Building Inclusion into an Engineering Business
Inclusivity can be built into business in four ways, as shown below. Please get in touch if you would like to find out more.
Personal Characteristics
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Business Tools
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Engineering Tools
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External Relations
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Inclusion is one of the buzzwords in engineering at the moment, but what does it mean, and how can we achieve it? Just like safety and ethics, inclusion is one of the underlying engineering competences that we should be integrating into every aspect of our engineering work. It is as valid when we are considering the engineering outputs we produce – to ensure that they are bias free and accessible for all – as it is when interacting with our colleagues in an office environment.
The traits which define an inclusive mindset include respect for others, open-mindedness, curiosity, cultural competence, kindness, lack of ego, and empathy. And these are developed by cultivating an ability to ask questions and listen to answers, working with a diverse team, and the self-awareness to understand one’s own privilege bias. Like other behaviours, an inclusive mindset is developed over time and once gained, contributes positively to our engineering designs as well as our professional dealings.
In addition to our personal behaviours, however, are a whole range of business behaviours that can be modified to become more inclusive, and studies have shown that there are multiple benefits to an inclusive business environment.
A Royal Academy of Engineering report in 2017 (Creating Cultures where All Engineers Thrive, Royal Academy of Engineering) found that individuals who feel included in the workplace are much more likely to be committed to the company; understand the business priorities; be more confident about speaking up on improvements; more likely to speak up on mistakes or safety concerns; and more likely to see a future for themselves in engineering. Inclusive company are also more attractive to future employees, who feel that inclusion leads to increased innovation, and is something that they actively look for in new companies.
So we couldn’t have much stronger arguments for the need to improve the culture of our organisation to become more inclusive.
The business tools that can help us become an inclusive company include bias interrupters, measures and targets, behaviour codes, strategies, inclusion impact assessments, process audits, and inclusion nudges.
Bias interrupters are the strategic and structural systems we can put in place to almost physically prevent bias occurring – things like computer programmes which analyse the pay increases that men and women gain which spot and prevent gender biased pay increases which may occur inadvertently just because men ask for pay increases more frequently than women; things like process amendments which ‘make’ inclusion the norm and don’t need to rely on people actually remembering to be inclusive. The more we can embed these bias interrupters into our current processes and procedures, the more effect they will have.
In recruitment – inclusive recruitment practices can include: ensuring that all job adverts have the ‘inclusion rider’ text added (this is the standard text at the bottom of job adverts which encourages those who may not think they are fully qualified to apply, or where we want to appeal to candidates who are currently from under-represented groups); that adverts are all run through Textio or some other gender decoder before being advertised to ensue gender neutral language; that the disaggregated data on numbers of applicants, shortlisted candidates and successful candidates is automatically measured by our software; ensuring that adverts are automatically placed on sites likely to attract a diverse group of applicants; and that ‘personal invitation’ is used to encourage more diverse groups to apply. These measures make inclusiveness the default, and by embedding them into process then they are automatically delivered.
Behavioural codes which set down the ‘rules’ for inclusive behaviour, for inclusive meetings, and for inclusive events (for example where ‘manels’, or all-male panels, are avoided) help people understand what is expected of them, and building these into performance reviews ensures that they become visible to all employees. After all, without something to refer to when people behave in a non-inclusive way it will always be difficult to encourage these behaviours.
The use of inclusion impact assessments (or equality or diversity impact assessments) as standard when decisions are being taken is another business tool that will lead to inclusion.
Inclusion ‘nudges’ are practical interventions that influence the unconscious mind to automatically be inclusive in daily actions, leadership, and decision-making – to nudge people into behaving in an inclusive way. They don’t rely on people being convinced, or on understanding the business case. Inclusion nudges include putting behavioural guidelines on the tables in meeting rooms; putting photographs of women leaders or women engineers on the walls; having visible displays of support for national awareness days that celebrate colleagues from different societal groups; using social media posts that reinforce important messages and provide thought leadership. These are all Inclusion Nudges.
And finally, our external relations – are we as inclusive here as we can be? How do we pass on our inclusive values to our supply chain? What do we look like to our customers, our clients and our future employees? Are our outreach activities inclusive or do we only engage with the already advantaged local schools and pupils? Does our branding and website mirror our aspirations; what do our investments say about us; what does our procurement procedure and our contracts look like and could we be using these to leverage more inclusive behaviours and targets with our supply chain? These are all questions that will allow us to assess how we become more inclusive in an externally facing way, and ensure that we not only increase the inclusiveness of our own company, but effect these changes in the wider landscape too.
Contact me if you would like to find out more.
The traits which define an inclusive mindset include respect for others, open-mindedness, curiosity, cultural competence, kindness, lack of ego, and empathy. And these are developed by cultivating an ability to ask questions and listen to answers, working with a diverse team, and the self-awareness to understand one’s own privilege bias. Like other behaviours, an inclusive mindset is developed over time and once gained, contributes positively to our engineering designs as well as our professional dealings.
In addition to our personal behaviours, however, are a whole range of business behaviours that can be modified to become more inclusive, and studies have shown that there are multiple benefits to an inclusive business environment.
A Royal Academy of Engineering report in 2017 (Creating Cultures where All Engineers Thrive, Royal Academy of Engineering) found that individuals who feel included in the workplace are much more likely to be committed to the company; understand the business priorities; be more confident about speaking up on improvements; more likely to speak up on mistakes or safety concerns; and more likely to see a future for themselves in engineering. Inclusive company are also more attractive to future employees, who feel that inclusion leads to increased innovation, and is something that they actively look for in new companies.
So we couldn’t have much stronger arguments for the need to improve the culture of our organisation to become more inclusive.
The business tools that can help us become an inclusive company include bias interrupters, measures and targets, behaviour codes, strategies, inclusion impact assessments, process audits, and inclusion nudges.
Bias interrupters are the strategic and structural systems we can put in place to almost physically prevent bias occurring – things like computer programmes which analyse the pay increases that men and women gain which spot and prevent gender biased pay increases which may occur inadvertently just because men ask for pay increases more frequently than women; things like process amendments which ‘make’ inclusion the norm and don’t need to rely on people actually remembering to be inclusive. The more we can embed these bias interrupters into our current processes and procedures, the more effect they will have.
In recruitment – inclusive recruitment practices can include: ensuring that all job adverts have the ‘inclusion rider’ text added (this is the standard text at the bottom of job adverts which encourages those who may not think they are fully qualified to apply, or where we want to appeal to candidates who are currently from under-represented groups); that adverts are all run through Textio or some other gender decoder before being advertised to ensue gender neutral language; that the disaggregated data on numbers of applicants, shortlisted candidates and successful candidates is automatically measured by our software; ensuring that adverts are automatically placed on sites likely to attract a diverse group of applicants; and that ‘personal invitation’ is used to encourage more diverse groups to apply. These measures make inclusiveness the default, and by embedding them into process then they are automatically delivered.
Behavioural codes which set down the ‘rules’ for inclusive behaviour, for inclusive meetings, and for inclusive events (for example where ‘manels’, or all-male panels, are avoided) help people understand what is expected of them, and building these into performance reviews ensures that they become visible to all employees. After all, without something to refer to when people behave in a non-inclusive way it will always be difficult to encourage these behaviours.
The use of inclusion impact assessments (or equality or diversity impact assessments) as standard when decisions are being taken is another business tool that will lead to inclusion.
Inclusion ‘nudges’ are practical interventions that influence the unconscious mind to automatically be inclusive in daily actions, leadership, and decision-making – to nudge people into behaving in an inclusive way. They don’t rely on people being convinced, or on understanding the business case. Inclusion nudges include putting behavioural guidelines on the tables in meeting rooms; putting photographs of women leaders or women engineers on the walls; having visible displays of support for national awareness days that celebrate colleagues from different societal groups; using social media posts that reinforce important messages and provide thought leadership. These are all Inclusion Nudges.
And finally, our external relations – are we as inclusive here as we can be? How do we pass on our inclusive values to our supply chain? What do we look like to our customers, our clients and our future employees? Are our outreach activities inclusive or do we only engage with the already advantaged local schools and pupils? Does our branding and website mirror our aspirations; what do our investments say about us; what does our procurement procedure and our contracts look like and could we be using these to leverage more inclusive behaviours and targets with our supply chain? These are all questions that will allow us to assess how we become more inclusive in an externally facing way, and ensure that we not only increase the inclusiveness of our own company, but effect these changes in the wider landscape too.
Contact me if you would like to find out more.