Nurturing Talent Through Diversity and Inclusion

Introduction

  • Aishlesha hosts the webinar on "Nurturing Talent Through Diversity and Inclusion."

  • Anup Ramchandran, founder and director at PHI HHR Tech, is introduced as the moderator. He has 3 decades of experience in HR and has created an HR tech product.

Defining Diversity and Inclusion

  • Diversity includes race, location, religion, age, and other demographics, not just gender.

  • Inclusion means every voice is heard, valued, and empowered.

  • Anup references Nelson Mandela's leadership style of listening to everyone before speaking, emphasizing respect and collaboration.

Challenges and Opportunities

  • Organizations face challenges like unconscious bias, cultural resistance, structural barriers, and power dynamics.

  • Panelists from diverse sectors (manufacturing, healthcare, aerospace, consulting) will share insights on driving talent growth and employee engagement through diversity and inclusion.

Panelists Introduction

  • Armin Ladda: CFO at Loop Health, former president of Mercer India, with 25+ years of experience in business transformation and inclusive workplaces.

  • Sujita Singh Basu: DEI head for India and global programs at ZF Federation, experienced in designing innovative DEI strategies and driving cultural transformation.

  • Surendra Vaidya: Former ED and president of Godrej Aerospace, with 4 decades of experience in manufacturing and aerospace, known for visionary leadership and building inclusive teams.

  • Vibha Padalkar: Founder of PHIH HR Tech Private Limited, experienced in shaping HR strategies for various organizations, including Goodrich and Boyce and Bigger Program Data with Aitabir Largo.

Q&A Session

  • Format: Anup will present two questions to each panelist, followed by a concluding session and Q&A.

Arvin Ladda: Defining Diversity and its Business Value

  • Diversity provides different points of view, not limited to gender, but including age, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds.

  • Inclusion ensures everyone can contribute, making diversity valuable.

  • Retention of employees is 5x5x more in organizations seen as diverse, according to Great Places to Work Institute.

  • Diverse teams lead to better perspectives, innovation, and superior performance, supported by research from McKinsey, Harvard Business School, and Gartner.

Sujita Singh Basu: Cognitive Diversity and Business

  • Cognitive diversity comes from different life and work experiences.

  • Research shows a positive correlation between financial performance and diverse workforces, but causality is not definitively proven.

  • Organizations may engage in "performative allyship" or tokenism without true commitment.

  • Boards of Scandinavian countries are the most diverse, including internationality.

  • A plant in Coimbatore with a diverse workforce is one of the most productive and profitable, showcasing positive outcomes of inclusion.

Surendra Vaidya: Diversity in Manufacturing and Aerospace

  • Godrej's shift into aerospace required integrating 14 divisions with different cultures into a global aerospace culture.

  • Each country in the supply chain brings its own culture (regional, social, financial).

  • Encouraging diversity brings innovation and new perspectives, regardless of background.

  • Developed 25+ processes with careful attention, ensuring documentation is maintained without changes, even with better ideas.

Vibha Padalkar: Diversity and Business Benefits

  • Customer demands drive initial D&I efforts, especially in mid-size and small-size companies.

  • Establishing a strong linkage between business benefits and D&I initiatives is crucial.

  • Boardroom discussions become more open, creating a less toxic environment, and improving decision-making.

  • Talent availability widens, and organizations become talent magnets by fostering a welcoming culture.

  • D&I initiatives should be part of the vision plan and regularly reviewed at the board level.

Challenges in Building an Inclusive Workforce

Sujita Singh Basu: Challenges and Mitigation

  • Understanding the criticality of D&I for the organization and business.

  • Top leadership commitment.

  • Diversity contributes to ESG ratings (approximately 25%).

  • German boards have historically lacked diversity, impacting access to global markets.

  • Collaboration with R&D centers to make products and services safer for end customers.

  • Systemic accountability issues.

  • Incorporating into LTI component.

  • Collaborating with teams working on ESG and sustainability development goals to improve diversity metrics.

Arvin Laddha: Challenges and Mitigation

  • Realizing that simply inviting people to speak doesn't make them feel equally included.

  • Behavior in the context of the larger socioeconomic environment.

  • The manager needs to draw a line from D&I to the possibility of gains on the business side to unlock buy-in.

  • Having prescriptive guidelines so people know what they are aspiring for.

  • Ensuring representation is thoughtful in appraisal processes, merit increases, promotions.

  • Enrolling colleagues and team members because not everyone automatically believes that what you say is what you mean.

Vibha Padalkar: Challenges and Mitigation

  • Senior management expresses superficial support but poses hurdles.

  • Employee resource groups help foster conversations and sharing of perspectives.

  • Building awareness among people is key. Sharing of successful case studies helps to change perspective and in breaking the glass ceilings.

Inclusive Leadership

Surendra Vaidya

  • A manufacturing setup is tier-based.

  • Aerospace and defense. Third party inspections. Mandatory statutory requirements demand details to be shared; one should be willing to share processes and process details.

  • Supply chain partners are a must.

  • Aerospace -- High degree of supervision, so choose supervisors wisely.

  • Small service projects, a different menu in canteen also matters, people take revenge, So manage well.

  • Maintaining quality and productivity at the same time is a challenge.

  • During product development, one is free to try out diff practices, but once the product gets developed and is qualified one is not allowed to change even a small parameter.

  • Selection of leader is very important. He has an ability to crisis manage.

Vibha Padalkar: Resource Constrained Organizations

  • Leadership time and having diversity and inclusive as part of the vision plan is important.

  • Starting with looking at policies and the infrastructure is what is required to bring in diversity.

  • Infrastructure improvements. E.g. Canteen, transport, day care, make changes there.

  • Conduct D&I Audit. Define types of diversity: Gender, especially able, ethnicity, age, international groups

  • Ensure employee resource groups are a must.

  • Define required budget.

  • Flexible work arrangements is a must

  • ESG is now becoming most important (especially in small organizations). Budgets are allocated for D&I.

Role of Leaders & Organizational Accountability

Arvin Laddha.

  • Establish clear communication/feedback loops and action plans.

  • Get feedback during exit interviews.

  • The leader should be actively listening, display empathy, and make sure their ACTIONS must be must louder than their words.

  • Reporting mechanisms should have Key Metrics like Gender, Age, Social Background Status within the Teams and the Organization.

  • Establish a Charter with goals and objectives.

  • Identify where talent acquisition can source, groom, and leverage diverse resources.

Measuring Effectiveness

Sujita Singh Basu.

  • Beyond speeches and nice statements. Walk the Talk. Look to see if leaders walk the talk.

  • Representation metrics is a LAGGING Indicator.

  • Use inclusive hiring metrics to see where women, individuals with diverse backgrounds are being hired across the business.

  • Assess attrition metrics.

  • Run performance assessment analysis.

  • If processes for mini talent processes are run find a point where they can be promoted or be reviewed across the different businesses in the business.

  • Get feedback directly for the team from diverse personnel. Use team surveys.

  • Ensure the talent magnet is pulling in the best resources for your organizational diversity to be a value.

Engaging Underrepresented Groups

Surendra Vaidya

  • Map everyone's career from recruitment to retirement.

  • Prepare job description/position content documents, and share planning and job description, assess where candidate stands, and discuss career-building.

  • Ensure team has a good moderator, listener, firefighter, innovator, analyze traits in human beings.

D&I Journey

Vibha Padalkar

  • Tool implementation: This helps in analyzing data well. And, you know, especially when you work with very large organizations, this is it. This is kind of tool

  • The most important is to look at different types of roles within businesses that require high degrees of diversification.

  • Retention matters review stay-interviews.

  • Also, review performance; identify if incentives are given in a similar manner with consideration to diversity.

  • Also, measure engagement by checking often using pulse surveys to check underlying currents.

  • Support your progress by promoting diverse/awareness sessions, and promoting its importance.

Leveraging Technology

HRMS & HRMS-Driven Advances - Vibha/Arvind

  • HRMS tools help bring in data analysis and allows you to understand current state, and where we want to be.

  • HRMS makes data more transparent and easily available.

Advancing D&I Now

Actionable steps - Sujita/Surendra.

  • Review your business. Seek ways to promote approaches and innovation

  • See/Review the challenges on different levels of business. Is data providing a lens to make more informed decisions?

  • There is no fit for for everything. Use different types of skills and traits for human capital management.