Last Updated: July 27, 2022 | Read Time: 10 min

One of the key lessons of the past few years has been how important—from a social, cultural, and business perspective—it is for companies to address diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) practices across their workforce.

Regardless of company size, industry, or location, some common inclusion initiatives apply to every company to help ensure an inclusive environment.

Some people say that diversity, equality, and inclusion within the workplace means allowing everyone to have a seat at the decision-making table. But true DEI should happen much earlier by ensuring everyone is in the room to begin with.

Workplace diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives:

Let’s look at five companies that are building strong, diverse, and inclusive cultures.

It’s not enough to say you are an inclusive workplace and shoot out a few emails about tolerance. That’s why a DEI framework is such a valuable tool. It presents a way to structure a practical strategy of DEI growth. Think of this framework as a diversity and inclusion plan template.

Frameworks are important because they create a structure where all three tenets are included. Many companies tend to focus only on the diversity tenet because it’s somewhat easier to manage and because the word “diversity” has been used as a blanket statement for DEI so it’s better understood. A framework won’t let equality and inclusion be sidelined though.

A DEI framework isn’t just a numbers guide or a strict “10-point plan.” At its core it provides guidance around building diversity, equality, and inclusion in the workplace across four key areas:

This is where we should step back and say that a DEI framework is not intended to be a mechanism that will force change. Rather, it’s a platform that can be used to open opportunities.

When you create a new business process, you build out a standard operating procedure (SOP) with documented instructions and roll it out across the company. While that’s a solid strategy for letting people know about a new accounting procedure, it’s not the way you want to begin your work on inclusion initiatives.

Creating a DEI framework is important, but equally important is how the framework is rolled out. Here are some tips that can help that rollout start strong:

A diverse workspace doesn’t just happen overnight (or in weeks or even months), it needs to be built, maintained, and inevitably re-visited to ensure that it still is addressing the company’s and employees’ needs. We can never stop listening, learning, and working toward building a diverse, equal, and inclusive environment. Visit Perspectives+ to find more free resources and tools that promote DE&I best practices in the workplace.” It’s Paycor’s online knowledge library designed to help you drive change, empower colleagues, and foster new leaders.

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