Many Employees Don't Embrace Diversity

The IPS HR and Diversity Strategy Implementation Team seeks to expand the ways we talk about and practice diversity in our workplace. Diversity is much more than a race or gender issue. It is a bottom line issue - a customer issue - a success issue. And, diversity has many dimensions, as we have discussed in the various training programs we have attended over the last three years.

Richard Stokes, MTAS HR Consultant, recently identified an interesting article that I am sharing with you.  Shirley Engelmeier is founder, CEO and chief inclusion strategist for InclusionINC.

In her book, Inclusion: The New Competitive Business Advantage (InclusionINC Media, 2012), Engelmeier offered several ways to engage a diverse workforce:

• Share your strategy with your employees. This not only gives employees a big-picture perspective, she explained, but also “increases the odds that they will share their unique insights and ideas with you.”

• Ask for their input. “If you rely entirely on a handful of managers and top executives to come up with great new ideas, you’re missing out on the brainpower of the majority of your workplace,” she said.

• Listen and evaluate the idea, not the person presenting it.

• Act on what you determine to be the best course of action. “Inclusion is first and foremost about making sure everyone gets a chance to be heard, even if their ideas aren’t always used.”

• Provide feedback to your employees about why you did or did not take their suggestions. “This will reassure employees that their ideas were truly considered and not just passed over.”

• Thank your employees for being willing to contribute.

See the full article at:

http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/Diversity/Articles/Pages/Employees-Dont-Embrace-Diversity.aspx

Thanks to Richard Stokes for identifying the article and to Bonnie Jones for sharing it with the HR/Diversity Team so that I can share it with you.