Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: How DEI Shapes Organizational Culture?

Here I share the insights to build a better organizational environment. In today’s article, I'm going to be writing about diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Over the last few years DEI has become sort of this buzzword that everyone and every company is using and why? Maybe it's because they truly care about DEI, and maybe the cancel culture movement has been kind of laying down the hammer on these companies and calling them out for their lack of acknowledgement programs processes etc. With that said companies with DEI initiative, while their intent may have been pure it was very apparent that most people really didn't know the difference between DEI and to be clear there is a difference.

Let's start with D for Diversity

Diversity is the combination of differences that shape our perspectives, approaches and our overall world view. It's about recognizing, respecting and valuing those differences. Most of the time, when people are talking about diversity, they're specifically talking about race or ethnicity, however diversity goes much deeper than that. First there are four different diversity types : internal diversity, external diversity, organizational diversity and world view.

1. Internal diversity: With internal diversity that really highlights the characteristics you were born with. Race and ethnicity are included, but then you also have your age, your gender identity, national origin, physical mental ability etc.
2. External diversity: Then we have external diversity, which is something that's inherent to an individual, but it's not necessarily like a physical attribute that they were born with. This is going to include religious beliefs', relationship status, socioeconomic status, citizenship, personal interests, etc.
3. Organizational diversity: Then we have organizational diversity, which really is highlighting the different distinctions that are assigned by an organization. This is going to be like your employee versus manager status, the pay rate whether your salary versus hourly, maybe the work location that you work in. It could be any designation that's really just assigned by an organization.
4. Worldview diversity: And then we have our worldview diversity, and this type of diversity is actually really informed by the other three and it changes constantly. This is going to be like your political beliefs or affiliations, your moral or ethical compass etc. It's just something that's going to adjust and be informed by the other three areas of diversity. Long story short, diversity really outlines the who and the what of people. Within an organization, diversity is really speaking to the makeup of the workforce. It is very common for diversity and inclusion to be utilized interchangeably. However, as we mentioned before, they are different.

Let's talk about the ‘I’ for Inclusion:

Inclusion has many different definitions. However, within an organization, inclusion is the practice or process of creating a working culture or environment that appreciates and utilizes the talents, skills and perspectives of all employees. For example, diversity is saying we have the equal number of men and women in a company, however say there are no female managers, leaders or in positions of power or a part of making decisions within the organization at all. Then the company can say yes we're diverse, but they really can't say that they are inclusive. This leads us to the elusive e for equity and typically when talking about DEI companies or organizations will talk about the D and the I and skip over the E as we did on purpose, and we want to highlight.

Equity in Organizations:

Equity and equality are not the same thing. Equity is focused on providing equal access to opportunities and resources, as well as focusing on the organizational processes systems and structure that created equity in the first place. Equality is simply just treating everyone the same, while equity is recognizing that there are differences in celebrating those differences. Another example of equity is saying an organization really does have a problem with having a lack of diversity within their managerial or leadership positions, say there's no people of color there's no women etc.
Equity is starting with looking at their promotional or internal movement processes to see what roadblocks have actually been created and are preventing people of color or women from being able to have upward mobility within the organization. Then maybe even taking it a step further to go back to their recruitment process to the sourcing stage and find out if there's any bias that could be preventing a diverse group of candidates from even making it through the pipeline.

Challenges and roadblocks that DEI initiatives face

Now that you know the difference, let's talk about some of the challenges and roadblocks that DEI initiatives face within the workplace. As you may have seen, many DEI initiatives throughout your career. These things have ranged from diversity groups and task forces to marketing campaigns and advertisements that are centered on diversity. The challenges and the roadblocks that these initiatives face are twofold. First, these groups or task forces are typically made up of people who care but are not in positions of power to really enact real change.
In many organizations, groups focused on diversity often face challenges. Typically, a few token individuals of color from each department are invited, but these individuals are rarely in leadership positions. These groups often lack budgets, leadership support, or inclusion in important meetings. Consequently, they cannot effectively contribute their perspectives on workplace issues. Over time, these groups just turn into regular venting sessions because the individuals who started out really caring and really energized about creating the group now feel like they were just gas lit into creating the group, so the company could publicly say that they had one.
Then we have the marketing campaigns where again the token individuals within the organization are singled out, invited to be a part of an image or invited to a highly publicized event to give off this portrayal of diversity. In case you couldn't tell, these quote-unquote initiatives are simply just inauthentic and blatant attempts to skate around doing the hard work of creating a supportive environment through a DEI lens. What can be done, what can organizations do, what can employees do.

1. From the organization standpoint, we would recommend creating a why statement. Why is the company focused on DEI? Is it because they're getting dragged through the media, or is it because they want their workforce to really look like their customers and their user base.
2. After that, create a value statement to highlight the ideal end state of your Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives. What do you want people to say about your organization, what do you want to be known for?
3. Then continue working backwards through the planning process when the deadline is, what needs to be done to get there, how are you going to accomplish it and who needs to be involved who are the decision makers on the employee side.

Highlighting the areas of Improvements:

We really want to encourage you not to shy away from highlighting areas of improvement when it comes to DEI. Don't only speak up when it's a topic impacting you, everyone in an organization contributes to the diversity makeup and DEI issues can really spiral and something that's not impacting you today can turn around and impact you later on down the line. If you see an inequity happening you see an inclusion issue, you see a diversity of issues speak up regardless of whether it's an issue purely impacting you or specific to you. And now we’ll go ahead and end this article with this quote from Verna Myers, and that is,
“diversity is being invited to the party inclusion is being invited to dance and equity is being able to pick out the music and help plan the event in the first place”
Alright, that's it for today's article, don't forget to like comments and follow us so you don't miss any new insights.

How can Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) make your workplace better? As I explain what DEI really means, the challenges it faces, and how different organizations are implementing DEI initiative in their workplace & can genuinely support it. Do you think DEI is more than just a buzzword? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

You can find me here on LinkedIn, click the link below:
Muhammad Usman

If you like to read articles on other topics, then this one is a must-read written by me: Best Lattafa Perfumes