Debra Buckley
CEO of the New Zealand Institute of Management and Leadership.
www.nzimleadership.co.nz
The world we live in is entrenched in rapid change.
The technical revolution is driving us all to go further and delivering a strong commercial result is now considered business as usual, all of which is more achievable if there is diversity in our teams.
So let’s begin with the benefits of diversity within an organisation:
• Increased adaptability
• Greater effectiveness in task execution
• A range of viewpoints
• Depth in awareness of culture, global and social issues
• A hub for innovation
Looking at the benefits you can see why so many organisations are focused on diversity. The question is: can you achieve diversity by making it a value and not a KPI?
Like you, I agree that in order to achieve diversity we must have a goal to focus on, something to measure and a target to achieve. Therefore, we have KPIs.
The risk may come when we start to make statements like, “50 percent of all short-listed candidates must be female”.How can we ensure that we are then not being exclusive to those candidates who are of a diverse culture, age or disability?
The question then, is not when, why or who, but how? What would happen if our KPIs were not segregation based, but were in fact value based? We still have a clear end goal in sight – we are still committed to the target but through inclusion, not exclusion.
KPIs to encourage diversity include:
• Our organisation will include questions around diversity in our team culture survey
• We will remove name, gender, age from our CV’s during the recruitment process and simply measure skills and experience against a position description matrix
• We will include a community contribution to the professional development plans of our people
• We will make diversity visible
• We will encourage a different point of view and provide the framework for inclusion
• We are committed to retention and succession planning
• Innovation is delivered by people not titles.
Taking a step forward in diversity starts with the leaders; we need to be more than well intentioned – we need to be inclusive.
The economy is becoming increasingly global. Your neighbours and peers are increasingly more diverse and your competitive edge is reliant on your ability to be inclusive.
