Top tips to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace

As part of our latest webinar, Why SMEs should embrace cultural diversity in the workplace, we spoke to three industry leaders about the importance of having a diverse and inclusive organisation. Here, they share their best advice for how to make that happen in your SME.

Malini Raj, Head of Community Engagement at Commonwealth Bank

1. Give your people a voice

You can have a highly diverse team and give everyone a seat at the table, but do they actually have a voice? If not, you need to give them opportunities to find and start using their culturally diverse voices.

We all have unconscious biases, so it’s important to acknowledge them and amplify awareness. When leaders are curious, they naturally want to learn about their team and understand what drives their people, which allows them to find new ways they can include them. Remember, though, that having a voice doesn’t mean you need to be loud. Who says a leader has to be loud? There are many different ways to lead people.

2. Practise awareness engagement

Most SMEs recognise that they need to acknowledge cultural days of significance. But it’s important to move the dialogue beyond just the event itself. At CommBank we have an internal Yammer page where people can post about days of cultural significance to them; that allows us to learn.

So for Lunar New Year, for example, we get to ask questions like, “What does this mean to you?” “How do you celebrate it individually or as a family?”

That allows us to bring those days to life so we can understand the meaning behind them and why they are celebrated in certain ways. When we start to break down barriers and we understand the various drivers, we learn that we have more in common than we might have thought.

Get more insights by watching the webinar in full: Why SMEs should embrace cultural diversity in the workplace.

Holly De Rooy, Founder & Director, Engage 323

3. Keep it simple

Be realistic. Don’t try to start 10 years down the track. Keep things simple in the early days and then build on your successes — always seek to improve and to grow. For SMEs in particular, don’t try to aim for what the large organisations with their limitless budgets are doing.

By the same token, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Leverage your existing resources and see what’s out there to support your diversity and inclusivity strategies. A program like A Taste of Harmony is a great example of one of those wheels you don’t need to reinvent! It’s an easy way to celebrate your workplace’s cultural diversity, and it’s free to participate in.

4. Share monthly communications

Don’t neglect the power of regular communication — get buy-in from your staff simply by talking to them and asking questions. Something as simple as a monthly email or newsletter can help your entire team become more culturally inclusive.

All it takes is to start acknowledging what you see in the workplace. At the start of the year you might like to send out a January publication that includes a ‘Happy Lunar New Year’, and give your best wishes of prosperity and luck in their coming year to those who are celebrating the event. It can be as small as that.

Gabriel Gaté, International Chef, Author and Television Presenter

5. Use food as a way to bring everyone together

Food is something to be shared together. Everyone has their own interpretation of what they are eating, and it is so easy to enjoy with other people. Within the workplace, A Taste of Harmony is a way for everyone to bring a plate from their country or their culture or their family’s recipe book. It’s a really lovely experience because a plate from someone from the north of Italy might be different from the south, or from the north of India will be different from Kerala.

When you mix the workplace and cultures and backgrounds and food all together, it makes for an incredible assemblage of pleasure, of joy.

Read now: Webinar recap: Why SMEs should embrace cultural diversity in the workplace