The discussion around diversity and inclusion should impact company strategy and decision - it should be a business priority, not just HR. I recently wrote a couple of blogs around the topics of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity:

• The Gender Pay Gap reporting is not going away talking about the usefulness of reporting Gender Pay Gap mainly so that it can be fixed and
• The Gender Pay Gap Discussion: Is Pay Transparency The Way To Bridge The Gap Or Is It A Double-Edged Sword? talking about how pay transparency can help to tackle the Gender Pay Gap and to achieve a meaningful commitment to diversity and inclusion).

It is interesting to note that all the noise around Diversity & Inclusion simply doesn't affect the decisions and strategy of companies enough (or at all) to impact equitable pay. One question worth asking for me is: does this differ from all other facets of diversity? Mmmh, Nope... What can be done about it?

All the diversity and inclusion programs, initiatives, communication plans are lovely and laudable for sure. But they just cannot/must not be an 'HR thing' and sit in HR alone. If at all. Diversity and inclusion must be a business thing. Diversity is all about having a mix of people that reflects the community the company operates in/the customer base. And provides a broad talent pool to pick from. It needs to have a multi-faceted multi-dimensional approach encompassing every single process in the product/service cycle. Procurement, technology, product development, marketing, sales and so on.

Diverse teams equal diverse prospectives to serve diverse customer needs. It is a business priority. Diverse managers/leaders equal understanding of and addressing different employees at different times during their working life. Together with flexible policies to match. Employees' identity can/will change during the working life and it is important to remember this point. People might develop a disability, become parents or carers, grow old. And this needs to be acknowledged with a flexible approach not treating everyone the same - which might be discriminatory in itself when it comes to disability. It is not about just legal compliance either - a "we do it because we have to'. Rather than 'because we want to' and it is the right thing to do. Inclusion makes it all work to enable a culture and systems that deliver equity for everybody. It is common sense, plain and simple. So why are we still having to talk about it? Seems common sense is not that common...

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