{"id":33157,"date":"2020-07-15T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T06:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/45.77.228.250\/?p=33157"},"modified":"2020-07-16T15:39:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T13:39:51","slug":"diversity-inclusion-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/segeriusbruce.com\/diversity-inclusion-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"9 ways to introduce and improve Diversity, Inclusion & Equality into your business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now is the time for us to continue having these conversations. Racial, gender-based, economic, religious and all types of disparity and equality should never be tolerated. There shouldn’t be a short-term social media hype followed by silence. Moving forward, we need to ensure that we do the work and continue to make all different groups of people feel included.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In my FB Group, I recently hosted Vaishali Shah<\/a> from Culturally Minded<\/a>, a consultancy firm. She has 20 years’ experience in Marketing, 14 yrs experience in weddings and events, and also family business experience. I then interviewed Soniamarie Palmer<\/a>, from Soniamarie Consulting<\/a>, who has a 20 yr background in Human Resources and Employment law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Using the insight I gained from these two conversations, I put together some of their best tips, and have featured them below, to help entrepreneurs bring diversity, inclusion, and equality into their small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is diversity, inclusion, and equality? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Diversity<\/em> is the mix of different types of groups; age, gender, education, religion, origin, personality, socio – economic status, disability, sexual orientation etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Inclusion<\/em> is the effort to make all these people work together and create a place of value and belonging in your company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Equality<\/em>: No one in the workplace should experience fear or exclusion or discrimination. Everyone should be treated equally regardless of their status and should be granted access to the same opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Don\u2019t think this is only for big corporate companies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t matter what the size of your business is. Diversity, inclusion, and equality are not just for huge international corporations. Change starts with each individual. Even if you are a sole proprietor, a mom working from your kitchen, or a start-up you should make an effort to be representative of the multicultural society that we live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. Be authentic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t want to just hire people from diverse backgrounds. Don\u2019t hire or make friends because it\u2019s good for business, or just to fill a quota or tick a box. You can\u2019t just put a photo of a person of colour on your website and walk away knowing your work is done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tokenism<\/em> creates the illusion of diversity without actual inclusion. True diversity should add value, impact and provide solutions. Tokenism is \u201cthe practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Want to be inclusive and be authentic about it? You need to be sincere about effecting change and honestly want to connect with and learn about different people and their respective cultures. This is something you need to do continuously, and you have to do it in a way that fits in with your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Be mindful of your imagery, branding, messaging and language<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Be mindful of stock imagery. Are you using images of people of different races, cultures and hair types? Haute stock<\/a> is ahead of the game, and have been including beautiful images of diverse people, but they issued out a statement to say that they will be doing even better by not separating races or cultures and instead, showing them interacting with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the events and wedding industry, there is a poor representation of Asian, black and multicultural couples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Look at your website, your social media – is it representative of different ages, skin tones, and hair types? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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