If you are serious about achieving equity, diversity and inclusion in your organisation, putting a dedicated plan in place is key to achieve an understanding of where you are starting from, what measures you intend to put in place to support your desired outcomes and how you can track the effectiveness of these over the longer term.
Planning is not just about setting the right goals, but also ensuring that they are achieved by creating a clear understanding of what needs to be done and how.
Without a good plan, individuals may not understand their role and responsibilities when working towards achieving your ED&I objectives. They may also struggle with how best to contribute their skills or knowledge towards improving diversity at work.
By planning an effective ED&I strategy, you can act as a guide as well as set objectives that will help you achieve diversity within your workforce
It's important to remember that ED&I is not just about increasing diversity; it's also about creating a more inclusive workplace which benefits everyone in the organisation and provides opportunities for all existing or potential employees regardless of their background or circumstances.
The process of developing an ED&I strategy should begin with a clear assessment of what resources are required to achieve organisational goals. It will also include a plan for how to get there including milestones, timescales and potential barriers – as well as assessing whether your organisation has the resources needed to achieve its equity, diversity and inclusion objectives.
Defining your ED&I strategy
You need to define what you want to achieve, how and by when. This will help you create a roadmap for reaching your targets and identify the stakeholders you will need to get involved in your ED&I strategy.
Some of the things your strategy should consider include:
Understanding your current workforce
Reviewing your workplace culture
Assessing competitors and industry peers
Engaging your recruitment partner
Of course, as you would expect with such a complex topic there are many more details and nuances to take into account. If you’re committed to making meaningful progress within your organisation, we’ve created a free, extensive ED&I guide which provides further insight and advice to help your organisation shape a diversity and inclusion strategy around your own goals.
Thinking about the end goal
When it comes to achieving outcomes through your organisation's ED&I strategy, it's important to remember that there are two key things you need to keep in mind:
First, be realistic about the results your business can achieve. The key here is to set achievable goals, and then make sure that everyone on your team knows what they are.
Second, keep the focus on outcomes. Remember that this is not just about filling quotas - you're trying to change the culture of your organisation so that everyone feels welcome and included.
Taking the first step
With a clear plan in place to define your organisation’s ED&I journey, you can avoid costly mistakes and ensure that your organisation is on track to meet its goals. This is where engaging your recruitment partner comes in. Your recruitment partner can provide you with expertise that you may not have in-house, such as understanding what diversity means and how it applies to your workplace, as well as providing guidance on how best to engage with different communities in order to attract more diverse candidates.
We know that developing and implementing an equity, diversity and inclusion strategy can seem daunting, so we’re always on hand to help organisations take those first steps. Supporting them along the way to ensure they’re developing the right objectives for their organisations and have the correct processes and initiatives in place.
If you’d like to learn how we could assist your organisation, please feel free to contact one of our teams.