How to Improve Diversity and Inclusion With Mentoring

Why is diversity and inclusion important?

Everybody navigates the world differently. Our characteristics – both physical and personal – affect the way we experience life, resulting in a vast range of perspectives.

In order to best understand anything (be it a problem, a method, or an experience) we need to have as many of these perspectives involved as possible.

Seems intuitive doesn’t it?

Unfortunately not. When managers were asked for factors stopping them implementing diversity, many quoted the worry that too many differing opinions would hamper productivity.

When the reality is, diversity in organisations has been proven time and time again to have a positive impact on innovation and success. When it comes to decision making, diverse teams outperform both individual and non-diverse teams, making better business decisions every time.

Naturally, this positively affects the bottom line. A study found that institutions and companies with diverse management teams make 19% more revenue, showing how D&I is not limited to an HR goal, but is ultimately good for the economy.

What is diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that diversity and inclusion are different things:

️ Diversity is the goal for a workforce to be made up of a broad variety of people.

️ Inclusion is a method to ensure everybody is equally factored into that group.

So, despite diversity and inclusion being grouped together, the way to tackle these issues can actually be contradictory.

For example, if you’re looking to run a mentoring program to increase diversity, you may select a particular minority group and pair individuals in that group with mentors in order to achieve a goal. However, this will not be inclusive if you only make the program available to that one group.

This is something to be aware of before you group them together and set up a ‘Diversity and Inclusion Mentoring Program’.

Another pair of key terms is equity and equality. With diversity, equity and inclusion or diversity, equality and inclusion often grouped together you may wonder what these words mean.

Equality means giving everyone the same opportunities and resources.

Equity means allocating opportunities and resources so that everyone can achieve the same outcome.

As you can see, these two terms are similar but not the same. Aiming for equity will mean paying greater attention to the way that you allocate your time and resources. This accounts for the systemic inequalities and barriers that exist that cannot be overcome with the same resources.

How to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace through mentoring

Workplace mentoring programs are a great way to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. As we’ve outlined, there are differences between the key terms, so the way you approach setting up your programs will differ depending on who you are trying to support. Let’s look at some examples:

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Mentoring programs for diversity

The aim of mentoring programs for diversity is to support and empower minority students and employees in their careers, developing their skills and network to increase leadership succession.

This typically involves pairing high potential students and even employees from minority groups, with senior management level employees to diversify the talent pipeline within organisations. This is known as reverse mentoring for diversity and inclusion. The other types of mentoring an be used for diversity mentorship programs too, but reverse mentoring is often the most common.

As with starting any mentoring program, institutions looking to implement a diversity mentoring program must first outline the goals. Try and be more specific here than just ‘fostering a culture of diversity’ – perhaps you’re looking to increase employee retention within a minority group, or encourage more black women into leadership roles. Whatever the goal is, define it before starting and understand how you will measure success.

Depending on the goal, size of organisation, and current diversity status, the way the program is set up will differ. In order to avoid the contradiction of a highly-exclusive diversity program, you can make it open but prioritise the under-represented groups that it is aimed to support.

Mentoring programs for inclusion

Alongside a tailored diversity mentoring program, teams can also run mentoring programs supporting a culture of inclusion. You can utilise your team resource groups to promote and recruit participants to your team.

By making mentoring an integral part of your company culture, you will naturally foster the sharing of knowledge, aspiration and development amongst all your employees, contributing to a diverse and thriving workplace.

Striving to create a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce should be a number one priority for all organizations or teams.

While external training and courses may have a positive impact, particularly with leadership teams, the best way to enact change is through the people already within the group. This is where diversity and inclusion mentoring can really make an impact.

Mentoring harnesses the people in an organisation or team to learn and grow together, to share experiences and knowledge, and level up inclusivity in the workplace across the board. That’s why mentoring is such an effective method to support diversity, equity and inclusion in your institution or team.