Businesses know the benefit of creating a more diverse environment.

Employees from different backgrounds, ability levels and experiences help to fill gaps that may not have otherwise been identifiable, and makes a company stronger as a whole.

But the path to get there has been more challenging than it seems. Fraught with missteps, roadblocks and resistance, developing more inclusive teams is deeper than just face-value.

As with any smart brand move, goals begin with strong strategies in place – inclusive company culture is no different.

Here, Kike Ojo-Thompson, founder and CEO of the KOJO Institute, a leader in equity consulting, has real advice for organizations looking to go beyond diversity “quotas” and buzzwords to create truly equitable environments.

How can businesses work meaningfully away from “just talking” about creating an inclusive environment towards taking action?

Equity work is about the elimination of disproportionalities and disparities. So, leaders who want action-oriented equity strategies need to first understand what inequities actually require attention in their organization. That knowledge comes from being curious about what employees of different identities – especially marginalized ones – are facing, as well as how clients or customers experience the organization. Surveys and focus groups are just a couple of the ways organizations can begin collecting this data.

Culture is also a huge factor that organizations should be considering. The organizations that see the most meaningful change with their equity strategies are the ones that build a culture that values the naming and addressing of equity issues. This should include systemic racism, which is most often avoided, dismissed or minimized. One of the keys of shifting organizational culture towards equity is intentionally incentivizing the work. Leaders need to develop, implement and maintain clear rewards for equitable behaviour and consequences for oppressive actions.

Kike Ojo-Thompson is an award-winning equity thought leader. She is renowned for her work and expertise as an anti-racism and anti-Black racism educator, speaker and organizational change facilitator. She has spent 20 years guiding public and private organizations across a broad range of sectors towards more equitable outcomes.

What are some specific examples or initiatives that make a real difference? What do those strategies look like?

There are several specific strategies and initiatives that make a real difference for equity. One is the use of accountability frameworks. This means a system to track, monitor, evaluate and report on key metrics that indicate the progress and performance of both individuals and the organizations as a whole. Some helpful data includes hiring, retention and promotion rates of equity-deserving groups; proportionate representation of marginalized people in leadership positions; and reports of positive workplace experiences from equity-deserving professionals in the organization. Without data, it is impossible to know whether DEI efforts are creating any significant change.

Another effective DEI practice is to implement mechanisms outside of HR that make it safe and easy for staff at any level to inform leadership or decision-makers about issues. An example of such a mechanism is an open-door policy, which allows employees to voice their issues with inequity with anyone above them, from their direct manager to the CEO. This kind of policy signals to staff that equity is an organization-wide priority. It also gives employees multiple effective avenues to have their equity issues addressed.

Implementing reporting mechanisms that move beyond HR doesn’t mean that Human Resources departments don’t have an important role to play in DEI initiatives. In fact, HR can and should be a key asset in an organization’s equity plan. That first requires that the Human Resources department is re-oriented to support DEI work. Typically, most organizations see HR as intended to protect organizational leaders. However, that can often mean that equity issues are ignored or dismissed when leaders are implicated.  However, if the organization can reframe HR as a tool designed to protect the organization, then everything shifts. It then becomes HR’s role to act in alignment with the organization’s policies, mission, vision and values, including those related to DEI.

What are some obstacles that the BIPOC community is running into when it comes to hiring and company advancement? 

Many organizations’ DEI efforts lack an intersectional lens, and they fail to use disaggregated identity-based data. So, it is difficult to get a real picture of the differential outcomes amongst communities described by the term BIPOC. Grouping all the communities in that acronym together suggests that all non-white people are having the same experiences and can be supported with the same strategies. However the data is clear: Black and Indigenous people are having far worse outcomes than people of colour (who we refer to as racialized).

This is why we don’t use BIPOC at KOJO Institute. It ignores the reality of race and racism that is at the very root of racial inequity. The outcome disparities among non-white people are a result of the value attached to various groups’ phenotypes/phenotypical features. More simply, whiteness is privileged, and the closer a person or community is to whiteness, the more of that privilege they receive. The global reality is that Asian and South Asian people are not responded to the same way that people of African descent are, so the issues of racism they face are different.

What this means is that businesses must be intentional and specific in their DEI initiatives. They should be rooting their actions and strategies in what they glean from disaggregated identity-based data. Rather than treating all non-white people and their experiences as a monolith, they should seek to understand how various equity-deserving groups are being impacted. That will allow them to create strategies that specifically address the issues at hand.

What are some obstacles businesses are running into when it comes to creating a more inclusive environment? How can they overcome those challenges?

Organizations are often unprepared for the level of resistance that comes up when equity work is introduced. Even more challenging, that resistance can sometimes come from the community and powerful stakeholders, which can make it difficult for organizational leaders to know how to move forward. The reality is that resistance is a normal and expected part of equity work, and it would serve leaders well to not only expect it but create a plan to address it so that their DEI commitments are not stalled or thwarted.

This means that leaders have to be intentional and proactive about bringing the community and stakeholders along regarding the issues facing equity-deserving groups. They should be consistently and openly communicating about the inequities they’re addressing and being clear about how their choices align with the organization’s DEI goals. Think of companies like McDonald’s who were public and deliberate about their effort to address anti-Black racism with their Black & Positively Golden scholarship. The goal is to communicate to the community and stakeholders where your organization stands on equity.