Cyber Insiders - Magazine - Page 9
Organisations also need to have good management
processes and a clear career framework so that people
feel invested, seen, and have a strong sense of
workplace fairness. DE&I should be viewed as an
inclusive and ongoing company-wide endeavour, not a
quick fix or one off project for HR.
What can employers do to drive meaningful
DE&I change?
Good communication is key to long-term and impactful
change. Once an organisation has decided what it
wants to achieve with DE&I and why, those values and
motivators need to be anchored into the business. Yes,
your initiatives may need tweaked in the future due to
changing circumstances, but they should be so deeply
embedded they are not scattered to the wind in the
face of upheaval and periods of uncertainty.
Another key thing organisations need to do is invest in
their people as a whole person not just a technical
person. This can be like investing in employee
wellbeing programme, implementing work life balance
measures, and regular check-ins with their managers.
The most important thing is that employees feel valued
as individuals and that we proactively bring them into
the DE&I conversation.
What’s the secret sauce to improving DE&I?
It always comes back to honesty and communication. If
you’re implementing changes or launching new
initiatives, tell people where you are in that journey,
what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Now, they
may not like what you have to say, but at least they
know and can make an informed adult decision about
it. Words like “transformation” or “change” can be
scary for employees and if you do not communicate
clearly to your people what’s going on and why, they
will fill in the blanks themselves and mostly likely they
will imagine a worst-case scenario.
Keeping people in the dark or coming across as
disingenuous will rapidly drive down psychological
safety, employee wellbeing and engagement.
Openness and transparency are essential for building
organisational trust and employee loyalty. No people
process is ever perfect, you can map out your plan with
expert precision but still only get 80% of it right, and it’s
ok not to be perfect and to admit that.
It’s ok to say, “I don’t know” or “we didn’t think about
that” and maybe you’re saying that because there
wasn’t enough of a diverse group in the room.