Why Inclusion and Diversity Matter

The details of implementation were different – for example the strategies to address Indigenous disadvantage differed markedly to those for people with disability. While the complexities of gender inequality are different to cultural disadvantage. But, the helicopter view of inclusion – the ‘big picture’ issues – were very similar.
Peter Downs

Inclusion and Diversity matter because companies and organizations understand that the wide range of experiences and perspectives resulting from such diversity promotes innovation and success. Diversity and inclusion makes us creative, productive, responsive, competitive and creates value for everyone.

Here are the seven pillars of Diversity and Inclusion:

ACCESS
Access explores the importance of a welcoming environment and the habits that create it.

This is about what your participants experience when getting to and inside your centre, but it’s more than physical. It’s also about the feel, the environment, the culture that’s in the place that you’re in. It’s accessibility, it’s the art on the walls, it’s the faces of staff, volunteers, and members.

ATTITUDE
Attitude looks at how willing people are to embrace inclusion and diversity and to take meaningful action.

So ask yourself, how willing are you to actually make it happen? I So your attitude isn’t about just being positive, it’s about having a willingness to take real action.

CHOICE
Choice is all about finding out what options people want and how they want to get involved.

This is about identifying what a participant can do, their goals, their needs. Choice is the friend of inclusion. If you offer lot of options to take advantage of then you are likely to get more diverse people involved in your activities.

PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships looks at how individual and organisational relationships are formed and how effective they are.

A partnership could be as easy as an introduction, conversation and a handshake. It can be really informal. You’ve got to connect people. Are we supporting diversity in the senior sector?

Understanding the influencers in your networks will help you identify key partners.

COMMUNICATION
Communication examines the way we let people know about the options to get involved and about the culture.

So think about who you are telling and also how are you telling them? Is it suiting their needs of communication.

POLICY
Policy considers how an organisation commits to and takes responsibility for inclusion.

Policy is about holding yourself, your organization and your stakeholders to account for inclusion. It’s about saying “Inclusion is important” but more than that it’s about saying, “This is how we’re going to address it and this is what it means for us” and then having mechanisms to actually deliver on those statements.

OPPORTUNITIES
Opportunity explores what options are available for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This is similar to choice but it’s not the same. Opportunities is about “what do you want to do”. So this explores the habits that dictate the opportunities that are actually available in the place that you deliver your programs.