Diversity and Inclusion: A Competitive Edge

Abstract

Last 18 months have been filled with uncertainty, fear and discomfort both personally and professionally. During this COVID Wave 2 in India, there has been a substantial impact on lives, livelihoods and employment rates especially amongst women, disabled and other minority groups, with employable numbers dropping to 5.3% across industry. Women employment rates have dipped to 18% outing India in the last quartile globally for women employment. Most women are now pessimistic about re-joining work outing us more than a decade behind on work done thus far on gender diversity. It has also hit the younger talent harder, with 18-24 year olds being almost three times more likely to be unemployed compared to experienced workers. Disabled talent have been deprioritised for roles given the dip in hiring. This has led to reversal of work that was done over past decades for enhancing diversity and inclusion (D&I) in workplaces. Inclusion drives innovation that drives impact on our businesses; hence, there is a deep connect between a business case for D&I. As per McKinsey & Com and Deloitte (2021) research, organizations that leveraged their diverse workforce had better productivity resulting in 25% better profitability relative to the organization who were unable to leverage diverse talent. In spite of the statistics and recent trends and distressing, there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are now witnessing the industry starting to strengthen their focus and prioritizing their D&I strategies again. Many are also taking it to the next level by focusing on inclusion first and diversity second that will also impart healing to COVID-ravaged workplaces. Building a workplace culture that is truly diverse and inclusive, especially in a country that is fraught with multiple divisions and prejudices, is not easy. However, it is motivating to see the uprising of the persistent efforts made by various stakeholders who are focused on inclusive leadership, policies and engagement. Inclusive Leadership Quoting as has been said 'diversity is being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance' just because a business is hitting its diversity targets does not mean it is an inclusive place to work. There could be a significant turnover of diverse staff because of the lack of inclusivity, or that talent could not be progressing as it should. For instance, recent research has found that women and employees from lower socioeconomic backgrounds take 25% longer to progress through a company, despite no evidence of poorer performance. Lately, minority talent turnover has increased by 5% across key sectors like tech, retail and manufacturing. However, we do see that proactive and market leading businesses that have put inclusion first, are attempting to reverse this trend and are feeling the benefits of levelling up their teams. Recent studies from McKinsey & Company (2020) show that businesses in the top quartile for women, ethnic and cultural diversity outperform those in the fourth quartile by 36% in profitability. The