Inclusion Insights promotes inclusion and business performance
In short, an Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) strategy is necessary. Many organisations want to focus more on I&D, but often do not know how to approach this best. Recruiters, teams and project leaders overlook talents simply because they are different from the ‘norm’. These underrepresented talents feel ignored and have few role models to identify with, especially at the top. Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Officers work on inclusion, diversity and equality, but often have insufficient insight or cannot indicate exactly where change is needed.
In line with our ‘The New Equation’ approach, and in cooperation with various clients and partners, a multidisciplinary team from PwC has developed the Inclusion Insights programme. This programme helps companies tackle their I&D challenges more quickly. The focus here is inclusiveness and expanding the network beyond your own environment. With this technology-driven programme we connect people and stimulate the necessary organisational, cultural and behavioural change. With Inclusion Insights, compliance and reporting alone are no longer the main reason for companies to be inclusive and diverse: as the programme promotes an inclusive culture where everyone feels heard, seen and valued. Your organisation becomes a place where all employees can be themselves and so contribute to better business performances.
‘With Inclusion Insights we burst bubbles to strengthen the power of diversity and foster a greater sense of belonging.’
“Bring everyone in, lift everyone up - the promise of this program”
The Inclusion Insights programme
What are your organisation’s recruitment figures in terms of gender and cultural background? How are you doing when it comes to equal pay for equal work? And is your promotion system and team composition based on unconscious biases? Are you aware of all ESG principles and related (upcoming) legislation? The Inclusion Insights I&D programme gives you an insight into the answers and helps your organisation to change. Together with you, we draw up a maturity model – a baseline measurement in which we examine the challenges an organisation is facing. It consists of these four steps:
- Intake
- Analysis
- Intervention
- Monitoring and evaluation
Depending on the challenge, the organisation may apply an intervention. This may involve, for example, developing an ESG employment conditions policy or pay fairness initiative, embedding I&D compliance, policies and regulations or introducing the Inclusion Insights app. This app links employees on the basis of self-selected goals. In this way you build teams in which expertise and skills are of greater value than origin, gender, age and other characteristics that keep bubbles closed. The rapidly changing world and the social dilemmas that everyone is increasingly facing mean that solutions need to come from diverse teams. The Inclusion Insights app helps to foster connections outside your own circle. This creates multidisciplinary teams, consisting of experts with broad knowledge and diverse (cultural) backgrounds.
The app feeds the dashboard and helps you to evaluate the effectiveness of the connections and interventions. I&D data is collected from multiple sources and relates to different dimensions within the organisation. This allows regular monitoring of metrics, including the gap between the initial, current and desired situation. The dashboard supports internal and external reporting.
Employee Network Expansion Toolkit
More and more organizations are using employee networks or diversity networks to address challenges that certain groups in the organization may experience on the one hand and/or to bring like-minded people into contact with each other on the other. An employee network or diversity network offers a platform for employees who unite based on a specific common characteristic. This can take various forms such as age, sexual orientation and identity, cultural background, disability or phase in life.
In literature the added value of networks is increasingly recognized as a contributor to inclusion within organizations. The strength of networks is that they contribute in an informal way to more inclusion, which can be seen as a valuable addition to existing diversity policy. Most networks are set up by employees themselves. However, organizations increasingly want to help facilitate and formalize this as a means to increase inclusion.
What should you pay attention to? How do you set up such a network? Which structure do you choose and how do you realize the involvement and inclusion you aim for?
PwC itself has five employee networks, including WomenNL, Shine (LGBTQI+), Ability, Connected Cultures and YoungPwC. Our networks are increasingly approached by clients and stakeholders to share knowledge and experiences about the way our networks function and the impact they have within the organization.
Organizations who are not familiar with employee networks encounter many challenges when trying to establish a network. Others who have adopted such practices seek inspiration to come up with creative interventions in order to effectively raise awareness about diversity and inclusion.
In response to the various requests, Connected Cultures has taken the initiative to draw up an Employee Network Expansion Toolkit in which organizations receive tools for setting up an employee network. There are five implementation steps which are important to take into account:
- Exploration & determination
- Governance structure and reporting
- Recruitmant board and members
- Strategy development
- Execution plan/creating awareness
Would you like to stay informed about future employee networking workshops and activities, please contact us.
Diversity & Inclusion learning journey - creating an inclusive mindset
Diversity and inclusion are more important than ever before. How can organisations work towards a more inclusive culture? The Diversity and Inclusion Learning Programme developed by PwC is a powerful way to make organisations more diverse and inclusive.
This learning journey takes your employees on a Diversity and Inclusion development path. It consists of various learning components that provide new insights on Diversity and Inclusion. The content is sequenced and consists of different self paced learning interventions such as videos, articles and quizzes. It provides information on different aspects of Diversity and Inclusion and encourages employees to reflect on their own behaviours and focus on what matters to them. The bite size learning interventions make it easier to learn continuously over a period of time and to integrate those lessons into daily activities. And, as the program is fully self paced, employees learn at their own pace, when and where it suits them.
What will you gain from this learning journey?
Diverse and inclusive organisations perform better and are more innovative leading to better business results.
This learning journey is relevant for organisations that want to work towards a more inclusive culture. Employees with different backgrounds in terms of work experience, expertise and education can build awareness of concepts that foster inclusive mindsets and behaviours. They learn to recognise how intersectionality, unconscious bias, privilege and micro-inequities can potentially impact individual experiences. They will value what makes each person unique, be more intentional about the diversity of their networks and build authentic relationships through greater curiosity and empathy.
Listen to the podcast
In many organisations, including our own, we see a need to develop from awareness and empathy to action when it comes to I&D policy. We not only want to measure, but also bring about change. Listen to the podcast Inclusion Insights – learn more about our motivation and way of working to develop this programme for finding the right solution.
How can PwC help you?
Inclusion & diversity is a very relevant element of the S in ESG (environmental, social & governance) policy. Many Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Officers are familiar with the challenges arising from low employee engagement, difficulty in achieving the desired I&D effect, and growing pressure from inside and outside the organisation, for example the female executive quota.
Every organisation has its own goals and own culture and is in a different phase of I&D. We help you to identify your organisation’s needs and to motivate I&D so you can achieve equity and optimise your business performance. To do this, we work with our Inclusion Insights programme, which assesses the full spectrum of issues. We tackle your I&D challenges in a structured way together with you. In doing so, we provide an insight into what is going on within your organisation, based on the experiences of individual employees and the efforts of the organisation. The Inclusion Insights programme also brings together people from different backgrounds and combines their perspectives, ingenuity and passion using the latest technology. Inclusion Insights facilitates connections between people, allowing us to build trust and deliver sustainable results for the future.
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