Comment
By Joanne Lockwood
Let’s assume for one moment that you are thinking about the need to develop your business to be representative of your customer base, or the community in which you serve. And let’s face it, that is a big assumption – many organisations still don’t realise the opportunities that come from enriching their numbers with people of varying experience and background.
I would like to challenge the term “diversity hiring”. What is that about? Often it means hiring more women, or people of different skin colour or sexuality.
But since when have women be a diverse hire? We make up approximately 50 per cent of the population and potential workforce, yet still we talk about women as being “diverse”. I would like to ask organisations to consider using the term “underrepresented”, rather than “diverse”.
READ MORE: Busting the myth of meritocracy is a must
If your boardroom and senior leadership does not have sufficient voice from women and non-white people, then they won’t be able to influence direction and strategy, let alone be the role models providing aspiration for others to follow in their footsteps.
Maybe – just maybe – this is on your agenda, but how are you tackling it? Do you collect metrics and track progress? I am certainly not in favour of quotas or targets, but to give focus to any business imperative there must be a “why”.
Why does your business or organisation want to strive to amplify and bring in people from underrepresented communities or groups?
Yes, it is the right thing to do, the human factor. But as we know this only goes so far in business, so we also need to have an ROI, the “why”, to ensure that this becomes a sustainable way of working.
READ MORE: We must go beyond ‘How are you today?’
Let’s consider for one moment that by being more representative of society, your customer base or service users, it is going to allow your organisation to adapt quickly to their needs, be able to seek out opportunities for new products or to enhance the service you are already delivering.
Additionally, we can throw into the mix that when an organisation aligns its culture of inclusion and belonging, then its people will bring their passion and purpose with them. They will believe in the organisation and are more likely to stay and be engaged.
What can you do as an organisation? Get this on the agenda, tracked and part of your strategic goals. Positive action and targeted recruitment are good starts, but look at your own culture first and make sure you are fit to handle difference of thought and perspective in order to retain great people.
Joanne Lockwood is an inclusion and belonging specialist with SEE Change Happen
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here