How to Increase Workplace Diversity and Foster an Inclusive Culture

Workplace diversity refers to having employees from a wide range of backgrounds abilities, and identities. Research overwhelmingly shows that diverse and inclusive teams outperform homogeneous ones. Companies with more diversity are better positioned to understand their customers attract top talent, and boost employee engagement and innovation.

However, creating a truly diverse workforce takes intentional and ongoing effort. Leaders must actively cultivate inclusion while also increasing demographic diversity.

Here are effective ways companies can improve diversity, equity and inclusion:

Examine Hiring Practices for Bias

Unconscious bias often creeps in during hiring in subtle ways. Have HR audit current practices to uncover any biases:

• Review job postings for non-inclusive language, Remove unnecessarily masculine-coded words like “rockstar”

• Ensure job requirements are truly required. Extraneous qualifications reduce applicant pools.

• Mix up your interview panels. Diversity helps offset individual panelists’ biases.

• Ask the same interview questions of every candidate. Standardizing questions prevents biased ones.

• Establish structured evaluations. Use a consistent rubric for rating candidates to minimize snap subjective judgments.

Address any areas where bias could be impacting candidate selection. Set diversity hiring goals to hold your team accountable.

Extend DEI Efforts to All Stages of Hiring

Look beyond just attracting diverse candidates—also focus on selection, onboarding and career development:

• Remove identifying info from initial resume screening. This ensures impartial shortlisting.

• Train hiring managers on unconscious bias. Raise awareness of subtle biased behaviors in interviews.

• Ensure welcoming, inclusive onboarding. Assign new hire “buddies” to support integration.

• Check that early promotions and high-visibility assignments are equitable. Diversity can’t stall at junior levels.

• Mentor diverse team members. Proactively develop high-potential diverse rising stars for leadership.

Cultivate an Inclusive Culture

Simply having diversity in numbers is not enough—the culture must fully embrace inclusion.

• Make diversity and inclusion a company value, not just an HR initiative. Messaging from the top matters.

• Foster empathy and understanding through education. Offer unconscious bias and privilege awareness training.

• Encourage open dialogues about diversity issues. Provide venues like roundtables and focus groups.

• Assess inclusiveness with anonymous employee surveys. Track experiences of underrepresented groups.

• Reward inclusive behaviors. Praise leaders who demonstrate cultural competence and allyship.

• Shut down intolerant language and jokes immediately. Quickly intervene on any exclusionary behaviors.

Diverse teams thrive when the culture truly welcomes people of all backgrounds.

Support Employee Resource Groups

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) bring together employees with common interests, backgrounds or demographics. They provide support, boost engagement and give insights into the lived experiences of diverse groups.

To maximize their impact:

• Spotlight your ERGs prominently, both internally and on your website.

• Financially support ERG activities, events and goals. Provide an actual budget.

• Give ERGs executive sponsors. Having leaders actively participate shows commitment.

• Encourage ERG members to share feedback and suggestions for improving inclusion.

Leverage ERGs to both support underrepresented groups and inform DEI strategy.

Invest in Mentorship and Leadership Programs

Sponsorship initiatives that develop and elevate diverse talent are powerful.

• Initiate cross-cultural mentoring. Connect underrepresented rising stars with executive mentors.

• Seek out high-potential women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ workers for leadership training programs.

• Spotlight accomplished diverse managers internally. Let them share their career journeys.

• Nominate promising diverse team members for external recognitions and awards programs.

Giving meaningful development opportunities to diverse talent helps retain and progress them into leadership roles.

Set Representation Goals

Get granular by looking at diversity within specific roles and management levels—not just companywide demographics.

• Calculate representation gaps between leadership and overall staff.

• Set goals for improving representation of underrepresented groups in management and board positions.

• Build accountability by assigning HR or a taskforce to monitor progress on representation goals.

• Report on diversity metrics in regular updates to leadership and managers. Keep the focus ongoing.

Representation goals backed by concrete action plans will yield measurable improvement over time.

Audit Pay Equity

One important but often overlooked area of diversity is pay fairness. Take steps to ensure compensation equity:

• Perform regular audits of compensation by gender, race and other factors. Identify any unexplained gaps.

• Review performance ratings data. Look for patterns of certain groups receiving lower scores.

• Standardize compensation setting. Establish clear criteria and oversight for pay decisions.

• Be transparent about compensation philosophy. Simply hiding pay reduces perceived equity.

Compensation should be equitable regardless of demographics. Proactively monitor and validate pay fairness.

Assess Suppliers and Partners

Look beyond your own workforce—also evaluate the diversity and inclusion of partner organizations:

• Require vendors and suppliers to report on workforce demographics as part of RFPs.

• Preferentially partner with businesses owned by underrepresented groups.

• Nudge partners and suppliers to set their own diversity and inclusion goals. Offer to collaborate.

• Ask for feedback from diverse partners on how to improve. Be open to critique.

Partner with companies that share your diversity values. Together you can amplify impact.

Highlight Diverse External Role Models

Representation matters. Intentionally spotlight relevant diverse innovators, thought leaders and role models in your field.

For example:

• Cite research or quotes from diverse experts in company materials and presentations.

• Display posters and profiles of diverse pioneers in your industry around the office.

• Develop case studies on diverse leaders in your profession for learning modules.

Seeing people like them succeeding demonstrates possibilities and inspires belonging.

Use Employee Input to Guide Efforts

Regularly survey your staff anonymously to gauge the true inclusiveness of the culture. Ask:

• How welcome and included do you feel on a scale of 1-10?

• Have you experienced or witnessed any discrimination or bias?

• What can leadership do to improve diversity and inclusion?

Act decisively on constructive employee suggestions. Demonstrate you’re listening through your actions.

Incentivize Inclusion

Consider tying leader compensation and advancement to diversity and inclusion metrics. For example:

• Make inclusion a performance category on reviews. Rate leaders on demonstrated behaviors.

• Base a percentage of annual bonuses on achieving representation goals.

• Require demonstrating inclusion competencies for promotions to VP and above.

Incentives help make diversity and inclusion every leader’s responsibility, not just HR’s.

Highlight the Business Case

Continually underscore the data showing more diverse teams perform better. Cite relevant studies and examples frequently when messaging about your diversity initiatives. The business rationale matters.

When diversity is framed as a competitive advantage rather than just a feel-good initiative, it becomes a higher priority. You gain buy-in across the whole organization.

Partner With Community Organizations

Building a diverse workforce requires casting a wide net. Partner with organizations that can help you reach untapped talent pools:

• Recruit at colleges serving underrepresented student populations.

• Sponsor events and organizations supporting women, POC, LGBTQ+ professionals in your field.

• Offer internships targeted at disadvantaged and minority youth.

Strategic community partnerships expand your reach to find talented people from all backgrounds.

Make Diversity and Inclusion Ongoing Priorities

One-off diversity trainings or events make little lasting impact. Progress requires consistent, ongoing focus across all levels of the organization.

• Hold leaders accountable for regular diversity updates and metric reports.

• Designate HR business partners to each division specifically tasked with advancing inclusion.

• Block time quarterly for managers and teams to discuss diversity progress and priorities.

• Promote internal and external diversity thought leadership content daily across your platforms.

Keep diversity and inclusion top of mind constantly through both words and actions. Demonstrate it’s integral to your culture, not just a passing initiative.

The steps above provide an blueprint for making measurable progress on workplace diversity and inclusion. Review best practices from leading companies, engage employees for input, and commit to long-term culture change. Diverse teams create stronger and more innovative organizations. Prioritizing inclusion ultimately benefits both employees and the company as a whole.