Getting Employees Involved in Diversity Efforts
One reader wrote with the following question regarding getting employees involved in diversity efforts: How do you get more people to get involved? We are a big agency and have sent several emails out to bureau administrators to reach out to their employees or to join our committee which is only 7 of us. Do you have any suggestions?
1. Be clear on the goals and purpose of the committee and communicate them to employees. Goals should create a comprehensive learning strategy for employees at all levels. Executives must know how to articulate the business case for supporting diversity. Managers must learn the cross cultural skills to communicate, lead, coach, delegate, provide feedback, interview, and build diverse teams to meet their performance objectives. Employees must learn to work together respectfully, to increase productivity and enhance customer service. If employees see the diversity committee as well organized, purposeful, practical and useful, they are more likely to show interest and/or join. They will most definitely steer clear of something that looks like it is thrown together, disorganized and without purpose.
2. Identify exactly what you want them to do. Telling employees that you want them to get involved in a diversity committee is pretty vague. Let them know about the committee’s different functions and opportunities for participating. Send out a list of activities they can participate in. People are more likely to join if they have a selection to choose from, whether it’s presenting during ethnic heritage month, joining affinity groups, or participating in a focus group on serving diverse customers.
3. Identify WIIFM (what’s in it for me) Speak directly to the audience. What benefits will they receive from this? Employees need to know that they will learn new skills and ideas, reduce stress, and make their jobs more enjoyable and productive. Learning and development that is practical, contextualised, and directly applicable will be seen as a benefit, and not more work.
4. Make it accessible and fun, not more work. Don’t send out a flier inviting employee participation that sounds like a dry bureaucratic directive. Most likely, they have plenty of other work to do, and in this economy are more concerned about doing work that will help them keep their jobs. Get people interested with short and engaging shots of info, rather than asking for lengthy involvement at first.
5. Tie it to business goals. It is fine to ask employees to share their heritage by showcasing its music, art, food, artifacts and traditions, but this should be a small percentage of your diversity committee’s goals. The majority of the focus should be on identifying ways to increase productivity and innovation, attract, retain and leverage a diverse workforce and build better working relationships with customers and vendors. Be sure that activities use both short and long term tactics to achieve business goals.
