Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging in the Workplace Essay

Introduction

Workplace inclusion, diversity, and belonging have developed into crucial components of a philosophy that permeates all enterprises. Due to the value they provide, hose concepts swiftly ascend to the forefront of enterprises’ priorities. They not only help to create more content, open-minded, and productive staff, but they also enhance the financial performance of the companies. Nevertheless, building a multicultural and welcoming work atmosphere remains one of today’s greatest difficulties. It requires more than a training film or a talk on being kind to employees to achieve real diversity and inclusion. Numerous reputable firms have been making efforts to establish, enhance, and continuously monitor these values on a variety of fronts, including employment, promotions, opportunities, conduct, and more. The commercial argument for this is becoming more widely understood. Although social justice is frequently the driving force behind these initiatives, businesses have started to see belonging, inclusion, and diversity as key success factors, more particularly, as crucial facilitators of development.

There are three main concepts that serve as the base for the paper – inclusivity, diversity, and belonging. Included are people’s participation and empowerment. People are valued and respected when they are included. When they are their true selves, employees perform at their best. One has to feel included in order to be one’s true self. In the workplace, diversity contains all aspects of the human experience, including ethnicity, financial background, community, gender and sexual identity, religion, and culture. It necessitates the eradication of all prejudices and the use of exclusively merit-based hiring. When an employee feels accepted, included, and has a sense of identification with a particular organization, group, or location, they are said to have a sense of belonging, which is a sense of safety and support (Traavik, 2019). Employee perceptions of their reception among coworkers and inclusion for suitable changes, activities, and more are influenced by how they feel appreciated, acknowledged, and included at work. Thus, the paper aims to provide a reflection on the three critical workplace factors and analyze their role and importance in the organization.

Reflection

In order to get a deeper understanding of diversity and inclusivity, there is an example of an incident that happened at Google regarding those issues. A former Google employee filed a lawsuit against the business on Friday, alleging that it routinely discriminated against Black employees by assigning them to lower-level positions, underpaying them, and depriving them of advancement prospects. April Curley, who was employed at Google since 2014 before being fired in 2020, is the complainant (Wakabayash, 2022). While working there, Ms. Curley created initiatives to attract candidates from historically Black institutions and universities, which assisted the corporation in hiring Black personnel. She claimed that “Google maintains employment rules and procedures that have a discriminatory impact against Black employees all across the United States and is involved in a countrywide pattern or practice of deliberate race discrimination and retaliation (Wakabayash, 2022). According to the lawsuit, Google often employed Black employees with lower job statuses than were suitable for their level of expertise (Wakabayash, 2022). Pay is linked to work for groups; hence the business was able to pay Black employees less than their white counterparts.

The lawsuit reflects several grievances Black workers have made throughout the years regarding working at Google. Even as it expanded into one of the biggest private companies in the country, the business has had trouble diversifying its workforce in terms of race and gender, particularly among its highly compensated engineering personnel. 4.4% of Google’s U.S. employees were of different ethnicities, one of which is Black, which is much less than the national average for content creation and search organizations (Wakabayash, 2022). Ms. Curley also claimed that her workplace was unfriendly. She said that during the course of her six years there, bosses frequently confused her with two other Black coworkers. She said that a boss had asked which of her coworkers she desired to have an intimate relationship with and that neither she nor those coworkers had been given the opportunity to speak or present at crucial meetings. Eventually, Ms. Curley got a decrease in wage and was fired.

However, this experience positively impacted the organization’s approach toward diversity and stimulated it to work on more effective practices. By 2021, they have increased the leadership representation of ethnic minorities by 30%, and by 2025, management expects to have doubled Black+ representation across all of our U.S. locations. Google is concentrating on a lot more than hiring as we work toward our representation objectives. To enhance hiring, advancement, and engagement for disadvantaged minorities at Google, our recruitment leaders collaborate closely with internal organizations such as Black Googler Network. New onboarding initiatives are being introduced to all members of the program. In addition, the company strives to help Googlers experience the new, improved mental health services and internal mentoring initiatives.

During the observation of the situation, I experienced certain feelings connected with the diverse and inclusive practices in the company. The most frustrating fact is that Google seemed to have more focus on the image of the progressive company when it was not reflecting the reality. Moreover, it is highly possible that not only Google but other organization that portrays themselves as diverse companies follow the same pattern. If such a huge corporation still does not manage to ensure the well-being of all the employees and implement innovative practices, then the overall situation in the workplace might not be positive. It is devastating that usually, it is hard or even impossible to say if the certain company follows the chosen direction or only pretends to work on the issue. Mostly, due to the employees that have the courage to speak to the public about the inappropriate situations happening in the workplace, people can recognize if the company does any actions.

This incident reflects the major problem that exists in society, and even despite any personal beliefs and biases, it is still a relevant issue. Regarding my personal values, I strongly stand for inclusivity and diversity in general, and I feel that there should be a lot more for people of color and all minorities. For instance, the framework of belonging is something that I use in evaluating the case. Employees should feel accepted and valued in the company, whose ultimate goal is to provide a safe and secure environment for work. Unfortunately, there were signs that black employees do have such a positive experience in the company, which means that there are certain problems with diversity and inclusivity.

Observation Summary and Experience

Although I have never experienced anything like that personally, I have read articles and news about such cases in the companies. Even though I did not witness or experience such problems as inclusivity, I learned through the media and conversations with minority representatives about such cases. All the time, the conditions were rather similar when the companies claimed that they stand for inclusivity, but inside, employees experienced discrimination.

Google, for example, demonstrated certain disruptive behavioral patterns in this situation. Although the corporation aimed to hire more black people, the positions that were offered to them were significantly lower than for other ethnicities (Lopez, n.d.). I examined the case through the concept of diversity and inclusion, which was significant in evaluating the incident. Some of the skills regarding those concepts that were useful are openness. Openness to many different types of thoughts, experiences, methods, and practices retains curiosity when faced with something novel, strange, or distinct. It helps to be receptive to new ideas and potential biases. Moreover, being open to new ideas and perspectives enables us to solve challenging issues. In addition, it would be helpful to view the situations from different perspectives and broaden the sphere of perception. Taking into account what someone else could be feeling or thinking and actively looking for other points of view to help in decision-making and problem-solving, holding a variety of truths. Empowering decision-making and voices across a diverse spectrum of identities by adopting a different perspective allows for better comprehension of cultural variances and fosters justice and belonging. Those skills will be useful; for example, I evaluate the organizational performance regarding inclusivity and diversity.

Significant Factors Underlying the Experience or Observation

The major factor that underlines the observation is the existence of quantity, but not the quality of the diversity practices. The company hired racial minorities but failed to provide them with opportunities for development and made them experience a lack of sense of belonging (Adejumo, (2021). The experience was driven by compliance since Google’s statement did not manage the actions. The situation was beneficial for the organization even though they were sued by the ex-employee; it made them reconstruct the way the professional responsibilities were distributed among the racial minorities. Thus, eventually, it had positive results on the corporation’s culture and values. Diversity and inclusivity are a priority at the CEO level, and they are valued at all organizational levels of management from the concept of inclusion.

Reconstructing – Reconstruction of Future Practice or Professional Understanding

From the case of Google, I have learned that the company’s purposes and actions do not always match each other. It is important to evaluate not only the visible outcomes but look deeper into what is happening inside the organization. Through the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, I would suggest certain methods for the improvement of the situation in the company. Firstly, increasing cultural variety provides insights into fostering well-being for all people and utilizing diversity’s advantages at work, which improves performance (Krause, 2019). Secondly, position advertising can explicitly mention the purpose of hiring and retaining a multicultural workforce that provides an inclusive atmosphere in order to improve and encourage candidate pool diversity (Martinez-Acosta & Favero, 2018). Finally, bullying occurs often in this context, whether it occurs at work, in social settings, or in an educational environment. It is crucial to inform workers about the value of inclusion and diversity of all kinds (Prayson & Rowe, 2019). People need to believe there is a place they can turn to for support and assistance if they are being bullied, and such conduct has to be handled immediately.

Conclusion

Overall, the paper provided a reflection on the three critical workplace factors such as diversity, inclusivity, and belonging, and analyzed their role and importance in the organization. Those frameworks are necessary to apply to ensure the development and productivity of the organization along as well being of each employee. Although companies try to use some methods to promote diversity, it may not be enough for full inclusion and requires more work and strategic planning. Eventually, it benefits not only the employee but the corporation themselves due to the greater variety of people in the workplace with different backgrounds and creative perspectives.

References

Wakabayash, D. (2022). The lawsuit accuses Google of bias against black employees.New-York Times. Web.

Lopez, C. How we’re making progress on our representation goals. (n.d.). Google Belonging. Web.

Krause, W. (2019). Leading in times of cultural diversity: Achieving wellbeing, inclusivity, and organizational performance. In The Routledge companion to management and workplace spirituality(pp. 250-260). Routledge.

Martinez-Acosta, V. G., & Favero, C. B. (2018). A discussion of diversity and inclusivity at the institutional level: The need for a strategic plan. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 16(3), A252.

Prayson, R. A., & Rowe, J. J. (2019). LGBTQ Inclusivity and Language in the Workplace.Critical Values, 12(2), 28-30. Web.

Adejumo, V. (2021). Beyond diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Leadership, 17(1), 62-73.

Traavik, L. E. (2019). Where differences dwell: inclusion and the healthy workplace. In Creating psychologically healthy workplaces(pp. 215-234). Edward Elgar Publishing. Web.