Building an effective DEI strategy
Jonny Briggs, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) director for the insurance firm Aviva, reflected on the successes and challenges of the firm’s DEI strategy and encouraged leaders to do more for their company’s strategy.
There are three aspects of a DEI strategy that are important to include, Briggs stated. The first was data, governance and accountability, which involved making sure every employee is involved, including leadership at the top. This also included using data to back up claims.
The second was people and culture, which involved focussing entirely on what employees require, and making sure employers do the best for them.
The third was customer and community. He explained that all companies that use the insurance firm, Aviva, are required to pay their colleagues a living wage.
“It's not necessarily about creating demands,” he explained, before outlining the work that Aviva wants to focus on moving forward, including training. He added: “We've got ambitions around leadership, power, gender.”
Briggs also emphasised the importance of using employee resource groups (ERGs) when defining a clear DEI strategy. He said: “All of what we [at Aviva] do is discussed through our employee resource groups. They are proven to be a brilliant programme for our colleagues who need them.”
The role of organisational compassion
When looking to implement compassionate leadership into an organisation, it’s not just about one leader doing the work, it’s about looking at the bigger picture, said Karena Starkie-Gomez, director of leadership and workforce for KPMG.
Starkie-Gomez emphasised that in order to develop compassion into the workplace, it is crucial to start at the top. She said: “You need an emotional tone from senior leaders. We know that your experience with your manager is one of the things that keeps you at work, but just [make] sure that people at line management level, at the front line, feel they have the time and the space to be able to support their teams, to support themselves, and often to feel like somebody's supporting them.”
There are three key systems in our brain, Starkie-Gomez went on to explain, and these are driving achievement, safeness, soothing and connection, and threat and protection. “Not often in organisations do we spend time to really foster this safeness, soothing and connection, and that's the bit where compassion really comes from.”
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Evidence-based practice enhances HR's ethical standards
Rob Briner, professor of organisational psychology at Queen Mary University of London, detailed the need and benefits of taking an evidence-based approach to HR.
In order to make important decisions, HR must take into account four main sources of evidence, Briner explained. According to Briner, these are: “Views and perspectives, which might include leaders, senior leaders, line managers. The second area is HR professionals. So, it could be your expertise external HR professionals, and indeed professional expertise in other fields.
“The third area is in data: KPIs, HR metrics, structuring, processes. And the fourth area is external evidence, which will include scientific evidence, benchmarking data and case study.”
HR professionals don’t always use an evidence-based approach as they are not incentivised to do so, Briner added; it is often those who get a lot done rather than making a difference who are rewarded.
Briner explained that in his view, the main benefit of using an evidence-based approach in HR is that it enhances ethical standards.
He said: “We need to make sure we take an evidence-based practice approach, because without it, we are not being ethical. Why? Because we don't understand the issues or problems people are dealing with, and because we're intervening.”
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LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace
Business psychologist Binna Kandola explored the roots of a homophobic society, and the importance of creating an inclusive workplace for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
He said: “You need to create several groups. And then once you create them, you can then start to bring a hierarchy. This hierarchy then gets supported by supposed 'scientific evidence', which kind of shows the 'validity' of the hierarchy.”
Although Kandola emphasised that he has mixed views about employee resource groups (ERGs), he stated that one way they can be used well is to foster inclusion of LGBTQ+ groups in the workplace and to tackle discrimination. ERGs can be beneficial because they mirror similar groups that have been in existence throughout history, he said. Kandola added: “People form societies where people meet together, in sync, without being harmed. It affects people's self-confidence, their self-efficacy."
