It’s widely accepted that having a proactive approach to diversity and inclusion makes good business sense. Not only does it open up your business to new talent, resources and opportunities, but it also helps your team feel engaged and aligned with your business culture and helps you contribute positively to the greater good.
And there’s plenty of evidence showing that diverse and inclusive workplaces can improve organisational performance through better decisions and higher levels of innovation, and by demonstrating diversity is also one way of earning a social license and building public trust, according to the Australian Public Service Commission
But it can be hard to put these good intentions into practice, and where to even begin?
At Truis, we’re proud to have diversity and inclusion as a core pillar of our business foundations because we believe everyone deserves fair and equal access to the world of technology and IT, and we want to create an internal culture for our people where they feel welcome to be themselves.
We love to share our learnings to help others embrace diversity and inclusivity in their organisations, so we are sharing ways we strive to build diversity and inclusion into our business. We are in no way complete in our journey, and we have much more we want to achieve, but we get it – it can be overwhelming thinking about that first step.
Here are tips on turning those good intentions into clear actions.
Open-book policy
Begin by sharing your diversity and inclusion (D&I) commitment openly and honestly. We’ve created a dedicated page on our website, spelling out our belief in the importance of D&I, what D&I means, what it means to us as a business, and how we’re taking action to improve every day.
Here is where we share what we’re doing as part of this commitment, the activities that are underway, and our vision for our business being a genuinely diverse and inclusive place to work.
We also acknowledge that this is a work in progress, and we’re always learning new ways to improve. It’s an evolution, and we are committed to sharing our progress as an open book as it happens.
All on board for the ride
As a people-centric business, we believe in bringing our people along for our journey towards a considered D&I approach.
Being open with our staff has worked well for us from the onset. We are asking our team proactively about what’s important to them, and empowering them with knowledge and training in order to create a diverse and inclusive environment for our organisation.
To kick-start the initiatives, we invited a group of our employees from various departments and cultural backgrounds to complete the Empower People (DE&I) Fundamentals training. From the results, we created our Truis equity and inclusion strategy that celebrates the religious and cultural holidays and topics that are meaningful to our people, which we assessed every quarter to stay on track with our D&I goals and evolve as needed.
For more information on principles for the successful implementation of diversity and inclusion strategies within the workplace – visit: https://www.arc.gov.au/about-arc/corporate-policies/diversity-inclusion-framework
Partner up with the community
We are proud corporate partners of CPL (Choice Passion Life), an organisation committed to creating a truly inclusive society. As part of this partnership, we support the important work CPL is doing to empower the disability community in our region, advancing our people through the regular disability-awareness training they provide for our staff.
For us at Truis, disability awareness and inclusion is especially relevant to us as an IT organisation. We believe IT has the potential to make the modern world more accessible and inclusive for people with a disability, and we want to encourage more people to harness the potential of IT as a tool for inclusion.
As a step towards a diverse and inclusive culture within your business, we highly recommend partnering with a local community organisation that is meaningful to your company and its people. Not only are you able to give back, but we have certainly found it has strengthened our culture as a business while delivering new experiences and training to our people.
Check out the great work CPL is doing and how you can help here: https://www.cpl.org.au/support-us
Power to your people
Opportunities such as disability awareness and inclusion training can empower your staff. Often it’s a case of “we don’t know what we don’t know”, especially when we haven’t had a lived experience living with a disability or coming from a diverse background different to our own.
Specialised training can help your people understand the bigger picture of why D&I is important and help to break down any barriers while also giving them new opportunities to contribute to how you embed these principles into your business’s daily processes and systems.
Much has been written about how team diversity positively impacts creativity and innovation. There’s such value in fostering experiences with multiple perspectives, which inspires fresh thinking, connecting thoughts in new ways, and different approaches to problem-solving for teams.
From our experience to date on our D&I path, clear communication as to why training is taking place, problems we are trying to solve, and what comes next has been pivotal in keeping our people motivated and educated on how the learnings tie back to broader company goals.
Be open to new ideas
As we said, diversity and inclusion is a journey of education, awareness and acceptance. It’s an opportunity to rethink what your business is already doing and break down any assumptions you might have about other people’s experiences.
Embracing diversity and inclusion can help create a workplace where people are comfortable sharing their authentic experiences and know their contributions are valued. And this, in turn, will open new ideas and possibilities within businesses where every person’s unique abilities, expertise, challenges, and lived experiences are valued.
Sometimes simple tweaks to how you communicate with your customers or even lay out your premises can make a big difference which is all you need to start building momentum to create lasting change within your organisation.
Are you keen on starting your diversity and inclusion journey or just continuing the conversation?
Stay updated on how we here at Truis are tracking with our diversity and inclusivity journey; we still have a lot more to do but would love to share our progress: https://truis.com.au/news/diversity-and-inclusion-stay-truis-to-yourself/
Read more about CPL’s corporate partnerships here: https://www.cpl.org.au/corporate-partnership
