Creating a better company culture should be a priority for all teams and organisations; without motivated, productive, and engaged staff, organisations struggle to excel. Cultivating a strong culture helps boost performance, decrease turnover, and retain top talent. 

A critical part of creating a better workplace culture is improving inclusivity.

What Does Inclusivity Really Mean?

A recent article by VantageCircle explained inclusivity extremely well by using a dinner party analogy: 

• Diversity is making sure everyone gets a dinner invitation. Inclusion is making sure everyone enjoys the meal.

Put simply, there is more to creating an inclusive workplace than hiring individuals with diverse backgrounds, cultures, and lifestyles; inclusivity is about ensuring that these individuals feel valued and accepted.

Why is Creating a More Inclusive Workplace Culture So Valuable?

An organisation’s culture is based on the shared set of values, beliefs and attitudes that guide the organisation. Even if leaders don’t actively work towards creating culture in their organisation, a culture will naturally form; this can be to the detriment of the business if the naturally-formed culture is not inclusive.

Creating an inclusive company culture means creating an environment where staff are respected and appreciated, making sure that everyone’s voices are heard and valued, and making staff feel comfortable being themselves at work.

When employees from all different backgrounds are enabled to flourish in an inclusive workplace environment, the company benefits from their ideas, skills and engagement.

“It’s the experience that the leader is creating that is going to make or break” (Dianne Campbell, Vice President of Global Diversity and Inclusion at American Express)

Even if organisations have well thought-through strategies, budgets to be able to implement these strategies, and SMART objectives in place to guide the organisation in the right direction, it's the leader that drives these strategies forwards.

How to Create an Inclusive Company Culture in 2021

Inclusivity has always been important, but it is more now than ever as workforces across the world are becoming more and more diverse.

To create a truly inclusive company culture, you need to be intentional and actively take steps towards improving inclusion.

Whilst there is no set way of creating an inclusive workplace culture, there are several best practices to consider.

Below, you can download our ‘Super Quick Guide to Inclusivity in 2021’ that explores five different ways of fostering inclusivity in the workplace.

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We hope that you find this guide insightful and gain some new ideas from it.

In our next Daily Dot post, we will be looking at another key aspect of creating a better workplace - how to create a L&D-focused culture.

Until next time…