to flourish no matter where they may be in life’s journey.
Diversity is a complex concept and must be seen as part of an inclusive strategy, but its full effect may be hard to gauge. To truly become equitable and inclusive, focus on making each person feel welcome, respected, supported and valued so they can fully contribute their talents within your organization.
Diversifying a workforce is vitally important to any successful business, yet diversity alone won’t do the trick in creating an inclusive environment. If your organization focuses solely on diversity without also considering inclusion, members may feel underappreciated or dehumanized by your policies. Forming employee resource groups and DEI committees are effective ways of making an organization more inclusive; however, lasting change requires consistent effort on all fronts.
If your results aren’t what you anticipated, it might be time to revisit your approach. Discuss with your team how inclusion can best be implemented into the workplace and what would need to happen for everyone to reach their full potential. Take an honest assessment of current policies and practices which might limit or obstruct creating an inclusive culture; determine what might hinder progress further and create positive outcomes for all concerned.
Equity
Persons involved with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives often feel passionately committed to their work as champions for these initiatives due to lived experiences that motivate them. Unfortunately, this can require extra time on personal work without additional compensation, leaving these workers exhausted after expending extra effort on behalf of organizations which do not prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Over time this can result in burnout or discouragement due to being frustrated when efforts go unrewarded – this can erode morale further and diminish motivation to remain part of them.
Diversity refers to accepting and respecting differences among people while equity refers to fairness. Equality promotes equal rights regardless of circumstances while equity encourages equitable allocation of resources that enable individuals with different needs and abilities to flourish.
Diversity refers to a range of social identities, traits, and experiences that distinguish people from one another. This can encompass social class, gender identity/expression/expressivity/expression of love (gender identity/expression/expression), ethnicity/religion affiliation/practices/perspectives/values; ideas perspectives values. Furthermore, diversity encompasses peoples’ internal feelings of belonging/non-belonging to specific groups such as race/ethnicity/sexual orientation/age socioeconomic status or disability – these all encompass different identities that define who people identify/perspectively/express their perspectives/values/perspectives/values/perspectives and/describe their internal sense of belonging/nonbelonging to specific groups like race/ethnicity/religious belief etc.
Inclusion refers to a culture that welcomes and supports diverse employees, making them feel they belong. It involves creating an inclusive workplace environment in which employees feel safe to bring all aspects of themselves to work and be open to new experiences and perspectives. Inclusivity is integral for business success as it helps identify solutions to problems while strengthening customer relationships.
Companies that fail to value diversity, equity and inclusion are missing an opportunity for competitive advantage. Companies that place more focus on DEI tend to adopt a holistic view when making decisions and improving productivity; moreover they tend to be more innovative than companies without an explicit DEI focus. According to one McKinsey study, businesses that explicitly prioritize DEI outperformed those without one, as people who feel underrepresented at work more likely left those businesses and took their talents elsewhere.
Design
Implementing an inclusive diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program in your company is one of the best ways to ensure its products, services and employees reflect diversity as much as possible. Aside from its moral justifications, diversity strategies help businesses reach new markets while expanding their bottom lines.
DEI encompasses all the characteristics that define individuals as distinct, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language culture religion/spirituality and age. DEI strives to make all employees feel welcome at work regardless of their identity or background by identifying and addressing barriers such as unconscious biases (stereotypes about other groups that form out of one’s awareness) or microaggressions that arise as barriers to access advancement or belonging – these barriers could include unconscious biases (stereotypes that form outside one’s awareness) or microaggressions which exist that limit progress.
Inclusivity also involves making employees feel valued, so that Black mothers of three in accounting or non-binary employees in engineering know they belong and have a voice at the table. Furthermore, inclusion involves creating an experience for all people involved – team members as well as end users – that provides equal enjoyment with products or services offered.
Implementing a diversity and inclusion strategy can be difficult due to differing perspectives from different stakeholders. Some individuals may not appreciate DEI efforts due to personal experiences or they simply do not recognize their necessity.
To combat this issue, it is critical that others understand what DEI means – this can be accomplished through workshops and trainings or simply incorporating an equity lens into design processes themselves. As an example, taking an equity approach when creating presentations or other materials to share with staff members can ensure the materials are more accessible to a broader range of individuals by avoiding using language that might be offensive or discriminatory. As with printed materials or online content creation, taking an equity lens into consideration when designing printed or online material or content will ensure that its accessibility can be extended to as many people as possible, regardless of ability or disability. These changes will eventually create a more diverse and inclusive workplace environment which ultimately benefits all members of your community.