Traditional approaches to DE&I have helped organisations to reach important goals, but research finds half of us still feel excluded and isolated at work. Additionally, many organisations are experiencing employee fatigue with DE&I initiatives. Social psychology and management studies suggest that traditional approaches to DE&I may be running into some limits imposed by their design.
Fortunately, there is a new way forward for DE&I practitioners. DE&I initiatives that directly target individual employees can have more impact on how each employee feels and behaves. This is a critical change from the previous model, in which the organisation itself was usually the primary focus. Such a fundamental shift can help to foster a genuine and authentic sense of belongingness for employees at work.
The new approach to DE&I focuses on the ‘actions and behaviours’ of employees rather than their ‘hearts and minds’. Addressing perceptions and beliefs helps to unlock awareness and empathy in the workplace, but tangibly supporting diverse employees should lead to even more compelling outcomes related to their experience at work. A new focus on data can help to understand and solve the needs of diverse employees by focusing on specific issues and tailored interventions. When employees feel listened to, they are more likely to feel a sense of ‘belonging’. And modern data-gathering approaches make this possible.
Many traditional approaches, like diversity training, were designed using the wisdom, tools and techniques that were available at that time. Yet, these approaches have remained largely unchanged and do not make use of the science and technologies that are now available. Before, DE&I practitioners could have gotten overwhelmed by the vast array of differences to account for in large organisations, but human-centred technology can help to overcome such challenges.
Welliba provides a scalable platform that explicitly focuses on individual employees and offers the means to tailor the interaction between DE&I initiatives and resources. As a result, the platform can help to shape behaviours and experiences in an individual's personal and work context. Meaningful interactions will help to bolster a sense of belongingness in employees. Employees can be helped as they alleviate feelings of isolation and fatigue, while organisations get access to aggregate data that can help them understand and support diversity, equity & inclusion.
These are outcomes that no traditional DE&I initiative can attain.
If you would like to find out more, download our newest paper: “Making DE&I Initiatives Personal: Using Technology and Forward-Looking Data to Deliver More Impact for Employees and Employers”.