This One Strategy Could Solve Your Inclusion Challenges

When it comes to inclusion and supporting greater workplace diversity, many of us understand the rationale, the value proposition. The 2018 report released by Deloitte on the diversity and inclusion revolution is a heavily cited view of just how valuable real diversity can be for business.

Though it’s not easy.

You know that. Your daily experience of trying to find ways to lift diversity and support greater inclusion of the more diverse employees that come into the organisation is one of wins, fails and plenty of head-scratching.

How do you create inclusive environments, processes and practices when everyone is so different?

Could this one simple strategy be the solution you need?

KISS

Sorry, not a proposition, but an acronym. One you’ve heard before no doubt.

Keeping things simple will so very often win out. Especially when you’re faced with the complexities of the human condition and human nature.

Randy Lewis, formerly the Senior Vice President of Supply Chain and Logistics at Walgreens was instrumental in driving enormous employment rates of people with a disability. With upwards of 35% disability employment in Walgreens’ distribution centres, Randy and his team were confronted with a wide variety of challenges.

Their approach? Focus on the principles they hold as important and not let the process get in the way of what they knew to be right.

ASK THE PERSON

The very simple approach Randy took, and one I’ve been advocating all along, requires essentially no training or experience at all to implement.

Ask The Person - this was the core of Randy’s philosophy of a problem solving focused approach to inclusion at Walgreens.

Even starting with the recruitment process, when it came to understanding how a person with a disability might deal with a particular work related task he’d start with just asking them.

When you can appreciate that many people have had a lifetime of managing their way through life and dealing with a wide range of situations and challenges, you’ll be amazed at the approaches and solutions they’ve found.

A great example of this is where Randy recalled how when he asked a deaf candidate how they would test the horn of a warehouse vehicle, he put his hand on the dash to feel the vibrations the horn would make. Another similar candidate said he’d drive up behind some people, honk the horn and see if they’d jump!

REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS

You can’t be expected to know exactly what adjustments might be required for any given person in all situations. Let’s be serious, that’s just not reasonable.

Equally, you may feel that you can make a pretty good educated guess at what may be required based on past experience.

The trick in both situations is to leverage the lifetime of knowledge the person you’re dealing with has acquired of themselves.

Don’t guess, or assume. Just ask. They may not know exactly, but together you’ll be able to come up with some options that could work. You’ll be surprised how often the changes and adaptations required to be inclusive are often very minor.

So perhaps not much of a silver bullet, and probably not going to solve all your challenges. But I have absolutely no doubt at all that just by taking this very simple approach to addressing the challenge/requirements/issue as you see it with the person by having a direct and open conversation you’ll make huge headway.

Be very mindful of not to judge the response you get back either. The adjustment of approach they suggest may seem inadequate or unlikely to succeed in your mind, or even odd or overly innocuous.

Just roll with it. Try it out. If it works, it works. Great result and everyone’s winning. If it doesn’t, try something else. I believe that any problem or challenge when it comes to inclusion can be solved.