How your organisation chooses to communicate ED&I initiatives can have a big impact on their success rate.
What’s the difference between equity, diversity and inclusion?
Equity: Promotes fairness in processes, practices and opportunities within your organisation. It also focuses on preventing discrimination, bias and harassment.
Diversity: Focuses on having diverse talent pool represented within your organisation, with employees of different ages, ethnicities, abilities, genders, religions, and sexual orientations.
Inclusion: Creates a welcoming, safe environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging. It promotes a culture of respect and acceptance.
What are ED&I initiatives?
These are the strategic ways a business aims to build an equitable, diverse and inclusive workplace. ED&I initiatives have the potential to empower employees, boost morale and improve their overall experience.
Not only this, a diverse and inclusive workforce can lead to better decision-making, increased innovation and improved employee retention. In fact, organisations with more diverse teams have 36% better financial returns.
Promoting inclusion efforts and a diverse workforce
For your internal communications to effectively support ED&I initiatives, there are some things you should consider.
Consistent effort
Your goals will vary depending on business needs, but when you have important information to share, you need to ensure that you’re reaching your audience frequently and in the right format. Make the best use of your internal channels and opportunities to share your updates on a wider scale.
Whether you’re promoting new leadership training, a financial wellness programme, cultural awareness days or mentorship programmes across your business, your communications should be intentional and not just a tick-box exercise. You’ll get better buy-in from leadership and employees if your messaging is consistent and meaningful.
Everyday interactions
If you hold town halls, leadership meetings or employee events, make your ED&I messaging a regular part of the conversation. It reinforces the idea that your care about making changes to evolve and grow as a business and reminds your employees that ED&I is an ongoing effort. Promote your employee resource groups (ERGs), recruitment fairs and training and development opportunities to keep everyone in the loop. Equally, if you’ve already made great progress in one particular area, shout about it.
Challenge the Process
Challenge the Process is our Mantra here at Eximia, and it can help your business move forward with ED&I initiatives too. If you see areas that can be improved in your existing ED&I communications, advocate for change and put forward new ideas. It could be an opportunity to use your internal channels to reach a new underrepresented audience, or to get valuable employee feedback and start a brand-new initiative.
Promoting ED&I initiatives and getting the right level of engagement can be challenging, but with a strategic approach your communications can help to support your efforts.
Need a hand with your internal communications? Check out our content and copywriting services.
