9.1 Diversity

What is Diversity?

Diversity is the inclusion of people who identify themselves differently, including but not limited to: race, gender, sexuality, religion or spirituality, and age. Diversity should be a welcomed concept in all parts of life, including the workplace.

Before diving into what it means to have a diverse and inclusive organizational culture, some terms and their definitions need to be discussed.

• Managing Diversity: this means an organization is ensuring that members of diverse groups are valued and treated fairly in all parts of the environment.
• Valuing Diversity: often used to reflect the ways in which organizations show appreciation for diversity among applicants, employees, and customers.
• Inclusion: degree to which employees are accepted and treated fairly by an organization.
• Surface-level Diversity: includes characteristics of individuals that are readily visible to anyone.
• Deep-level Diversity: characteristics that are not observable, like attitude, values, and beliefs.
• Equity: an approach that recognizes that the systemic barriers posed for a particular person will vary; equity recognizes that different people will need different amounts of resources in order to succeed and overcome.
• Belonging: the experience of personal involvement in a system or environment to the point they feel themselves to be an integral part of that system.

Diversity is not just a thing to do, it is a mindset and approach that unites ethical management and high performance. It is an organizational strength, not a mere slogan or form of compliance with the law. Diversity means including talent from a wide demographic spectrum and including all employees in every aspect of the organization.

“Introducing Workplace Diversity” in Creating a Diverse and Inclusive Organizational Culture by Andrea Bearman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.