How inclusive is your workplace?

Much is said around ensuring an inclusive environment within the workplace. What we may say or do in the workplace can actually make people feel excluded, without us really realising. With the change in workplaces since the pandemic, notably the rise in hybrid working, much has been made around ensuring teams create an inclusive workplace, so no-one feels left out.

However, whilst our conscious actions can be inclusive, our unconscious actions, words and behaviours can cause people to feel excluded. When we talk remotely it is harder to pick up and identify these people through their expressions, body language and tone as it does not always come across as clear via a camera…if they even have their camera on at all.

Many people look at ensuring when we bring people together, we have included everyone, allowing for voices, opinions and people to have their say yet this is not always enough. Our unconscious biases work under the surface of everyday thinking without us realising and can lead us to exclude people.

Unconscious bias

For example, I might always use the same example when trying to explain an idea or concept in training, usually around an interest of mine such as football. However, unless every person on the call has an interest in football, I am excluding people from the conversation. This is known as affinity bias as I am connecting more with people who also have an interest in football.

If, during an informal get together online to discuss social events for the year, people start discussing the last time they got to get together (which if pre-pandemic is likely to have been a while) any employees who have started since then will feel excluded. They are unable to join in on a conversation they have no memories of and so will disengage with the call. The conversation won’t have been created intentionally and they have every right to discuss past experiences but if we are looking at creating an inclusive workplace you can see how easy it is to put barriers in the way of this happening and exclude people.

With a rise in remote and hybrid working another bias, such as distance bias, can arise where we may overlook people who are working remotely and include those in the office.

If people are feeling excluded, this can lead to them disengaging frown work, leading to a reduction to motivation because their attention levels and focus have taken a dip.

Becoming Inclusive

Let’s become aware of the environment around us and change a few habits to ensure total inclusion. Some questions for us all to consider include:

• How can we get feedback from others on how inclusive our own practices are?
• What changes could be made to become more conscious of situations where people can feel excluded?
• Are there common interests which can be used to engage everyone?
• Do you use examples or situations where you are likely to be excluding others?
• What barriers have we built which may have excluded others?

The best way to start is with a conversation. Ask your team and colleagues what barriers they can see and what simple practices can be implemented to ensure that everyone feels included.
By reading this article you have already started to become aware of your unconscious bias to inclusion. Now go have the conversation.

Delve delivers sessions on unconscious bias and creating the right environment for teams to thrive. If this would be useful for you and your team, get in touch at [email protected]