The workplace consists of different nationalities, genders, races, religions, and ages. Making an outsider of an employee happens most of the time due to many reasons, alienating an employee is never accepted in any workplace. Here are nine tips on how to promote Workplace Diversity and Inclusion.
1. Respecting and acknowledging religions
Different religions are present at a workplace, so it’s the employer duty to offer differences to each employee based on his/her religion. Holidays along the year are so many due to different religions so giving holidays for the whole workplace is important so that employees respect each other’s religions. Offering an employee holiday tracker to help employees know different religions holiday is good to create a strong relationship between the employees. Different religions require different practices so a place must be facilitated for employees to practice their prayers freely without the fear of judgement or alienation.
2. Special treatment for those in need
People hate seeing different treatment in the workplace. The workplace consists of different employees with different experience and different life responsibilities. For example, a newly hired employee is still a green leaf in the workplace with no knowledge about the workplace and its system, so giving the new employees extra training sessions and helping them in their first months is very important to balance the scales between them and the old employees in the workplace. Pregnant working women need to get a little help in their jobs, making them work from home is a great way of help to offer them rest so they can be productive as possible. Another method of helping pregnant women or women who care for a babies is early leave which managers can handle by an employee leave tracker.
3. Hearing every voice
Workplace should be a SafePlace. Hearing every opinion without caring for age, gender, religion, degree, and physical ability is important. Different mindsets offer different opinions and thinking possibilities. Holding meetings between employees is important to make communication easier among them and easier in working together and being productive.
4. Socializing the working team
Inclusion between employees and workplace diversity is essential so that they can work together easily and try to understand each other’s mindsets and cultures. Celebrating different religious holidays and decorating the workplace for a certain holiday, makes it better for the employees at your company to feel included and safer. This makes it better to understand different cultures of the employees. Organizing a working staff trip or vacation is also a great way to let your employees get to know each other’s backgrounds, personalities and their way of thinking and form a kind of friendship to share their ideas, in order to be more productive.
5. Reject bias in promotions and evaluations
Offering help in the start of the job for new employees is very good but bias all the time is not a good thing. Promotions must be given when making a review of the employee and their work. Gender equality is important at any promotion. That promotion must be present for the two genders equally and what determines who gets the job is their achievements and being able to handle the new post. Evaluating employees in their job is important and must be an honest evaluation that describes how the employees perform their jobs. At any workplace there must be no favorites present.
6. Offering the employees your technology
Nowadays everything is digitalized and in continuous development so introducing your employees in your technology is a great way of inclusion in your workplace. One way of inclusion in the workplace is presenting to your employees your company’s technologies. Employee PTO tracker is a software companies can use to track the employees PTO, so by offering a mobile app for your employees will surely make their life easier. An employee PTO tracker will help the employees keep track of their paid time off left. Introducing to your employees an employee self-service software or app that helps them know their payrolls date and their benefits information is also a great tool to help them.
7. Language barriers
In most companies the employees come from different countries, different countries mean different languages. Communication between employees in the workplace becomes hard, so it is better to try and cross language barriers, by choosing a certain language and use it in the workplace. So non-native speakers need to learn certain language in order to make them included in the workplace and not be alienated.
8. Words of encouragement
Always encouraging your employees and telling them they are doing a great job is a great mental boost. Your employees must always try and help the newbies in the start of their jobs to make it easier and make them feel fitting to the workplace. Acknowledging progress is a great way for making the employees feel that they get performance monitoring along their progress and feel the inclusion in the workspace.
9. Educating yourself
There are numerous cultures present globally and workplace diversity, so always educating yourself with the different cultures of different countries is a great way so you can deal with any employee that comes forward to apply for a job at your company. The workplace consists of different aged employees so learning the new generations’ needs and way of thinking is also important. Social media in general is a great tool to learn how the new generations think and how they perform tasks.
Gender equality which is a commonly argued matter that must be taken into your consideration when dealing with your employees. Learning about the common words that can be offensive to a specific group is important to avoid them in the future. Showing that women can be leaders for work groups is a great way to give women at your company recognition as capable working staff.
Equalizing the roles of both men and women is very important to make both genders feel included in the workplace equally.
These simple steps will help promote workplace diversity and inclusion and will help minimize alienating of your employees as possible. The workplace is a link that is stronger in numbers so one single employee is of great significance for the whole team.