Articles 
When it comes to hot topics in the HR sphere, diversity and inclusion is no stranger to that category. But why does it remain top of mind, year after year in companies worldwide? Well, it all comes down to employees feeling like they belong, allowing for engagement and retention in the long run.
If employees feel like they don’t belong, they’re most likely to find another organization where they fit right in.
To avoid turnover and create a culture of inclusion and belonging in the workforce, it’s important to establish that initiatives related to diversity and inclusion don’t start and end when the recruiting process is over. There needs to be a company-wide objective to achieve equal opportunities and foster an inclusive workforce.
Technology can be your greatest ally when it comes to implementing DEI strategies at a company-wide level. It can help you make each employee feel they’re not just a cog in a machine but an essential and valued member of their team and the entire organization.
Driving Diversity and Inclusion with the Right Technology
Inclusive hiring is just the beginning of a much broader diversity and inclusion strategy. In order to apply a cohesive DEI plan that runs throughout the entire talent cycle, you need a platform that can help carry the weight. That’s where we come in.
Here are a few of the ways in which our extensive platform and its comprehensive solutions can help make DEI in the workplace an integrated part of your company culture.
Foster a Diverse Community
In order to enrich your diversity and inclusion efforts and build a sense of belonging, you need to lay a foundation over which to foster an ever-growing diverse community, where every individual has a say.
This would ideally be created before an employee first sets foot in your organization, to make them feel part of it from the very start. An onboarding solution allows you to welcome them through a tailored onboarding portal, where they can find information about their team, onboarding buddies and company values.
They can also find videos from peers showing them the way around and fostering a sense of belonging from their very first day. Combined with a social employee engagement solution you can enable employees to enrich their internal profiles, foster greater interaction and collaboration, and offer your workforce a centralized hub for content and resources related to DEI within your organization.
Showcasing content through storytelling can be a powerful way of connecting people and generating awareness and fostering empathy among your workforce. With Avature DNA, you can share DEI stories from employees, fostering representation and promoting a sense of belonging.
An employee engagement hub can also allow your workforce to create groups related to specific interests, building a safe space where they can always feel welcome and discuss diverse topics with other team members.
An example within our organization has been the creation of an internal group for women, brought about and moderated by Avature employees, where they share personal experiences and offer mentorship to other women within the company.
“During women’s month we got together with the excuse of a social media initiative. The exchange was amazing and in the end, it seemed like we were very grateful to have had the opportunity to talk. We realized then that it was important for us to enable a more permanent dialogue, and that we wanted to spread the word because probably there are more Avaturian-women interested in this type of initiative. That’s when we decided to create what we like to call “a conversatory of women for women” (we use an inclusive definition of women). One space for us to encounter and connect, sharing experiences, ideas and reflections with gender perspective.”
– Barbara Engelen, Internal Training Manager at Avature.
Building a workforce that also feels like a community can be achieved by reaching out to employees and letting them engage in a space where they don’t feel judged or overlooked.
“It’s important to enable these spaces for recognition. A place where we can meet with others who have similar experiences or tastes. To be able to talk about what happens to us and read about others who have gone or are going through the same thing, without feeling that there is a possibility of being judged. Speak freely, build community and belonging.”
– Gabriela Fourcade, Marketing Team Lead, Sponsored Events at Avature.
Communicate Your Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
Once you’ve started implementing your DEI initiatives, you need to make sure your workforce is aware. There are many different ways you can reach your employees to showcase your diversity and inclusion opportunities. Here are a few:
- With an employee engagement solution, you can communicate and highlight the efforts and achievements of fellow colleagues. Employees can praise and comment on their peers’ publications, creating and inspiring an inclusive work culture.
- Promote events and gatherings, encouraging interaction among employees who may not necessarily have contact on a daily basis. You can invite employees to social gatherings where they can meet people in diverse teams, promote teambuilding through sports activities and communicate DEI-related events, like webinars, that they may find interesting.
- With a comprehensive platform that allows for collecting employee information and data, you’ll be able to understand who they are and what they are interested in. Paired with powerful segmentation capabilities, you can tailor the content presented to them to keep the experience constantly relevant to them.
- Through branded email campaigns, you’ll enable a communication channel where your workforce can learn all about specific DEI initiatives within your organization. You can also send surveys or forms where they can provide feedback.
- Underrepresented minorities can sometimes feel that internal opportunities are not an option for them. When it comes to letting them know about career opportunities and advancements inside the company, you’ll be able to promote open positions and recommendations with a comprehensive internal mobility solution.
Using targeted adverts that showcase interesting internal opportunities, you can encourage them to apply, fostering a more diverse workforce and leveling the playing field for everyone.
Measure Your Efforts and Track Results with Diversity and Inclusion Technology
DEI can mean different things to different companies, and it’s important to have configurable technology that can adapt to your specific strategies. Once you’ve defined what diversity success means to you and what your company goals are regarding DEI in the workplace, it’s essential that all your efforts are measured with tools that will allow you to track and analyze your results.
A diversity dashboard can serve as a visual aid for HR teams, managers and executive leadership to evaluate all diversity and inclusion efforts in place. With Avature, you can create dashboards for each stakeholder group, showing only KPIs that are relevant to them, personalizing goals and setting filters according to what they need to view. This enables a deeper understanding of what needs improvement as well as what is lacking.
By scheduling reports and sharing them regularly, you can hold leadership accountable and make your workforce aware of the company’s DEI status. This way, they can all feel part of the efforts that are being carried out, and leverage the diversity and inclusion tools available to them.
To conclude…
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to diversity and inclusion. But there is one platform that can open up an endless amount of possibilities for your efforts, with solutions working together to create a comprehensive DEI ecosystem. Once goals are set, the only limit is the amount of creativity and thoughtfulness that goes into it.
It’s time to embrace DEI technology to implement a one-platform approach to foster an inclusive workforce and a diverse community. This way, you can celebrate differences, generate a sense of belonging and empower employees by encouraging them to be their true selves at work. And don’t forget: once the papers are signed and offers are accepted, the DEI journey is just beginning.
