What is DEIA? 

We believe in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. Each word in that acronym is necessary for consideration when developing a strategy, plans, and policies.   

Diversity: bringing together diversity of thought that comes from a team comprised of individuals with different life experiences. 

Large scale organizations might put goals in place like “hire more Asian women” as if diversity is that simple. People are fighting against the hiring the “white male” candidate in favor of other “diverse” candidates. Although gender identity and race are a huge part of the way we experience life and the associated stereotypes, to reduce a person to these two dimensions is a disservice. There are so many wonderful things that make up a human being and the combination of those things are what create diversity of thought in an organization. I encourage company leadership and hiring managers to not only acknowledge these highly discussed characteristics, but to also look at their workforce and appreciate the diversity of the people that work for the organization. 

Equity: means treating people fairly based on their lived experience and giving them the tools to succeed.  

Equity belongs to this group because it signifies treating people with equal amounts of respect, which means treating people differently.  In the workplace I must respect those above me and those below me, and I will engage with each person in a way that is appropriate for that relationship while still maintaining the same level of respect and appreciation for their contributions. Some people may need more or different support than others but that doesn’t make them any less valuable.

Inclusion: involves empowering and encouraging people to participate in the conversation. 

This takes a deliberate action by leadership and managers. To be inclusive means to create an environment where everyone feels confident and comfortable sharing their opinions and ideas. This will look different for every person leading other people depending on the makeup of the team. There are of course general guidelines to follow but to create a checklist and mark things off is not enough to change a culture that doesn’t already foster this kind of contribution of all employees. 

Accessibility: allowing for participation of people with different abilities.   

Accessibility is a critical part of all organizations because to ignore it is to deny that differently abled people contribute to a meaningful conversation about the workplace culture, what it takes to advance in an organization, how work is completed, as well as adding to the creativity in problem solving for an organization. 

We have worked with NASA for years now and when it comes to mission success, failure is not an option. There is a huge difference between allowing for small failures that produce learning opportunities and mission failure. People don’t think of their organizations that way, some believing they are too big to fail. This mindset needs to be applied to building a successful organization full of talented and motivated individuals.   

Now more than ever people are using word of mouth or rating platforms to assess whether they work at a company or not. Ex-employees are candidly sharing their experience at organizations that may prevent talented individuals from considering applying even if that organization has begun to improve. Companies that do embrace DEIA as the right thing to invest in are the ones that will experience success while the rest will suffer from low productivity and the high cost of high attrition rates. People don’t have the same loyalty to an employer they used to because it isn’t required for a successful career. Throwing in the towel and saying we can’t make everyone happy, so we won't bother trying is making your company vulnerable to competitors that are getting it right. 

There is so much literature supporting that companies that are successful at DEIA initiatives are seeing the return on investment in their bottom line. The United States Federal government put out a DEIA Strategic Plan that is a great document to review if you are beginning your journey to create and implement your own DEIA strategy. The ROI might be the reason your company is willing to fund DEIA initiatives, but you will find it a challenging yet rewarding experience. 

We are passionate about helping organizations improve their workplace culture and talent strategy, I wrote about what DEIA means to me to explain why we are using our technical expertise to tackle this problem. If you’re not sure where to start, Contact Us!