It is very surprising to see employers think that diversity and inclusion (D&I) is an end game of an organization that will lead to greater profitability, stability, and harmony. The truth, though, is the opposite. D&I is simply a tool for engagement strategies that may or may not create an environment of greater productivity and engagement. The employee community is greater than D&I and encompasses the passion and drive of employees to meet both internal and external customer needs.
D&I has become the centerpiece of many organizations’ efforts. Yet, D&I has had its share of negative connotations, with many thinking, whether rightly or wrongly, that physical characteristics and demographics are more important than passion, performance, and merit. Adding in the anti-political correctness movement that helped sweep in change in the last election, many employees look at D&I with derision and disdain. For example, former Google employee James Damore wrote an ill-informed memo on the gender differences in technology workers. In many circles he was hailed a hero for “speaking the truth.”
Like affirmative action, many equate D&I to quotas, which on its face is discriminatory. For example, Sodexo “found” in internal studies that an approximate 60%/40% male to female makeup of teams is the most productive. Michael Landel, the CEO of Sodexo wrote in the February 2015 McKinsey quarterly article, “We analyzed data from 50,000 managers across 90 entities around the world, and the results are compelling. They clearly show that teams with a male–female ratio between 40 and 60 percent produce results that are more sustained and predictable than those of unbalanced teams.” He then committed to having teams with that ratio and to increase women’s representation in management ranks. There may be direct liability with this commitment, no matter how good the intentions are.
D&I is not affirmative action. The end goal of affirmative action is to provide a historically discriminated against group advantages that they have not experienced before. For example, globally, in 2008 Norway required companies to reserve at least 40% of their director seats for women or be dissolved. The following five years found more than a dozen countries setting similar quotas at 30% to 40%. Has it worked? The results are mixed. There are not enough qualified women to be on the boards. Many new directors are younger and thus have less or no experience as more seasoned directors or chief executives, says Lisa Barlow of Egon Zehnder, an executive-search firm, in Paris.
Further, a 2015 study in France also found that based on interviews with 24 board members, the country’s new quota system led to changes in the process of boards’ decision-making, but not the substance of decisions, such as whether to approve lay-offs. It also found that the process did not change because the new members were women, but because they were likely to be outsiders.
Affirmative action and diversity are not exclusive of each other, but do crossover in part, because affirmative action can provide a base for demographic statistics and at times, have similar end results.
Therefore, D&I strategies focus on engaging the internal (and at times the external) communities. For the employer, the focus must be the customer experience and employee passion to meet the customers’ needs Moreover, the employee community should represent the customer community and local community in which it is situated. At times employers will need to take a step further from what is to what should be when dealing with the communities. D&I helps with these actions.
It is important that employers recognize that first, they cannot engage all employees at the same level of commitment. However, employers need to make available to all employees the tools with which they can become engaged, for example soft skills, management and leadership training, and competency and capacity building. They need to stroke the passion of employees to focus on their customers. Like many communities, there are the unengaged, the marginalized, and the fringe. D&I strategies may not reach these populations.
Second, beliefs are the most difficult to change, and rarely do. Therefore, the employer’s focus should be on attitudes. Like society in general, employers can set the parameters how the employees may interact. The employee community will exist within the framework the employer establishes. The more consistency of enforcement of the parameters, including the senior level, the more accepting of the parameters the employees will be. Consistency of actions are the key.
Finally, the employer must focus on the internal communications that builds fire to employees’ passions to satisfy customer needs. Management needs to walk the talk. The employer has to be cognizant of its efforts and constantly align the changing employee community to be externally focused. In a Twitter ranting world, inconsistent actions and speech opens the floodgate for criticism. There is no one magic bullet, D&I included, to create a high performing, passionate, customer focused employee community.
Source: The Economist 2/17/18; McKinsey Quarterly 2/15/18