4 ways employees respond to diversity and inclusion initiatives

Most organisations have diversity and inclusion initiatives of some kind, like training to raise awareness, promoting employee resource groups or revising talent acquisition approaches.

One factor which might determine the success or failure of diversity initiatives is the reaction of employees to them.

Usually employees are categorised as either "resistors", who are seen as barriers to successful implementation or "supporters", who try to make the initiatives work.

Research reported in the Harvard Business Review suggests this is too simplistic.

Here at Employee Feedback we've certainly heard ambivalence expressed by employees about diversity and inclusion initiatives. But categorising them as resistors is not helpful.

The researchers found that by measuring responses to initiatives in terms of participants' thoughts, feelings and behaviours they were able to identify, using latent profile analysis, four distinct response profiles.

1. Excited supporters

Positive on all measures – thoughts, feelings and behaviours.  Very supportive of initiatives and keen volunteers for activities.

2. Calm compliers

Moderate response on all measures.  Less active than supporters but compliant and conscientious in adopting the guidance but not enthusiastically.

3. Torn shapers

Mix of feelings and behavioural responses, some positive, some negative.  They're on the fence.  They might support the principles but disagree with how initiatives are implemented or the motivations behind them.

4. Discontented opponents

Characterised by negative, thoughts, feelings and behaviours.  Very critical and unsupportive of the initiatives and will be covertly or openly hostile to the activities.

The researchers offer some advice on how best to respond to each group.

Dealing with discontented opponents is difficult.  They suggest finding common ground, e.g. "we all care about fairness".  

My feeling is this may fail to land if discontent stems from feelings that the initiatives are unfair to the groups they belong to.

Another suggestion is reward - aligning desired outcomes with incentives and reward structures.

If you're interested in reading the research in detail the paper can be found here

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