The mentality to continue growing and improving your business should always be present, and the best way to ensure its success is through your Diversity & Inclusion strategy. It’s important to revisit your D&I strategy on a regular basis in order to ensure that it remains updated as you continue hitting milestones within your business and also as current events continue developing.
For example, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have needed to revisit their strategies and make modifications to them to accommodate ever-changing business needs in accordance with local laws and regulations, as well as ensure employee safety. In fact, 92% of American small businesses have had to reinvent themselves during the pandemic.
While the innovation strategies are risky for a lot of businesses, 61% of business owners are open to embracing it as a way to generate new business ideas and boost the existing business’ success. Companies with a properly established Diversity & Inclusion strategy have found that they’ve had 19% higher innovation revenues than those without a solid strategy present.
Here are three steps you can take to boost your existing D&I strategies and prepare your business towards innovation:
- Track metrics related to diversity and inclusion
As mentioned in our previous topic, we discussed a few ways to track diversity and inclusion in order to improve a business’ organizational structure and employee retention. By tracking these metrics on a concurrent basis, you’ll be able to further identify and resolve any pain points or bottlenecks that could occur as well as find ways to build on the positives provided in your data.
- Create a D&I Council if you haven’t already done so
Running a business requires attention to detail towards items that do not always have a direct impact on the workforce. Because of this, there’s a tendency that items will get prioritized accordingly and potentially fall through the cracks if not given the proper attention. While this may not have an immediate effect on the inclusive environment you’ve been building, it’s something that will be easy to observe over time and become more difficult to remedy as time continues to pass.
Because of this, it’s recommended to create a D&I Council whose sole purpose will be to ensure that this inclusive environment continues to operate smoothly. A council can help provide insight into smaller details that may not be easily observed or communicated correctly; They can also create new methods to boost employee morale and report on any potential issues and misgivings.
- Open your management to evaluation
As human beings, it’s difficult for us to identify and correct the things we may be doing wrong until someone points them out for us. No one likes to receive criticism, let alone open themselves to be informed of how bad things could potentially be. However, being open to this opportunity is something that has continuously provided many businesses with the insights they need in order to improve their organization and help them create a better environment for their team.
One of the most common ways we’ve seen this done is through quarterly, anonymous employee satisfaction surveys. By making these surveys anonymous, employees will not fear potential retaliation or other actions such as demotions or layoffs. After each survey is retrieved, hold a staff meeting that addresses the biggest and most common issues that staff is having, as well as positive feedback that may be provided to you; Doing so will create an open and supportive environment where your employees will feel comfortable and that they are being listened to.
These steps would not be anything without the proper follow-through. Consistency is important in order to squash any bias or negativity that could potentially affect your business financially.
