Beyond Bias- Bringing Inclusion in Diversity

The September Month meeting of NHRD on the subject "Beyond Bias" had two speakers/experts  interacting with the audience viz. Ms Nirmala Menon, Founder CEO Interweave consulting and Ms Anuranjita Kumar MD (HR) RBS. Nirmala has been providing Diversity & Inclusion solutions to corporates through her company for over 12 years. Anuranjita has been in the banking industry in CHRO/MD roles and has been with her present organization for a little over two years. Her recent book "Colour Matters?: The Truth That No One Wants to See" discusses this very subject of bias.

Both speakers have rich experience in devising and  implementing  policies in D & I. I have listened to Nimala at a professional meeting  some time back and had written about it in my blog. (Interested readers can find it here: https://hrdian.blogspot.com/2017/06/unbox-theater-based-learning-experience.html )  However, I did not find the proceedings of the evening repetitive. On the contrary, it was very insightful and interesting as both the  speakers were kind enough to share their own personal experiences with 'bias' right from childhood through adult life.

Today inclusion and diversity is a buzz word. Employers would like to be seen as progressive and taking initiative in this regard. However, the fact remains that while we preach inclusion, "people are hardwired for exclusion". Albert Einstein had famously remarked that "It is easier to break an atom than a prejudice." Thus it is seen that many companies hire for diversity but manage for similarity! As far as gender diversity is concerned, the hiring of women has gone up to around 35% because targets have now been set up.Yet these are not necessarily in live roles as there are a lot of leakage from staff roles. Today, there are quite a few women CEOs in Indian banks but there is no pipeline. There is a need for more diversity at the top.

Although targets setting and tracking may give the impression of increasing numbers in terms of  diversity, this can also prove to be a problem as we tend to lose sight of the key aspect of creating a good environment for diversity. As for example having an inclusive environment for LGBT community is a challenge. Anuranjitha shared her experience of how a proposal for hiring people from this community met with resistance right from the board level. It was feared that the company would get into trouble with political parties. Even when this was pushed through nevertheless, it was found that the environment  was not conducive, with employees  not yet ready for the changes in the policy.

It is therefore necessary to prepare and create a suitable culture- Find out the pulse of the people; as to whether they are comfortable and address them. Nirmala stated that she is not a fan of best practices being blindly replicated. As each organization has its own culture, it is necessary to tweak the practices to the specific needs and situation in the organization. Thus, a lot needs to be done before inclusion happens in real terms. Here, leading by example by the senior management matters a lot. A story was shared of an officer who was invited to a  senior level meeting for the first time, He went with apprehensions in his mind as he would be the junior most in terms of rank of those attending. However, while he was walking to a seat in the outer circle, he was called by a business unit head to come and sit beside him at the table. This enhanced the officer's confidence and he was able to participate freely and contribute meaningfully to the discussion. 

We got insights into how bias can take the form of exclusion and how it  adversely affects the  confidence levels of people, from the personal experiences shared by the speakers. Nirmala said  that right from childhood she felt left out, being the only child in the family and extended family who had a darker tan of skin. When she wanted to participate in a dance recital at school, the teacher rejected her saying that she was dark and not suitable. The speaker said that when colleagues feel that they are being excluded on account of any reason be it colour, sex, caste or region, it is important to acknowledge their experience instead of dismissing it as a non issue- " I treat everyone the same irrespective of their sex. It is just your imagination."

Anuranjita related an incident that happened when she was working in England. One of her colleagues a white woman in another team, annoyed with some matter concerning her team member came to her office and started abusing her. When she objected, the women raised her voice even more which could be heard by everyone on the floor. The speaker felt violated and felt that this treatment was being meted out because she is of Asian descent. She immediately spoke to their common boss and asked what would the white woman had done if the same thing happened to her? The boss said that she would have gone to court. Anuranjita told him to take appropriate action in the matter failing which she would have to act.

One of the questions asked during the discussion was "How do you measure good employee experience in terms of inclusion. Nirmala said that 'inclusion' is always difficult to measure. Yet being accepted & valued, leads to better production and innovation as is borne out by studies. Anuranjita also agreed that this factor is not easy to measure. However, she suggested that NPS (Net promoter score) could give a cue as to the satisfaction levels. She felt that getting a score of 1 to 2 points on NPS would be very nice. ( NPS stands for Net Promoter Score which is a metric used in customer experience programs. NPS above 0 is considered “good”, +50 is “Excellent,” and above 70 is considered “world class.” Based on global NPS standards, any score above 0 would be considered “good"). 

Nirmala suggested that a lot of the bias could boil down to the economics. A rich woman or a person of colour/ race/caste/differently abled from an affluent background is likely to be treated well. Anuranjita said she could not agree fully with the statement, given her own experience. She was travelling business class on official tour. she asked the white flight attendants for a glass of hot water  but was not attended to for more than half an hour. However, when a white passenger, asked for a blanket, it was given to her in minutes. 

I would like to end this post with a question I asked and the interesting/ insightful answer I got."You had mentioned at the outset that "people are hardwired for exclusion", so what do we do to get out of this trap which is a natural instinct? Nirmala  replied "Engage more with people you wouldn't engage with." What she was saying in a way, was that it is easy to dislike or hate someone you hardly know. Once you engage more and more with people of other sex, nationalities, regions, races or economic backgrounds you would begin to notice not just the minuses but their pluses as well and would also develop an empathy for living life in their shoes.The bias would then slowly and surely fade away. This insight was for me, the icing on the cake of a wonderful evening of engaging conversation!