Defining & Creating a Work Culture That Includes Everyone
Inclusion is when everyone feels welcomed, respected, and valued. It’s a common part of organizational mission statements. But it’s also a profoundly personal experience.
We’ve all experienced what inclusion is by sensing more — or less — of it at some point in our lives. From an early age, we can feel included by being part of a loving and accepting family. Or, we can feel inclusion in the workplace, such as when a manager involves us in team decisions.
But if we don’t feel included, we may question whether we’re respected and accepted. That’s why inclusion requires far more than words alone. It requires a commitment to the full participation of, and investment in, every individual in the group.
Whether most people at your organization are logging onto virtual meetings or stepping into physical offices, having a workplace where everyone belongs is vital to your collective success. It shapes how people see themselves, others, and the culture around them. And it has a direct impact on your organization’s ability to deliver on its mission and grow the bottom line.
What Does Inclusion Mean in the Workplace?
An inclusive workplace is one where employees feel valued, involved, and respected for the viewpoints, ideas, perspectives, and experiences they bring. In an inclusive work culture, employees know they’re an integral part of the organization, and believe that differences in backgrounds and life experiences are a strength, not a weakness.
Ultimately, inclusion in the workplace means creating an environment where employees can show up fully, without feeling they must hide or minimize any part of themselves.
In an inclusive work culture, you won’t see everyone sharing everything. The goal is that employees can share parts of themselves or their lives without fear of retaliation — if they want to.
But passive acceptance isn’t sufficient. Organizations must work to actively build inclusive workplaces — or risk the consequences.
Why Is an Inclusive Workplace Important?
Employee perceptions of inclusion in the workplace can be one of the key predictors of employee engagement, turnover intentions, and burnout. In our survey of more than 2,500 employees at a global company, those who perceived a more inclusive workplace reported healthier work boundaries, lower levels of burnout, and were less likely to say they were looking for other jobs, as we shared in Chief Learning Officer.
But perceptions of how inclusive your workplace is can vary greatly across employee groups. As just one example, in the organization we surveyed, hourly employees reported lower levels of inclusion than their salaried coworkers, as did individual contributors versus those in management or executive roles. Even for employees with similar backgrounds and experiences, there was a range of perceptions. These findings underscore that workplace inclusion looks and feels very different, depending on who you are and where you sit in the organization.
Taken together, this and other research indicates that inclusion in the workplace is essential for supporting a happy, engaged, and committed workforce. As organizations race to attract and retain talent, investing in creating a truly inclusive work culture can be a major differentiator.
Importantly, inclusion in the workplace requires action. Even if you consider your organization to be inclusive, your employees cannot always see your good intentions. Failing to take meaningful action can limit the positive impact of your goals for an inclusive work culture and strain credibility with your workforce. For example:
- Your organization could say that it supports parents, families, caregiving and leadership. But if flexible work options are limited, leave policies are meager, and no lactation rooms are offered, the idea may seem disingenuous to your employees.
- Your organization may say it welcomes and supports employees of different religious or cultural backgrounds. But if you don’t provide workers with the option to take floating holidays, it’s difficult for them to celebrate important cultural or holy days, regardless of their heritage or beliefs.
That’s why organizations that are serious about inclusion take time to understand the specific opportunities they have to support others within their unique culture and context, and don’t simply duplicate initiatives that seemed effective in other organizations. They choose strategic actions that will drive the desired results and invest in training their people in inclusive leadership practices — recognizing that because of how structural inclusion in the workplace can be, leaders play a critical role in moving it forward.
Organizations that don’t focus on inclusion and belonging can risk being left behind, as people leave in search of companies that are more inviting and share their values.
How to Create an Inclusive Work Culture
5 Keys for Leaders
Don’t know where to start to build more inclusion in the workplace? Here are a few specific strategies leaders can use to foster a more inclusive work culture.
1. Foster meaningful and authentic participation.
There’s a world of difference between being invited into a conversation and being able to influence the outcome. As a leader, it’s important you actively seek out a range of perspectives across age, cultural backgrounds, departments, geographic locations, and leader levels whenever you’re making strategic decisions or developing new processes. It’s even more important to allow input from these employees to meaningfully impact your decisions.
Employees can only fully participate if their work environment makes it possible. Be sure to build psychological safety at work so employees feel a sense of ownership of their work and freedom to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. This is particularly important for empowering next-generation leaders, so they feel included in decision-making, feel heard, and can make a positive impact. Employees should feel like they have agency over their decisions to share — a concept known as employee voice. Our research underscores the importance of managers supporting employee voices and helping people feel heard by taking action and by providing explanations.
2. Invest in your employees.
Our research also suggests that leadership development opportunities can support employees in many ways, from boosting confidence and preparedness to strengthening connections and overall effectiveness. Development opportunities can also make employees feel more included and cared for at your organization.
Consider providing leaders with psychological safety training so they understand how to create space for different backgrounds and lived experiences than their own. By providing access to opportunities for growth through training programs and mentorship for newer employees, you can help your workforce learn new skills and demonstrate a commitment to their development.
It’s also important to use the lens of inclusion when you’re determining who is receiving development opportunities. Focusing solely on employees identified as “high potential” is often wrought with bias, and can exclude those who would benefit most from your support. To avoid this, consider how to meaningfully democratize access to leadership development opportunities.
3. Commit to wider representation.
Inclusion in the workplace goes beyond your current employees. It involves your future workforce, too. To build a workplace where everyone belongs, you need recruiting practices in line with your mission and goals.
Once hired, new employees should be made to feel as included as possible as they become familiar with your organization. New employees often experience barriers around differences in their work arrangements, rank, demographics, or location. By spanning those boundaries, and opening up collaboration, you’ll ideally have more diverse representation in your day-to-day operations.
4. Be intentional in your communications and actions.
An inclusive work culture takes time to build — but can be damaged in a single moment. That’s why leaders need to keep their mission and culture top of mind, especially during times of change. Communication with employees is a key factor in supporting an inclusive work culture, but some forms of communication are better than others.
Set expectations early for open and respectful communication, and ensure leaders have access to tools, resources, training, and support as they improve their ability to identify and mitigate bias, respect differences, manage conflicts, and practice compassionate leadership by asking questions and listening closely to learn more, especially on topics outside their lived experiences.
Organizations that focus on being invitational, accountable, consistent, and purposeful in their communications are likely to be perceived as having more inclusive workplaces. Communication that is both specific and actionable also helps to support workplace inclusion.
5. Remember there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and you must keep evolving.
In an effort to find quick solutions, it’s easy to think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to creating a workplace that includes everyone. If an approach works at one organization, then it should work just as well at another. But context matters. After all, what is an inclusive work culture good for if it’s in name only?
In the real world, isolated gestures or rigid ideas about inclusivity break down quickly. That’s because different employees face different experiences or barriers, and because everyone is unique. A policy solely focused on hiring women into more senior positions, for instance, can oversimplify the specific challenges faced by specific women, because women have varying individual experiences. Similarly, offering leadership development training alone won’t address systemic issues with unequal pay or promotion opportunities at your organization. A holistic approach and continual focus on building belonging at work and inclusive work culture is required.
Furthermore, it’s critical to remember that the definition of inclusion — and our understanding of how to foster it — is constantly evolving. In recent years, for example, organizations have had to reckon with new challenges like equipping managers to lead remote teams and adapt to the hybrid workplace.
It’s important to continually review and update your policies and practices, always through the lens of building greater inclusion in the workplace.
How to Repair Damage
Even when they don’t use specific terms, many leaders are interested in creating an inclusive culture at their organization. Inclusive workplaces can help bring out the best in all employees, fostering a climate of innovation and creativity.
And sometimes, creating an inclusive culture can also feel intimidating. Honest mistakes happen. Even with the best of intentions for an inclusive workplace, you or your organization may hurt someone along the way. It’s important to apologize, listen to understand, take action (and check in with others on the impact of those actions), and not give up. Fear of failure can often hold leaders and organizations back.
Avoiding difficult conversations can be far worse than making a mistake and being open to learning and improvement. Trial and error, paired with continuous learning and humility, make things better — and foster more inclusive workplaces.
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