Creating inclusive cultures

Cre­at­ing a com­pa­ny cul­ture that attracts and retains peo­ple from diverse back­grounds is increas­ing­ly on the busi­ness agen­da for many senior lead­ers. Tak­ing action to open up oppor­tu­ni­ties to indi­vid­u­als from social­ly diverse back­grounds is also vital if busi­ness­es are going to access untapped tal­ent.

How­ev­er, how often does that com­mit­ment vis­i­bly leave head office and impact those across the wider organ­i­sa­tion in a mean­ing­ful way?

To cre­ate a work­place that “works for every­one”, a crit­i­cal fac­tor is to ensure every­one is includ­ed in the dis­cus­sions and feel they have made a con­tri­bu­tion to the out­comes. Although many com­pa­nies focus on find­ing out what oth­er com­pa­nies are doing, one ele­ment that is often miss­ing is com­mu­ni­cat­ing with their own employ­ees, to real­ly hear their views.

It is impor­tant to remem­ber that one size does not fit all and what is crit­i­cal in Lon­don may not be the key issues across the rest of the UK. For exam­ple, employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and expec­ta­tions are dif­fer­ent from city to city and how an organ­i­sa­tion tack­les that may be dif­fer­ent in Man­ches­ter, and dif­fer­ent again in Birm­ing­ham.

To respond to the chal­lenge, a busi­ness forum called Cre­at­ing Inclu­sive Cul­tures (CIC) brings organ­i­sa­tions togeth­er with­in their own cities to work togeth­er on devel­op­ing diver­si­ty and inclu­sion strate­gies that cre­ate high-per­form­ing teams. CIC has already launched in Leeds, Man­ches­ter and Birm­ing­ham, and will con­tin­ue to broad­en their reach across the UK in 2017.