By Pete Mercer, Head of Research and Development, Diversity Works New Zealand

Companies are making a significant investment into attracting and recruiting diverse talent, but it’s a wasted effort if we don’t value, motivate or retain those people.

How can organisations shift mindsets, behaviours and practices to harness the power of diversity by driving equitable employee experiences, rather than letting diverse talent walk out the door?

A former colleague once described efforts that concentrate on increasing diversity without also focusing on creating inclusive practices and culture as being like selling tickets to an event that doesn’t yet exist. It’s a metaphor that works because it describes employers attempting to recruit more diverse talent with promises of inclusion, but not ensuring that this rings true when new team members arrive.

I prefer to think of it as like trying to drink water from a colander. Just like water retention in a hole-ridden vessel, this approach is ultimately a losing game. You can recruit people from under-represented groups all you like – filling that colander with more water – but if you don’t create a safe, welcoming and fair environment for them to thrive in, you will lose that talent very quickly, setting your organisation back and bruising people’s mental wellbeing and resilience in the process.

This is why focusing on diversity and increasing the number of people from under‑represented groups in your organisation, without considering how they will be treated when they get to your organisation, ultimately doesn’t work – diversity simply cannot thrive without inclusion.

Instead, you can choose to see diversity as a metric for whether your practices and working environments are equitable and inclusive, rather than the other way around. Of course, there is a valid counterargument to this. It can be difficult to know how to be inclusive – remembering that there is no single silver bullet and that inclusion looks different for people of different backgrounds, identities, and characteristics – if people with those diverse traits, perspectives, and experiences are not present. After all, it is through co-design that organisations can meaningfully shape the development and redesign of workplace policies, processes, and initiatives through an equity and inclusion lens; however, this is not an excuse for not getting out of the gate. If you don’t have the expertise, perspectives or lived experience internally, there are plenty of resources, good practice examples, and external avenues of support to draw from.

A progressive approach necessitates that you create structures to support people proactively, rather than waiting for them to show up. You don’t wait until you have employees with mobility needs to ensure buildings are accessible – broadly, the same principle applies with inclusion. Moreover, employees with diverse backgrounds and identities, especially those from non-dominant groups, are unlikely to contribute their perspectives and lived experience unless conditions have been created to ensure they feel safe to do so.

So, how can organisations build inclusive and equitable cultures and working environments?

One of the first things we emphasise to the organisations we support is the importance of taking a strategic approach to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), rather than a tactical or even haphazard one. With so many potential opportunities for improvement, and with so many different diversity dimensions to consider, DEI work can often seem overwhelming – but if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. So, to ensure maximum impact, it’s important – as with any other business discipline – to carefully consider what your organisation’s priorities should be, and why.

Think of it like a blueprint for an infrastructure project. A blueprint outlines the design, materials and methods required to create a system or structure, and serves as a road map for the wider engineering team. Similarly, a DEI strategy or blueprint is vital to ensuring that an organisation is implementing initiatives that meet the genuine needs of its people. This means that organisations need to accrue an evidence base – through the collection of data and other forms of insights – to identify these needs and the appropriate interventions to support them.

While it’s a smart idea to start small, aim to eventually collect information on employee outcomes for a range of different groups in your workplace, looking at representation across all levels of the organisation, as well as remuneration and career progression. Ask the question: How do people experience your workplace differently?

Once you have these insights, you can review your systems, policies and processes across the employee life cycle, including recruitment, learning and development, appraisals and promotions, wellbeing support, and staff retention, to identify practices that are contributing to inequity and lack of inclusion. Then, look at how your systems need to be redesigned in collaboration with the groups that are being disadvantaged by current practices.

The most essential ingredient, however, is leadership commitment. Having a sound strategy is all very well, but at a base level, if the buck stops with no-one, then you won’t get very far at all. This is not to say that the mahi should be top down only. It also needs to be bottom up and middle out. Creating an inclusive environment is everyone’s responsibility, and we all have a different role to play because everyone’s perspectives, skills, and contributions are invaluable. But the hierarchical structure of organisations (which exists no matter how much we might pretend it doesn’t) necessitates that leaders set the right tone, role model inclusive traits, and are held accountable (including by themselves) for driving organisational transformation through a DEI lens as per the strategy, ensuring that the blueprint is being followed and scrutinised.

Sounds simple, right? But if this is the case, then why aren’t organisations making more rapid progress?

Based on my experience of supporting hundreds of employers, across all kinds of sectors, industries and geographies (including internationally), I believe the single biggest barrier to leadership commitment – and by extension DEI work in general – results when those in positions of power, privilege, and influence fundamentally do not truly understand the concept of equity.

It can feel like an uncomfortable concept – it’s not always easy to accept that life has been more unfair and challenging for other people (in some ways at least), and to come to terms with your own privileges. Equity is not the only driver in the overall pursuit of creating safe and inclusive environments. But equity – or fairness – is a core human need, which, if threatened, produces a cascade of poor outcomes, not just for the individuals concerned, but also in terms of the inclusion and cohesion of teams. Put simply, if someone does not feel like they are being treated fairly, they are unlikely to feel included and valued.

A common misconception is that driving equity is about treating everyone the same. It isn’t. It’s about ensuring that everyone has access to the same opportunities by recognising that not everyone starts from the same place, and addressing systemic barriers and historical disadvantages to create a level playing field.

Leaders therefore need to have a solid grasp of this and fully commit themselves to taking action to address inequity, which means being prepared to examine the systems, structures, practices, and behaviours that perpetuate bias and inequality.