Last week we had the pleasure of discussing Diversity and Inclusion with senior HR in Tech/ FinTech. The morning was chaired by Ama Afrifa-Tchie, People Experience Director at iTEch Media.
Some of the points discussed were:
Who is responsible?
Diversity and inclusion is everyone’s responsibility. Though it is difficult to initiate change unless it the message is coming from the top down.
Influence: how do we change the mindsets of decision-makers within the business? 360 feedback was something that came up a lot in the discussion. Implementing scorecards, discussing at appraisals, setting targets/ goals measuring against metrics to achieve over the course of the year. Communication is key – ensuring the message is consistent but flex to suit your audience.
Engagement: People have found it useful to not only engage senior leadership to promote diversity and inclusion but to build relationships with peers of leaders and the next level down. Creating D&I champions so to speak, this will ensure the message is spread faster and in places senior leadership don’t typically reach.
Immerse: A challenge that can be faced is educating around a certain topic/problem, then ensuring that people are going back into the business and implementing into day to day life. An idea could be to introduce an immersive training programme around unconscious bias using anonymous real-life case-studies from people in the business. How are people feeling now, in your team? Hopefully, this will have more of an effective impact on leadership and managers by raising their awareness and in turn championing diversity and inclusion.
Include: Implementing an initiative that allows a “diverse” member of staff to sit with leadership and discuss how they feel they are included within the business. What do they feel could have helped to ensure that they feel part of a team and a valued member of the business?
Recruitment: ‘culture fit’ is something that I am sure all recruiters are familiar with, but what does that mean exactly? Some businesses leadership feel they need X but when educated around D&I, Y might be a better solution. Education is key with recruitment processes. Pushing back on hiring managers asking them why they feel this person needs to have X personality or Y degree. Unconscious bias training will be able to help address this.
External branding: It goes without saying if you have a diverse team – promote this externally. Social media is a cost-effective way of delivering these messages (along with your website). Short video clips of what it is like to work for your organisation are very effective.
The event was a huge success with a fantastic contribution from every attendee. The next event will be held in February. We are keen to hear from Senior HR talent in the tech space who would be interested in attending.