Helen Pitcher, OBE
There is much debate and discussion about the impact of the Covid crisis on Diversity and Inclusion. There are concerns in relation to how this will set back progress, and that employers will be focused on fighting the fires of survival and thus be inclined to put ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ on the backburner for when they emerge into better times.
This essentially defines Diversity and Inclusion as an exclusively economic issue which requires employers to spend time and money to get diversity ‘right’. While it is true that the financing of ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ processes, education and facilitation programmes have and will have an impact for the larger employers and institutions, we have a significant opportunity to leverage the current crisis to build ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ more closely into the fabric of our society, businesses and everyday actions. Indeed, the worldwide reaction to the George Floyd death show the importance and sensitivity to this issue.
As the spokesman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said recently “we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to focus and address the issues which will make a difference to equality. People are seeing things in a different light”.
We have indeed during this crisis seen significant positive awareness and behavioural change towards the minority and disadvantaged groups within our society. Our challenge is to maintain this positive momentum and make it part of our everyday way of thinking and acting.
The daily flood of news and statistics have thrown into stark relief both the vulnerability of certain groups and our reliance on ‘key workers’, often in disadvantaged categories. There is also an increasing awareness from the ‘middle taxpayer class’ of the connectedness of society. We have seen a massive surge in people taking and engaging in their own individual action to support and underpin disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in our society, through charitable actions, focus groups, action groups and volunteering.
We have also seen our government take a significant societal approach, with widespread financial underpinning, a focus on vulnerable groups and a consensus-based policy approach to benefit the whole of society. The ‘middle taxpayer class’ who have and will be funding this approach, while showing a growing desire to get the economy moving again, have essentially seen this as the right thing to do. Indeed, the talk has been about how we build on this support and equality into the future.
This crisis has illuminated the existing inequalities and has put into stark relief the advantages and disadvantages across education, housing, employment security and health outcomes. This has included pronouncements by the government of their desire to emerge with a clearer focus on these key areas for the betterment of society as a whole. While politicians promises are a fragile flower, there seems to be a genuine desire across society to do things better and a recognition of the price, i.e. taxation, that may need to be paid.
While the Public Sector has stepped up to the mark during this crisis, it is the disadvantaged groups in the commercial sector who have and will be significantly financially effected and will ‘suffer’ more on the tough road to recovery. They are people currently, for the most part, supported by the government financial employment schemes. They are the group which will see the largest number of job cuts and with the least amount of financial security as we move from the disease crisis to the economic crisis. It is amongst these groups that diversity and inclusion is at the battlefront, where we need, as a society, to refuse to allow continued biases and disadvantages to persist. Again, we have seen the frustration at the pace of change in inequality from the recent events in the US.
As business leaders and individual’s, we cannot ‘cure’ all ills. We do, however, have the opportunity to take a lead in putting ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ at the forefront of our development agenda. This is not purely a financial matter; it is a desire and action to build on the emerging positive business leadership trends from the Covid crisis in areas such as remote working. To capitalise on the upside and avoid the downsides, with remote working being at the forefront of a sense of change in the business environment.
The actions of business should be focused on practicing a more Inclusive Reflective Leadership. A more Effective Reflective Leadership should have a positive effect on the ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ agenda. This was illuminated in a recent Deloitte paper on Addressing the impacts of Covid-19, ‘Practicing Inclusive Leadership at Times of Crisis’. The paper suggests that the opportunity for fostering inclusion in the workplace has presented itself with a focus on; ‘Fairness and Respect’ with a more consultative style, ‘Values and Belonging’ through outreach and engagement with remote workers and ‘Confidence and Inspiration’ creating open communications and harnessing the collective power of a diverse workforce. At the same time the paper also cautioned against some of the inherent difficulties of unconscious biases which are heightened during times of stress and pressure.
This focus on a more ‘Reflective Leadership’ approach, stimulated dramatically by the ‘overnight sensation’ of remote working provides a great opportunity for businesses to ‘normalise’ this style into the post crisis approach (See The Emergence of the Reflective Leader of Remote Teams, by Helen Pitcher OBE).
There does seem a genuine desire to catch the mood from both business and government, to do things differently. This has both human and economic advantages which have been demonstrated by remote working and the deployment of effective technology for both workflow and communications. Businesses are also responding to their consumers who are looking to build for a future which leverages inclusion, diversity and support for the community and avoids going back to the ‘old ways’. There is a palpably feeling that of a ‘middle taxation class’ who are prepared to take more responsibility and as a society support under-privileged minorities and disadvantaged groups, with a realisation it is these groups, who will be hardest hit by the economic tail of the crisis. It is also this majority ‘middle taxation class’ who will not have patience with the super-rich individuals and corporations not doing their bit.
While we are full of optimism it is a fragile thing which can be easily dented and ignored. Consequently, we will need to plan well as businesses. It is not just about the ‘physical’ bit of getting the economy going, but also the psychological and management aspects of Leading and Engaging with our workforces and consumers in a new way as we transition back to a ‘new norm’.
This will include being careful about the obvious downsides of remote working for example, on careers, isolation and communication. It will not do just to take the advantages and benefits of remote working etc without doing the ‘hard yards’ of adjusting our Leadership and Management accordingly.
There are some clear potential advantages of remote working which can open up the diversity of a workforce for example, appropriate workflow systems can provide a more flexible response to the needs of ‘households’ with a more adaptable approach to work hours. This has the benefit of potentially bringing more ‘disadvantaged’ groups into the business economic sphere, but also opening up promotions, careers and opportunities to women which are not tied to a physical location and fixed hours.
Never before have the societal members of the ‘middle taxation class’ seen with their own eyes so much information, and emotionally experienced the social and material advantages they have. Never have the ‘middle taxation class’ class felt so appreciative towards a whole range of minority, disadvantaged and low paid support groups.
If we are to take advantage of this crisis to ‘shift the dial’ on ‘Diversity and Inclusion’, we will need to deliberately engage and change our business approaches, ensuring we do not just fall back into the previous regimes and avoid being diverted onto other issues. While the opportunity presents itself, it needs to be grasped with our full strength and dynamism to move forward and not just with a sigh of relief that it is all over.
