We need Innovative approaches for Impactful Inclusion.
I would like to dwell on the aspects of broadening the focus on inclusion and diversity and suggest innovative approaches to drive impactful inclusion.
Generally speaking, a lot more still needs to be done to include women at all levels in all areas of decision making across industries. For this to become far reaching new approaches will have to be adopted.Barriers
A big barrier preventing women from rising up in workplaces, especially those coming from Tier-3 cities and socially backward locations is the lack of confidence owing to lack of exposure.
For this, corporates need to hire from more from smaller locations while enabling skill-gap bridging. Programs tailored to hone their inter-personal and managerial skills will be valuable in helping them become more confident and well rounded.
Aside from this, women are more often than not ignored or interrupted during team meetings, talked over, excluded from informal interactions, having someone else take credit for their work. To tide over this, organisations should carry out sensitisation programmes to enhance conscious inclusion. Having male allies at work goes a long way in women’s career progression.
On top of this more transparency when it comes to performance evaluation, promotion and succession planning are a must.
Policy and Culture
From an overall standpoint, a combination of policy changes and cultural shifts to create an environment where more women can rise to leadership positions in workplaces is essential. It requires concerted efforts from both the public and private sectors, as well as a shift in societal norms and perceptions.
Flexible work schedules, work-life balance regulations, gender equal policies, workforce training on biases, celebrating and promoting male allyship, providing affordable childcare, rolling out women’s mentorship programs and being bold to hire more women based on potential and appoint them in senior leadership positions can not onlyincrease their participation in the labour force but also increase diversity at senior management levels and pave way for more role models for other women to look up to and emulate.
Inclusion and diversity need to go beyond gender to include competent and employable differently abled persons and people from under-represented sections of the society.
Different kind of disabilities exist:
Many types of disabilities are non-apparent, or sometimes called “invisible.” Some common examples of disabilities include:
- Physical disabilities
- Psychiatric disabilities
- Speech and language disabilities
- Medical disabilities
- Learning disabilities
- Neurodiverse abilities
- Deafness or being hard of hearing
- Blindness or low vision
- Brain injuries
- Attention-deficit disabilities
Neurodiversity means a person’s brain works differently than most other people’s. That could be verbal vs. nonverbal. Some common (yet not exhaustive) forms of neurodiversity are:
- ADHD
- Autism
- Asperger syndrome
Everyday acts of inclusion matter. It’s often this everyday behavior that people are judged by as inclusive leaders. That means taking action. Some ideas for advocating for those with disabilities are:
- Adjustments to work hours and office layouts
- Specialized equipment to accommodate needs
- Interpreters and closed captions for those with vision or hearing disabilities
Use of appropriate language
To be more inclusive of folks with disabilities in the workplace, consider using people-first language. People-first language acknowledges a person beyond their current condition and sees their full identity, as opposed to limiting them to their disability. A few examples are given below:
- Saying “person with a disability” rather than “disabled person”
- Saying “person with autism” rather than “autistic person”
Allyship
- Sensitising the workforce to treat people with respect as they would do others
- Engaging in conversations with curiosity to demonstrate your support
- Volunteering at organizations that support those with disabilities
- Expanding your network to those with disabilities to learn from them
- Hiring drives focussed on this section for work that suits their capabilities
- Championing their cause in public platforms
In summary we need to be resolute and determined to holistically embrace diversity and ensure genuine inclusion at workplace. By taking the approaches outlined above it may be possible to evolve workplaces into truly diverse places that provide space not only for people of different genders and sections but also those with disabilities.
