industryopinion
How to implement a top- down DE&I strategy
Maggie Zaboura, Managing Director of PR & Marketing agency, Zaboura offers her personal perspective on why embracing the human element of your workforce is so important and how, by building your business around your team rather than fitting employees into predetermined pigeon hole roles is key to success.
I
had a DE&I policy at eight years old! Displaced, landing in Reading on an unusually hot summer day in 1976, brandishing a moustache on my upper lip, wearing
a winter uniform and carrying a lunchbox containing chicken with rice, when every other girl had white bread marmite or cucumber sandwiches – I could see I was going to appear a little different. Reading was a diverse town, but to an 8-year-old Armenian/
Palestinian girl attending a convent school there wasn’t a lot of representation. I circumnavigated the challenges of connecting with others by being self-deprecating and learning to laugh at myself – disarming those around me and breaking down their fear of attempting to connect, straddling the social divide between the “different” and the “accepted” at a very early age, and developing an unusually wide range of friends. Years of putting myself down so that others would like me gave me
an acute awareness that people don’t always reveal their true selves from the get-go. Tere is always more to the story behind every smile, and behind every rejection – however small and seemingly insignificant to others – there is always someone striving to be accepted. As a result, I developed the ability to connect with almost anyone,
and to see things in individuals that others oſten can’t. Much to my friends’ disbelief – and sometimes annoyance – I always managed to overextend invitations to events and invite individuals that peers would typically bypass because they felt they were too awkward to be around.
Start with the human Roll on 40 years and I now own two businesses that are as diverse as opportunity has allowed. Not one person is the same, not one person has traditional experience or training in public relations and yet all are thriving in successful London agencies. Organisations must view people as individuals with the potential
to break out of moulds or boxes that you or others judge them to be fit for, and then build policies around those humans. Tat’s the way to create the sort of culture that you need your business to represent in 2022, and it will manifest in a powerful spectrum of creativity and diversity of thought.
DE&I: It’s the key to post-pandemic success Te pandemic put most businesses under incredible strain, stalling
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- even reversing - progress, exposing weaknesses and widening gaps that urgently need closing. However, the Great Resignation, stakeholder dissatisfaction and demand for change, and fast- approaching deadlines such as the 2030 one for the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals has created a ‘perfect storm’ for change and growth. DE&I is the solution to closing many of those gaps, nurturing
unity and more motivated teams, encouraging knowledge sharing and better ideas, and driving up to 37% increased performance. But with hybrid and remote working models reducing the barriers to the working world, it’s essential to approach DE&I in a way that inspires and ensures cohesion within workforces.
How to Implement a top-down DE&I strategy I’m in agreement with Predixa CEO, Paula Newby. DE&I needs more than half-hearted acknowledgement and a set of corporate boxes to check - this only causes further social and financial damage. It requires a proper framework, and board buy-in and ownership, to deliver truly transformative change that improves organisational culture and generates tangible financial results. 1. Define objectives: It can be organised by HR, but this should be a board-level sponsored activity, to identify challenges that have a social and financial impact on your organisation and create an overarching strategy with current and expected DE&I KPIs
2. Gather data: Not just existing employee-engagement data, but data and KPIs covering all angles, from all internal and external stakeholders, including make-or-break invisible factors like drive, cognitive diversity and psychological safety
3. Analyse results: Determine existing needs and issues, identify root causes, re-examine all processes, and reveal opportunities
4. Prioritise actions: Create opportunities, educate and coach leaders around their language and actions, implement the right tools, found a committee, break down how to communicate to different stakeholders
5. Implement and benchmark initiatives: Create your own benchmarks to guide your company’s unique DE&I direction, with ‘before and aſter’ effects of initiatives and their impact on both social and financial metrics. Te DE&I process is a continuum and efforts should be consistently measured and adjusted to drive incremental change.
September 2022 | 13
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