Diversity and Inclusion

Mid-year is a good time to pause and reflect on progress made and what to do ahead.

 

My blogs this month will be reflect this theme.

 

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is one space I have been working on.

 

First and foremost you need to be able to assess comprehensively as-is phase and to track progress. Hence necessity for creating and putting a calendar/rhythm around a reporting mechanism. 

I have managed to get buy in for such a reporting mechanism. I have created sustainable reporting structure.

The next steps are to ensure timely report preparation and using the reports to drive relevant conversations.

 

Second you need to be able to introduce D&I conversations in every HR process.

This is something I feel I have made decent progress in.  I have managed to introduce D&I conversation in almost every HR process. Different stakeholders (business and HR) are increasingly getting bought in to the idea of having these conversations too.

But then progress has mostly in space of representation in all HR processes. Either we are ensuring fair representation or keeping visibility on representation.

Next steps are in sustaining D&I conversations in HR processes and steering conversations towards inclusion too.

 

A related point is leadership and managerial buy in for D&I. We have kept conversation going in space of what’s and how’s in D&I.

Going ahead we need to surface and discuss the why with the leadership and managerial team. The discussion needs to also include an exploration of their beliefs/values around this space.

 

We are in process of setting up a D&I committee. This committee will consist of members across organization and is another step in integrating D&I into fabric of organization.  Getting this committee to action on D&I agenda will be another goal. Hence need to see them through to norming and performing stage within a month? We usually use the term onboarding for a new joiner – getting an individual employee ramped up quickly enough to do his/her job independently. In this case I have to ensure onboarding for a team.

 

Fourth, we need to have clarity on priority action areas in D&I. I think we treaded right path in using analytics/data to identify possible action/outcome areas. We now have clarity on priority areas. Next steps are how and when.

 

A few further related thoughts.

We already have a community where 'diversity' employees come together.  These employees do feel a sense of identification with this community. How can we leverage this group better to execute D&I initiatives?

I also feel that we can do more work in space of inclusion. We can look at beliefs behind our actions and how or actions can be inclusive/non-inclusive.   As shared earlier, we need to work with leaders and managers. But we also need to work with other employees/peers.

 

-
Sourav

Communities at work!

This year I am working on creating 2 communities – horizontal grouping of employees who come from different teams but are characterized by some similarity (e.g. – role, past experiences, gender, etc).

Why am I attempting to form a community? Well, there are changes that I am attempting in these 2 horizontal employee groupings. The attempt is to make the members of these communities far more effective at work and in their careers.

I have option of rolling out initiatives for them or to make them involved in entire ´upping the bar´ process (from design to execution).

Again  I have option of forming having a representative committee working on changes, or to involve the entire community – let them even own formation of representative committee (if that´s the path they want to choose).

So in essence, i am trying to create an impact on the 2 communities by working through community itself.

I am grappling with a few further questions.

• What makes community members come together and do something beyond their own self interest? 
•  If community has to work and make an impact, what is my role?

Would a community be different than a group?

I think word community has a much more involved sense – there is a sense of informality and also of belongingness/identity.

What are principles I can use to create a community from group of individuals who don´t necessarily work with each other/come across each other infrequently?

Well, I see 2 possibilities.

• Goals that inspire members to action (at times there may be no immediate self-benefit associated). 
• Goals pursuing which would further the self-benefit of members too.

I also see a possible hindrance- the need to show a green scorecard in a quarter (bane of stock market registered companies) is an opposing force to need to act today on something that needn´t necessarily yield results in short term.

How will these communities span out? I am not sure. There still are questions I don´t have answers to. 

I would share more as I create.

What have been your experiences in creating a community?

-

Sourav