7 Inclusive Culture Guidelines

I recently interviewed 6 representatives from diversity & inclusion leading corporations. The interviewees were asked what are their key recommendations to foster an inclusive culture. These recommendations were developed into a short list of thought leadership points for developing an inclusive environment. What would you add to the list?

1. Embed diversity and inclusion into your core values
2. Develop internal key messaging to reflect the core values
3. Make it open and easy for everyone to participate and offer ideas
4. Make resources easily and readily available
5. Encourage employees to volunteer or be a part of the groups/organizations that may exist within the company so that they may meet people out of their own business units/departments
6. Build in accountabilities by building in objectives and performance measurements in the evaluations
7. Focus not on retention, but on success

Defining Diversity

I recently interviewed 6 representatives of major corporations in the United States that are openly dedicated to diversity and inclusion. I was curious to know how they personally defined diversity. As you read, consider how you might define diversity...share below!

In an interview with representatives from leading inclusive corporations in the U.S., I asked them to define, in their own words what does diversity and inclusion mean to them. The findings revealed that the participant’s descriptions included four common dimensions: actuality, customer representation, holistic culture and inclusion. Actuality is the actual characteristics of differences. The actuality dimension of diversity was described in terms of ideas, preferences, backgrounds, racial/ethnic origins, sexual orientations, as well as physical and intellectual disabilities. The customer representation dimension is defined as the ability to synthesize differences to meet customer interests. It described diversity as the opportunity to drive solutions to clients that are holistic in scope and that allow the company to approach customers with various interests. In addition, the customer representation dimension described diversity as the opportunity that reflects every possible difference that may impact the solution. The holistic culture dimension described diversity as an ability-focused environment that celebrates the difference between core values and day-to-day employee engagement. The holistic culture dimension was described by multiple participants as something that is embedded so deeply, it’s just assumed to be a part of business culture. The inclusion dimension described the actions taken to include individuals with differences; in particular, it is the leveraging of differences to foster high performance and produce better business results. It’s the act of establishing the necessary processes and attitudes to ensure that employees can accomplish success.

As a result, a summation of diversity in the workforce that incorporates all the interviewee input is as follows:

Diversity is the holistic empowerment of differences, leveraging all possible perspectives to produce high performance in the development of solutions that meet customer interests. 

Barriers to Enter the Workplace

Preventive Factors in Hiring Individuals with ASD

The resources available are valuable, but it thought that there is insufficient guidance and support on the employer side to understand the full scope of the opportunity and a lack of employer tools available to smoothly integrate employees with ASD (Bruyere, 2000; Jans, Kaye, & Jones, 2011). For example, when people think of disabilities in the workforce, they think of physical and sensory disabilities. They do not usually think of people with developmental disabilities (Siperstein, Romano, Mohler, & Parker, 2006). There is also a deficit of knowledge and training for supervisors on how to make accommodations (Bruyere, 2000). The following outlines additional factors preventing individuals with ASD from being hired by businesses. 

employer assumptions.

Overall, it is difficult to determine employer opposition to hiring and maintaining employees with disabilities. The barrier to hiring is thought to be summarized simply as fear (Kirkbride & Peck, 2001). Employers assume that people with disabilities are a liability for several reasons (Kirkbride & Peck, 2001). For example, they are concerned about possible safety issues that may arise as a result of the disability (Alexander & Morgan, 2005). In addition, employers fear they cannot terminate employees with disabilities after hiring them (Hernandez & Keys, 2000). There are also employers who feel that employees with disabilities are too protected, and therefore cannot be terminated, even if the employee does not meet the minimal expectations (Kirkbride & Peck, 2001). Furthermore, they worry that employees with disabilities will be expensive and may not hire them based on perceived costs (Hernandez & Keys, 2000). Employers tend to associate employees with disabilities as an expensive and risky investment. They do not understand the accommodations and do not know if the employee will meet expectations (Kirkbirde & Peck, 2001). Key cost concerns include training, supervision, and accommodations (Bruyere, 2000). Employers also assume that productivity will be compromised as a result of additional training and supervisor attention (Kirkbride & Peck, 2001). Lastly, employers are hesitant to trust vocational placement agencies. They know that the goal of placement agencies is to increase placement numbers and thus employers do not have confidence in that the candidate is truly qualified (Kirkbride & Peck, 2001).

employer attitudes.

While the exact reason is unknown, research suggests that one of the main preventative factors for hiring employees with disabilities is their preexisting attitude (Bruyere, 2000; Hernandez & Keys, 2000; Jans, Kaye, & Jones, 2011; Siperstein, Romano, Mohler, & Parker, 2006). A national survey of the hiring practices of federal agencies suggested that lack of employee experience with people with disabilities can be a contributing factor (Bruyere, 2000). Interestingly, the global attitudes of employers are positive. Global attitudes are defined as the response toward the general idea of something (Bruyere, 2000). In this case, employer global attitudes toward the idea of employees with disabilities in the workplace tend to be positive (Hernandez & Keys, 2000). However, employers tend to have negative attitudes about more specific and actionable ideas related to employees with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual disabilities (Hernandez & Keys, 2000). Specific and actionable ideas such as hiring, assigning tasks and promoting are all received with negative attitudes (Hernandez & Keys, 2000). The limitation of attitudinal studies is that the research does not measure actionable intention and behaviors of employers (Hernandez & Keys, 2000). Large and small business have different concerns that inhibit them from hiring persons with disabilities. Small businesses tend to be concerned about employee productivity; mid-sized companies are concerned about referral validity from rehabilitation centers; and large companies are challenged by resistance from managers (Bezyak, Chan, Copeland, & Fraser, 2010).

supportive services for individuals with ASD are inadequate.

According to a longitudinal study on vocational programs for young adults with ASD, evidence for positive benefits is inconclusive due to the poor quality of research and limited studies (Siperstein et al., 2006). In particular, studies related to supported employment and ASD are minimal, and cannot provide support for this type of service (Siperstein et al, 2006).

The VR system is valuable, but limited as less than .05% of their clients are diagnosed with ASD (Cimera & Oswald, 2009). The VR is not equipped to evaluate the diversity of ASD, resulting in individuals with ASD not finishing the evaluation process, and if they do, they end up with incompatible placements (Standifer, 2009). In addition, of all VR clients with disabilities, an average 66.5% leave because they cannot get employment (Cimera & Oswald, 2009).

If employers seek private resources, such as Diversity Inc. or USBLN, they are required to pay for the memberships. That means that accessing excellent resources can be expensive. In general, there is a lack of support for employers to successfully modify their hiring and training practices (Jans, Jones, & Kaye, 2011).