Diversity, Inclusion and Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Project Management
Written By Guest User

Every individual should be provided equal opportunity to thrive at work based on their performance alone, regardless of diversity characteristics. Beyond fairness and equality on the individual level, forward-thinking organisations are recognising the business benefits of a diverse workforce such as higher levels of innovation, retention, and profitability than more homogenous counterparts.

We are now at a stage where nearly every company outwardly embraces diversity, but marketing messaging alone does little to address root cause issues that impede true diversity. Lip service is not the answer. To meaningfully increase diversity and facilitate long-term workplace progression for minorities, leaders must focus on structural factors rather than just representation numbers. Diversity programs that focus on recruitment quotas and targets without addressing underlying organisational behaviour will only serve to put minority groups in a position to fail. Some research suggests that diversity interventions such as quotas that focus on controlling managers can trigger resentment and rebellion [1]. A recent CIPD report [2] concludes that building an ‘inclusive’ organisation that fundamentally values individual differences is the key to providing a positive environment that enables a diverse workforce to thrive. In inclusive environments, employees should feel a sense of belonging in which they are made comfortable to be their authentic selves and feel valued in their contributions to decision-making. Advocacy that only pays lip service to diversity and inclusion or only invests in ‘quick wins’ such as diversity training is unlikely to have positive long-term effects.

Every industry should be pursuing the transformational changes a diverse workplace provides and while some sectors have made significant progress, construction and infrastructure are behind the curve. Only four percent of workers in the UK construction industry are from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background, despite representing 12.8% of the UK population [3].

Why Does This Matter?

As consultants, we need to provide a fresh perspective to clients to find innovative and effective solutions to problems. A homogenous environment can result in limited perspectives and, in turn, may result in the consensus and deployment of suboptimal solutions. Diverse workplaces have been shown to have 2.3x higher cash flow per employee and 3 out of 4 candidates prefer working for diverse companies, meaning diverse organisations will continue to outpace any competition that is failing to attract the best available talent [4].

A psychologically safe workplace is one in which employees feel empowered to be their authentic selves at work, exhibiting any part of their identity without fear of judgement or exclusion. Members of a psychologically safe team can freely express their work-related thoughts and feelings to their colleagues without fear of rejection or negative consequences. Psychological safety was found to be the most significant success factor across high-performance teams in Google’s Project Aristotle [5].

The benefits of psychological safety are extensive, including [6]:

  • Improved innovation, creativity and ultimately performance

  • Higher staff retention

  • Better communication and reliability

  • Increased profitability

What Are The Solutions?

To build a truly inclusive culture, a holistic approach is needed to implement systems that shape practices and norms at every level of the business. Where possible, targeted interventions should be informed by collecting data on individual-level feelings of inclusion and extra resource drain can be mitigated by including questions on diversity and inclusion in existing feedback surveys [2]. Self-reported data should be complemented by analysis of diversity metrics in existing workforce data at every stage of the people management process, not just recruitment (see figure) [2]. Assembling a voluntary ‘diversity task force’ made up of senior managers is a cost-effective way to evaluate diversity and inclusion numbers regularly, serving to both engage management in promoting diversity and encourage accountability through exposure to problems [1]. Due to contextual factors such as locality and the subtleties of unconscious bias, it is only once a comprehensive data set that is specific to your business is established that meaningful interventions can be realised (see figure for specific examples).

To create a psychologically safe environment for all employees to thrive in, here are four steps to ensure diversity is a pillar of your company:

  1. Encourage company-wide coaching/mentoring

    Actively bridging the gap between leaders and more junior team members through mentorship schemes can help to overcome the natural tendency to similarity bias that influences employee progression

  2. Create robust feedback mechanisms

    Intuition or ‘gut feel’ is always subject to bias in performance evaluation and informal communication, seek to make your processes as scientific and data-driven as possible

  3. Adopt flat hierarchy principles

    Companies should embed diversity across all levels and work to build careers of minority hires through consistent engagement opportunities with senior leaders

  4. Create a culture of trust

    Transparency is key to building trust. Organisations should consider sharing diversity data such as pay equity and promotion rates by demographic

At Deecon we pride ourselves on our flat hierarchy and a very open, transparent and welcoming workplace culture. We acknowledge that the journey to a diverse, psychologically safe and inclusive environment is a long one, that requires constant commitment and effort. The path to a transformed workplace doesn’t begin with gestures and lip service, it begins with hard foundational work and a strategic plan to execute, embed and grow practices that support diversity from strength to strength.

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