Unlocking the potential of diversity through Inclusion and ONA
While reflecting on your organizations’ diversity goals, you might be thinking -‘Sure, my organization has hired a diverse workforce but is it able to retain the diversity? How inclusive are we?’
Let me pose another pressing yet frequently overlooked question — Is your organization able to integrate the plethora of identities into a ‘salad bowl’ (not ‘melting pot’) of productivity and efficiency?
Over the years, ample studies (like this) have testified and established the holy grail of business — a diverse workforce outperforms the less diverse ones. But diversity isn’t the sole factor. If diversity is like planting a seed, then nourishing it with the right environment and nutrients is inclusion. To grow a tree or an organization, both are necessary, i.e. diversity has to be fostered through inclusion. In simple terms, diversity is just the representation of demography from different groups. Its potential and promise for maximizing efficacy are leveraged through the continuous process called inclusion.
So what exactly is this continuous process called inclusion? What does it really feel and look like?
Inclusion means creating an environment where employees feel respected and valued for who they are. It means creating a culture where diversity feels like it belongs, where everyone is treated fairly, and where people feel safe enough to present their unique selves and meaningfully contribute to the organization without inhibitions. In brief, inclusion is the mechanism for fulfilling two basic human needs — the desire to belong and to express uniqueness.
Interestingly inclusion can be understood more precisely by applying the salad bowl and melting pot theories of culture to an organization’s culture. Salad bowl theory harks of a multicultural society that can integrate different cultures while maintaining their separate identities whereas melting pot refers to a society that assimilates and homogenizes the heterogeneous cultures into one single whole. Uniqueness is retained in the former and lost in the latter. Belongingness is fostered organically in the former while it is coerced in the latter.
Now, after hiring a diverse workforce from different cultures and sub-cultures, the onus falls on the organization to decide which sort of a culture it wants to adopt — a homogenizing melting pot or a multicultural salad bowl? Going by the tenets of inclusion, a tossed salad culture seems like the perfect fit. A tossed salad culture would cater to both the personal need for psychological safety and the organizational needs of innovation, efficiency, productivity, and growth.
So how is such an inclusive culture created and maintained in any organization?
Formulating and implementing informed D&I initiatives is not the end of the story. An inclusive culture is created by a synergy between both — strong company policies and the meaningful relationships between people.
Social capital is a sociological term for the latter, i.e. the aggregated value of connections or relationships in an organization’s network. It refers to the interpersonal relations, social networks, and the shared sense of trust within the firm that are beneficial to the individuals and that can improve the efficiency of the firm.
At OrgLens, we take a social capital approach to inclusion — which is nothing but looking at the interaction and communication flows of people within the organization — and whether they are free from bias. This view bypasses individuals’ perception bias and helps us understand inclusion as it is, and as close to reality as possible.
Our inclusion study provides comprehensive and in-depth insights on these 5 crucial indicators that capture the essence of inclusion -
Research (like this) shows that though most companies are diverse, they aren’t inclusive. To ensure that your organization is able to sustain its diverse mix, inclusion needs to be measured and assessed beyond capturing the employee perceptions and opinions.
Mapping and analyzing social networks readily expose issues of isolation — employees who aren’t well connected in their networks may be underutilized or at risk of departure. When juxtaposed against gender, identity, ability, or other demographics, troubling patterns — and opportunities — can emerge.
If you are keen on doing an inclusion analysis of your organization, do let us know at info@orglens.com. With our data-driven tool that provides concrete and real-time insights, we have worked with PayTM, Tata Realty, Bharat Serums and Vaccines, Sterlite Power, Western Digital, Nestle, PropTiger, Egon Zehnder, Air India — and would be excited to help you discover the power of networks and relationships in your organization too!
