NACO Three Star Award Best Practices
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION BEST PRACTICES
1. Establish a sense of belonging
Establishing a sense of belonging is crucial for employees to bring the best out of them.
Having a sense of belonging is one of the most important psychological needs that need to be met for employees to feel connected with their employers and organizations. (Appoint a mentor. Introduce new members to each staff officer explaining to them what their role is so that the member knows who to go to with a question. Also, include them in offerings to sit in on or chair committees).
2. Treat ALL your employees fairly
Fairness is one of the crucial prerequisites for employees to feel valued and accepted. Unfair salaries and benefits packages for employees from different backgrounds lead to unhealthy workplace culture and a lack of diversity.
3. Offer equal growth opportunities
Opportunity to grow is one of the main factors that attract and keep talent within companies. Therefore, employers need to be careful about offering fair and equal growth and career advancement opportunities to their employees. (Develop a bench. Train and plan for successors for both elected and appointed positions. Consider term limits for appointed positions. One must be appointed before they can be elected. A planned leadership turnover especially for large Flotilla units will make a pool of candidates available to step up for elected positions and lesson the work and burn out for those appointed).
4. Rewrite your job descriptions and job ads
If you want to attract more diverse talent, the language you use in your job posting makes a big difference.
A study on job postings found that those using masculine-type words like “ambitious” and “dominate” were less appealing to female applicants. (Language/communication is important. As indicated, choose your words wisely as our words can often betray our intent suggesting that we are looking at or for something other than what is being sought).
5. Support innovation and creativity
In order to build a diverse workplace, companies must support creativity within their organizations. If innovation and creativity are not one of your main business goals, it will be hard to build and maintain workplace diversity. (Doing the same thing the same way over and over again and expecting a different or better outcome, negates the possibility of better performance. Try something new and different. You may be surprised of the outcome. If all else fails, you can always modify future operations).
6. Educate employees on diversity and inclusion
For diversity and inclusion to work within your organization, employees need to be educated about the benefits and best practices to support those initiatives.
It is not enough for upper-level management to be aware of what diversity and inclusion mean for business (Flotilla/Division/District and National) success and company’s reputation.
7. Support teamwork and collaboration
Teamwork and collaboration are what employees expect from their employers to support.
Therefore, in order to attract and keep a more diverse workforce within your organization, collaboration should be one of your main company core values. (Don’t always go to the well of the same people for projects and events. Hook in others to your vision or task. This will show all that each are valued members and may reduce burnout of members who constantly step up to aid in unit activities).
8. Support flexibility in the workplace
Research on workplace diversity found that one of the best workplace policies to attract diverse candidates is flexibility.
A PwC survey found that, compared to older generations, Millennials value company culture that supports work/life balance.
McKinsey’s research found that the #1 company value for women is a flexible work schedule.
Therefore, offering flexible work locations and hours helps you attract and retain more diverse employees. To extrapolate on the McKinsey Report further, consider changing meeting times, dates, and or locations a few times a year in order to foster interest and make available meeting days and times open to members whose availability may have changed since they have joined. Also, plan social events around times and days when seldom seen members may be available to join in or not have to rush home from work to attend.
9. Restructure your recruitment process
In recruitment, focusing on what company candidates worked at or what school they went to can often lead to a decrease in diversity of the candidate pipeline. Find out where your prospective new member’s interest lay. (It may not be in the same area that their education or their career track took them. It may be elsewhere).
However, a valid and reliable personality assessments are great tools to measure candidates’ personality traits, motivations, and skills.
A study of 150 companies found that those that used a personality assessment in their hiring processes had more racially diverse workforces.
10. Promote diversity and inclusion at all levels of the organization
In order for diversity and inclusion initiatives to work, all levels of your company’s (organization’s) hierarchy need to understand and support it.
This information is derived from the article titled: Diversity and Inclusion Best Practices to Focus On in 2022, dated: 02 JAN 2021 which is located at the following link: Diversity and Inclusion Best Practices to Focus on in 2022 (smarp.com) Click on the link for additional information and to review the remainder of the article. The additional underlined information is offered by COMO David G. Porter, National Commodore for Diversity and Inclusion – 1