The Executive’s Guide to Fostering Inclusion: 10 Essential Steps

The world of work has undergone a humanistic revolution in recent years. Whether it was “COVID clarity” as employees rethought their relationship with work, a new prioritization of mental health, or the social reckoning of the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, employees are expecting better and more authentic treatment from their employers. These expectations have shined a spotlight on the importance of workplace inclusion.

Workplace inclusion involves employees feeling that they belong while they are also valued for their uniqueness. A successful culture of inclusion at work is associated with less burnout, greater retention, improved innovation, and both organizational and employee-level resilience. However, many companies are still falling short on their inclusion efforts, and an overlooked solution may reside in the C-suite. That’s because the buck is often passed to employees and managers without proper emphasis on executives.

Like any organizational change effort, executive leadership is needed to create movement and sustain momentum. Here are 10 often-overlooked actions that executives can take to build and foster a culture of inclusion: 

1. Truly buy in to inclusion

Executives must first ask themselves—and answer honestly—if they understand why inclusion is important. If you don’t think it’s important, don’t expect others in your sphere of influence to make it a priority.

Inclusion matters to employees, and that should be the focus beyond the business case. Focusing on the business case is problematic because it sends the signal that inclusivity—especially for members of marginalized groups—only has worth if it accompanies financial worth. Your constituents will be more likely to get on board with your efforts if you can authentically convey why inclusion is important and if your “why” doesn’t rest on financial benefits alone. 

2. Seek expertise

There are experts—including those with lived experiences of workplace exclusion, discrimination, and marginalization—who can help you do inclusion the right way without doing more harm. Their expertise increases your likelihood of success. Not only are they trained in how to do this work effectively, but by consulting them, you’ll also show that you’re serious about investing in this effort.

3. Align others in the direction of inclusion

As with all planned organizational change efforts, getting others on board with inclusion is essential. Communicate your inclusion vision with sincerity and persistence. Ensure everyone understands your vision and trusts that it’s not simply the flavor of the week. Then, work with key constituents to set long- and short-range goals to fulfill your vision.

4. Embed inclusion into your organization’s core

If you want inclusion to stick, make it a part of your organization’s values. This could mean adding a value statement, or, more practically, identifying how inclusion fits into your current values (e.g., inclusion can be tied to a value related to collaboration or innovation).

Organizational values should guide our actions and influence organizational culture. But it takes work and time to make this happen. Specify inclusive behaviors that represent your organization’s values. Personally walk the talk and ensure that leaders at all levels are also walking the talk. Employees will come to understand the values of their company by what’s modeled, rewarded, and supported by their leaders.

5. Reinforce inclusion via your talent management system

Inclusion should touch every major component of your talent management system, from attraction to succession planning. But an effective talent management system does not rest squarely on the shoulders of HR. It is upheld by leaders at all levels. As an executive, you can mobilize your teams of leaders to review, revise, and reinforce inclusive talent management efforts. But you should also be informed about which approaches are effective.

Think about how inclusion—and the behaviors representing inclusive values—are being specified and reinforced through how you attract, recruit, select, and onboard employees. Example: Specify your inclusive values in your job descriptions, include values and interests related to inclusion in your selection criteria, have members with different backgrounds on your hiring committee, and describe in detail the expected behaviors that represent your inclusive values during onboarding.

6. Look inward for equity

Workplace equity is part of talent management systems, but it’s worth calling out separately, as equity is considered the threshold for inclusion. Getting this right will take leveraging your HR team to determine sources of inequity. That requires getting inclusion right in everything from compensation to development to discipline (see box below).

7. Make use of the right metrics

Even in the case of inclusion, what gets measured gets done. So, link your inclusion initiatives to metrics—such as representativeness at all levels, equitable numbers for employee promotions, and percent of pay equity—that accurately reflect whether your initiatives are having the desired impact.

Choose the methods of measurement that will be most effective and ensure the data is being analyzed in meaningful ways. For instance, workforce representation can be a useful metric as long as you consider representation at all levels of your organization and track intersectionality. For example, if you have an equal number of men and women in leadership roles, but no women of color, take that as a red flag.

A well-designed survey of workforce perceptions and attitudes can help take the pulse of your inclusion efforts, but only if analyzed correctly. Looking at results summarized across all employees will wash out the perceptions from those who belong to marginalized groups. Data must be analyzed in specific ways to uncover if all employees are truly feeling included.

As technology changes, be aware of new means for measuring inclusion. For instance, network analysis may be a useful approach for revealing who has access to important information and support from their leader, as access to information is a key indicator for inclusion. In a remote context, this may be particularly useful for identifying who is out of mind when out of sight.

8. Think bigger than your organization 

Your organization doesn’t exist in a bubble. Therefore, what makes your organization inclusive extends beyond your walls. So, consider how your organization can engage in social justice and allyship activities to foster inclusion.

Leaders can also examine how their organizations are preserving or causing inequity as a result of their supply chains or their lack of catering to customers and stakeholders who belong to marginalized groups.

9. Continuously listen and learn

What it means to be inclusive is constantly evolving. What’s inclusive today is different from what was inclusive yesterday. Just like other components of the leadership arena, you’ll have to stay abreast of the changes and be agile in your adaptation. Listening—especially to your employees who belong to marginalized groups—will be vital.

10. Avoid tokenism

We’ve seen the mistakes organizations have made in the inclusion arena. Whether we call it “cancel culture” or accountability, these mistakes can have a lasting impact on your organization’s and your personal reputation. So avoid pitfalls such as performative actions that involve talking the talk but not walking the talk, lack of transparency in your metrics, tokenism, and trying to save face when you make mistakes, rather than owning up to them.