Strategic People

Creating a working environment based around inclusion and equality is essential for any organisation. Your employees/colleagues need to be treated and treat eachother with dignity and respect. What does this workplace look like? An environment where everybody’s voice, skills and talents are valued. In this working environment you will see an automatic change in customer service and overall productivity, because the workforce is becoming more content and more motivated. By becoming more aware of inclusion and equality, and implementing it into the workplace, you will bring many benefits to your organisation. 

What makes an inclusive workplace:

• Welcoming culture
• Everyone feels valued
• Everyone is treated with respect and dignity
• Rules and company policies are in place to regulate human rights, working conditions, employee welfare
• All staff members are aware of the inclusive values of the organisation
• The employees are encourages to progress
• Discouraging of internal hierarchies 
• The organisation is aware of any potential tensions within the workplace and takes action when needed
• Inclusive strategies are promoted by senior staff

Organisations are fast becoming more aware of the benefits and importance of implementing an inclusive ethos into their workplace to attract new talent, increase current employee commitment and maximise productivity. 

Benefits of an inclusive workplace:

• Attract new talent
• Retain productive and committed staff
• Create wider customer appeal
• Create culture change that can be applied to out-of-work life too

How do I create an inclusive workplace? Here are the 5 steps: 

1. Consider what you want to achieve and what the benefits will be
2. Undertake an inclusion review on your organisation
3. Decipher your areas of improvement and create a strategy to improve them
4. Communicate the plan to the staff and put it into action
5. Review, and monitor the plan and its impact on the organisation

When you review your inclusion, you need to consider the following:

• Organisational demographics (analysing data on your staff by age, gender, ethnic group, religion or belief, sexual orientation and disability)
• Your customer base demographics (Finding out who uses your services to ensure you have the right people, skills and approaches to meet these needs)
• Your formal policies and standards of procedure with regards to inclusion and equality 
• Informal working practices
• Arrangements for staff participation

Many small businesses may question the relevance of implementing this inclusivity to their working environment, but the fact of the matter is, creating an inclusive workplace brings benefits to organisations of all sizes. Having a smaller number of employees can also be an advantage especially when implementing new ways of working or consulting staff. 

Diversity, equality and inclusion is paramount to the Strategic People  team. We encourage and promote diversity consistently. We have diversity targets and we encourage our clients to meet theirs too. If you’re looking for a role or you’re hiring, give us a call today for a chat about what we can do for you! SP//

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