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Inclusion: Controversial, Emotional, but Not Optional for Business Today

 

by Deborah Levine

Inclusion-related policies and legal regulations have long been part of economic and social change, and, at times, part of emotional and combustible debate.  The details of inclusion took 50 years of wrangling after the first Women’s Suffrage conference in the mid-1800s to achieve a constitutional amendment granting women the vote.  It took another 50 years for the Civil Rights Movement to seriously impact the workplace and establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Today, we are again seeing a major societal and economic transformation, and the issues are immensely complex: religious diversity, LGBT issues, regional and international culture clashes, generational and class differences as well as long-standing issues of race, ethnicity, and gender. Further, thanks to the vocal, visual, and non-stop world of social networking, controversy is rampant around diversity, multicultural, and pluralism issues.  No longer is there a time frame of 50 years for these controversies to filter through our social and legal systems.

As a nation, we are heading towards a shared focus on the economy of the future. We aspire to new and diverse markets, innovation and Big Picture thinking, STEM expertise, global and local investment/jobs, as well as cross-cultural and multilingual expertise. Yet, the inclusion debate is often mired in emotional baggage just when we need to move forward with the knowledge, experience and problem solving skills that Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) brings to the table.

At one end of the emotional spectrum is the movement to jettison regulations and diversity and inclusion policies sees freedom from lawsuits and time-consuming training.  For these companies, there is often a downsizing of diversity departments or elimination of them altogether.  However, is there a resulting decline in the importance of diversity in the workplace? According to compliance experts, the number of complaints filed under EEOC guidelines multiplied since the economic downturn of 2008. The complaints reflect the employees’ improved awareness of their rights and heightened emotions and fears of losing their jobs. Rather than less conflict, new areas of complaints are emerging, including claims of disability and religious discrimination.

On the other end of the emotional spectrum, are those demanding equity economically, academically and socially.  Frustrated with declining resources, services and opportunity, there is a desire to re-investment in social justice. This movement isn’t limited to the underserved, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised.  Rather, it is championed by diverse communities, including economists who view the lack of inclusion and equity as a major fault line in the economy. Whether in recruitment, team-building, marketing, sales, retention, entrepreneurship, or leadership, D&I is increasingly seen as central and necessary to economic success.

Regardless of which end of the spectrum a company finds itself, inclusion professionals will be needed to advise on diversity-related conflicts.  The current contentious environment will result in an increasingly smaller windows for conflict resolution before they are pushed into the legal arena. Rejecting diversity-related requirements and policies might seem helpful in the short run, but is likely to result in more, not less, confusion and disarray. Further, Human Resource Departments are often not equipped to replace diversity departments in managing the growing complexities of a diverse workforce, changing recruitment needs, and local-global cultural differences.

The ability to create a basic inclusion plan and then customize it for specific targets is the hallmark of an expert D&I professional. This is how inclusion strategies become key to the successful business of the future, rather than a burden.  The strategies must be embedded into the business plan before there is a crisis and be re-visited when there is a crisis.  They must be designed with sophistication, wisdom, and flexibility and consider an array of players and consequences, past, present, and future. 

Too many inclusion initiatives fail, or even make a situation worse, because they are designed with hope rather than expertise.  For example, vertical diversity training that involves everyone in a department from the supervisor to a seasonal part-time worker in the same room, at the same time, is idealistic rather than practical.  Every department with a conflict, each layer of leadership with an under-performing diverse team, every cultural community demanding to be heard, and every company with a diversity-related PR problem has a distinctive situation with numerous variables that are assembled differently and change rapidly.  This is why inclusion is such a difficult, complex challenge, and yet, such a necessary one to address from beginning to end, and on a continual basis.   

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Deborah Levine is an inclusion strategist, editor of the American Diversity Report, award-winning author of the Matrix Model Management System, and consultant with aQQolade, Inc.

deborah@americandiversityreport.com
https://www.facebook.com/DiversityReport

 

 

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