Diversity, equity and inclusion should be core to business and that means emphasising how it delivers on business priorities, the UnderOne Festival heard yesterday.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [DEI] needs to be made relevant at a team level in order to align it better with core business principles and tackle resistance, a conference heard yesterday.
A session at the UnderOne Festival at the University of Northampton on how to align DEI and business drivers heard how important it is that DEI is not seen as fluffy and is seen as being crucial to business needs and to a wide number of employees. DEI embraces everything from race, sex and disability to age.
Alan Holmes, Global Head of DEI at international law firm Clyde & Co, talked about the need to ensure people in teams such as engineering see DEI as relevant to, for instance, designing better products and saving money in the longer term. He said: “By making it relevant and integrated into how they think about business, it suddenly opens up doors. We need to understand what motivates different stakeholders on a day to day basis and how DEI plays a role in that. That way we will get more investment and engagement.”
He added that his firm offers 26 weeks of equal parental leave around the globe. He said such policies are often questioned in terms of whether businesses can afford them in ways that maternity policies are not. To counter this requires good financial analysis showing that such policies don’t have a negative impact as they significantly increase engagement. His firm’s analysis shows that there was a 21% increase in high potential employees who are parents saying they would stay at the firm as a result of the policy. They showed the savings that meant in terms of recruitment. Holmes said it is important to talk to managers in terms that they consider important, such as financial costs, and to encourage managers to be involved in outreach to different groups. The DEI team should not give them the option not to be in spaces where they may feel uncomfortable, he said.
Sybil Taunton, Head of DEI at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said the Institute’s role is as thought leaders so DEI is core to that. It also trains and develops line managers in the industry and can show the ripple effect of taking discrimination issues seriously. She also talked about the wider social impact of DEI. DEI is a key part of the Institute’s approach to Environmental social and governance. For instance, in building design accessibility for people with disabilities is crucial. “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is not just about HR. It is about everything we do,” she said.
Asif Sadiq, chief DEI officer at Warner Bros Discovery, said the language of DEI needs to be woven into business priorities, for instance, in terms of expansion, it should emphasise the need to move into new diverse markets. In his business, authentic representation, ie characters who are not based on stereotypes, is a way of engaging with new markets in a world where wealth is changing hands and the financial situation is such that businesses have to seek new markets.
Sadiq added that Warner Bros has a 12-month programme for leaders which includes four modules linked to business needs and DI as well as coaching circles so managers can reflect on these. That means leaders have to engage and understand that it is okay to make mistakes. “The feedback has been fantastic,” he said. “It helps leaders to understand their role and responsibility.”
He added that it also means managers have to think about the solutions that might work in their team rather than defer to DEI teams who are not specialists in their area. He added that storytelling is also important to get the business message across about the importance of DEI. For Holmes’ line of business, however, data-specific evidence of impact on the firm is what matters, not best practice in other firms or industries.
Sadiq said a recent McKinsey study suggesting DEI is not good for business didn’t ask the right questions. It is clear that tick box DEI is not effective, but blanket assumptions can’t be made about DEI. Good DEI is about changing the culture and creating psychological safety and is a continuous process, he stated.
The UnderOne Festival is the brainchild of DEI leader Lydiah Igweh, host of the Race Forward podcast, who has been working on it for a year and half with an advisory board who represent a wide range of sectors from hospitality to media to mental health. She told workingmums.co.uk: “DEI work is really hard and it’s a journey that is continuous. I wanted to unite people from different parts of the world and learn from what they are doing. I wanted somewhere that would also offer a safe space and a focus on wellness, which would provide a breath of fresh air. Somewhere where people can share best practice and create momentum and movement, but also somewhere where we could say this work is a lot.”