Baking it in: Fostering diversity in new and growing businesses.
In 2021, I wrote an article about the challenges faced by large businesses adopting Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) into their broader corporate identity and ethos. Now I find myself on the other side of the fence; in a small and rapidly growing consultancy firm, I'm considering how we can 'bake in' an inclusive culture that matches our growth.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) represent a large percentage of the global workforce – accounting for approximately 90% of businesses worldwide. They outnumber their large-company counterparts several times over, yet their approach to D&I rarely reflects the multi-million-pound engagement programmes adopted by HR departments in big firms.
This is not without reason. SMEs do not necessarily need to replicate the programmes, visions and networks that large companies develop. SME workforces are small and are unlikely to have the volume of employees required to capture a truly diverse work pool. For example, many are family-run businesses with close-knit employees who share both work and leisure time.
Others may work in highly specialised fields where the employee pool consists of individuals with similar demographic backgrounds.
Further to this, formalised D&I programmes can be expensive, and many SMEs are not financially equipped to employ the dedicated staff, resources, and research to implement fully-fledged diversity programmes.
However, this is not to say that D&I is a fruitless venture in small and growing companies. It simply means that SMEs should scale their D&I goals and ambitions to the company's size and capability. Small, proactive steps that can help prevent the creeping issues faced by larger companies include:
Actively reviewing employee pay gaps between demographics;
Developing fair parental leave policies;
Providing resources for mental health support;
Writing a publicly visible diversity ethos that reflects the company's values.
Remember that colleagues will be happiest when they do not have to campaign and fight for fair treatment in the workplace.
Recently, User Centric Design decided to run all job advertising through digital implicit bias detection tools. These tools help filter out vocabulary and tone, which may implicitly show a preference for specific demographics and exclude others. Now, any job posts we release are created to appeal to all qualified candidates of all backgrounds.
This small, inexpensive decision proactively fosters diversity in UCD's growing workforce and helps establish a culture of inclusivity from the get-go.