How to Create a Level Playing Field in the Workplace Through DEI Efforts

We know that a more diverse workforce is more competitive, more lucrative, and better for employees and businesses as a whole. And there are many ways that HR professionals and company leadership can manage workforce diversity to achieve success, both in their organization and employees’ individual careers.

The concept of equal opportunity employment has long been established in the HR space. But in recent years, companies have been moving toward not only avoiding discrimination, but actively promoting inclusion.

Combat Overt Discrimination

The first step to improving inclusion in your workforce is to combat overt discrimination. To do this, company leadership and HR must ensure that there is an agreement at the organizational level on equal opportunity. Then they must determine how to turn that concept into a reality that is lived out in the 9-to-5 setting. Ideally, this starts with putting that concept in writing. Then it must be intentionally enforced—policies are only as good as what we do with them.

Top-down leadership is the most effective way to combat overt discrimination in the workplace. But each employee, even those on the day-to-day front lines, can combat discrimination and impact the culture in a positive way.

Once the members of an organization are in unison around this idea, it’s also important to scrutinize your anti-discrimination policies. Ask: Does this make sense for our current-day environment?

Reassess Your Policies

Here are ways that leadership and HR can assess their policies, successes and failures to combat overt discrimination:

• • Conduct a climate study: Take inventory of your organization and its optics. Is your organization one where everyone looks and thinks the same? Are there certain parts of your organization that are more or less diverse than others? And if so, why?
  • Examine trends: Consider the complaints, concerns and conversations around diversity and inclusion that have been directed at the organization. Are there common lessons that can be taken away from them?
  • Review current staff roster: Consider the representation across your organization and identify areas that need improvement. Look at the hard findings and make an information-based decision.

Address Implicit Bias

The next step is also important to continue to enhance your workplace after you’ve combatted overt discrimination. We all have implicit biases. These are actions, beliefs and mindsets that have become a part of our lifestyle, how we operate and the way we make decisions. We need to guard against the negative consequences that our own beliefs, feelings and thoughts could have in the workplace.

Implicit biases show up in a few common ways:

• • In-group bias: This is when we chose to remain in our own comfort zone where we will receive affirmation and inclusion. This can take shape in associating with others of your same gender or race, or with others who think like you.
  • Ultimate attribution error: This is what we might often refer to as prejudice, where we have beliefs about outcomes based on classes or groups. Thinking a team member performed well because she is a white female, or poorly because they are a black male, would be examples of this.
  • Racial anxiety: These are unspoken behaviors that affect hiring or promotion when we miss signals or opportunities because we are not sensitive or attuned to the differences in our cultures. A good example of this is overlooking someone’s potential based on the way they communicate.

One of the most important things we can do to address implicit biases is to be aware they exist and understand that they need to be evaluated as an opportunity to improve. Your organization must then take steps to move forward in a productive way.

The interviewing process is one of the most practical areas that we can assess and mitigate the impacts of implicit bias. Starting with the initial recruitment, leadership can ensure that the job description reaches a broad applicant pool by scrutinizing the language used and input given in drafting the announcement. When planning for the interview, recruitment teams should assess how they will structure and script the meeting to ensure that candidates have a fair, balanced and neutral interviewing process. This will often require communicating the company’s inclusion goals directly to the recruitment team. And finally, in the interview, teams should focus on asking for neutral information that avoids revealing a candidate’s protected or class status.

Another practical example can be found in the promotion process. Make sure that there is open communication about when promotions are available and what criteria are required to receive the promotion. Employers should analyze quantitative data concerning their past and present workforce and compare that to qualitative data concerning a candidate’s contribution to the organization when identifying roles that best fit their strengths. And, of course, equitable pay structures in association with promotions cannot be overlooked.

Please reach out to Brandon Davis or any member of Phelps’ Labor and Employment team with questions or for advice and guidance.