Awareness & Education: Key To Building A Diverse Workforce

Among all the HR strategies, including people from diverse backgrounds in the company is essential to escalate the organisation's productivity and benefit the larger society. When individuals from diverse social backgrounds work together, it strengthens the core of the company’s fundamentals which is ‘unity in diversity’. 

Their journey and experience benefit the organisation to grow in various fields and verticals. The term ‘inclusivity of diversity’ is not just limited to the recruitment stage in the companies, but their inclusivity principles involve people in decision making too.

Deepti Mehta, chief human resource officer, Interface Microsystems said that for her company diversity is not limited to gender-specific hiring only. She added, “We have different segments hiring is the only strategy we use, we make sure that whenever the talent is there, that talent has been retained. The opportunities which we provide to all the employees are very different.”

She highlighted that because of technology's presence, talent scarcity is very high. 

Dheeraj Modi, vice president and global HR head, Innover Digital, highlighted the long-coming presence of diversity, equity and inclusivity in the HR fraternity and considers them to be the golden words. Modi said that his organisation believes that the right way to practice diversity in any organisation is through ‘Awareness’. He also mentioned that diversity in India is very different compared to other developed countries. 

According to him, storytelling can be the best way to bring out all the struggling stories from different communities that will eventually inspire people out there. 

Every organisation has their own parameters to define and function diversity and inclusivity, but according to Megha Gupta, head of people, C2FO, her company touched a higher level of how they define diversity in India. She divided the diversity into internal and external and said most organisations are focused on internal diversity; colour, sex, orientation etc.

Gupta added, “It is important to delve into what kind of an experience the person has come in, what is the cultural background that the person has been in? and therefore that influences how we operate as an organisation.”

In the last few years, talks on DI (Diversity & Inclusivity) have intensified. Commenting over the same Rajesh Mohan Rai, CHRO & Director, Servotech Power Systems said that the fact that we still need to talk about DI, indicates that there is a need to treat everyone equally. Rai advocated a culture of equal treatment in the organisations rather than focusing on diversity. 

Exploring every dimension of diversity and inclusivity, Rakesh Prasad, AVP – HR (IFS), and IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation) talked about the psychological safety that organisations should pursue to spread; He gave the instances of men’s awareness about women’s pain and hygiene during menstruation. 

Prasad talked about the inclusion of sensitisation as the approach and objectivity, that will benefit every section of society being represented in the organisation.

Companies are second home to the employees and staff, and it is the CHRO’s responsibility to ensure to make the same place safer and happier for them.