The ‘E’ in DEI – what is Equity all about?

Over the last couple of years, ‘Equity’ has been included in our work around Diversity and Inclusion, so we now refer to ‘DEI’.  But the equity component isn’t well understood across our organisations, and when it is focused on, it’s often in a small number of areas.

While diversity is about difference and inclusion comes to life through an organisation’s culture, equity is about fairness.  Equity recognises that not everyone has had the same access, opportunities or resources, and as a result some people may need some additional support.

Equity is different to equality which is when we treat everyone the same without consideration for historical and systemic barriers and privileges.  So, whilst equality focuses on providing equal opportunities, equity seeks to achieve EQUAL OUTCOMES.  To achieve this, we need to identify the barriers throughout our organisations and get them out of the way.

Based on my 10+ years’ experience of both leading and consulting in DEI, I’ve set out below some areas of focus to help create equity for your employees.

1. Identify and close your pay gaps

Achieving pay equity should be a key area of focus.  Many organisations in Aotearoa are reviewing and reporting on their gender pay gaps, but we must go further and look at pay equity across a range of demographics and the intersection points between them.

Action: If you’re not reviewing your remuneration data for pay gaps, I strongly encourage you to get started.  If you’re in New Zealand, Māori and Pasifika should be a focus as well as gender.  This is a complicated area so ensure you engage the appropriate expertise, both for your calculations and communications.

2. Review your end-to-end hiring processes

Recruitment processes are ripe places for inequities to exist.  These include screening out people based on outdated job descriptions that don’t reflect the key skills and behaviours required, only placing jobs ads in certain channels, requiring everyone to apply in writing, running interviews in a way that doesn’t suit everyone’s needs, and much more.

Action: Investigate all the components of your hiring process and remove the barriers.  You could seek feedback from recent candidates (both successful and not), and review your data at each step by a range of demographics to identify where and why people are falling away.

3. Assess your talent development approach

Not everyone in your organisation will have had the same opportunities for advancement, so some people may need different support to enable them to thrive.  There are numerous ways to do this such as mentoring, sponsorship, secondment opportunities, programs to build their technical skills and more.

Action: Set clear guidelines for all parts of your talent processes which include viewing them through an equity lens.  Great questions to ask in talent conversations include “who are we not seeing?”, “what support does this person really need?” and “how can we think creatively to make this happen?”.

4. Look at how your policies are landing in practice

Many organisations have policies in place which seek to remove inequity; flexible working, parental leave and wellbeing policies are great examples of this.  But whilst these might appear fair on paper, how employees experience them in real life can differ dramatically, often dependent on their manager or which part of the business they work in.

Action: Review all your DEI policies to see how they’re being used in practice.  This could be a combination of looking at your data for uptake rates, and speaking to a broad range of your people to understand their experiences.

5. Identify and manage biases

Because our biases are heavily shaped by our background and experiences, they can stop us from seeing the world through other people’s eyes.  This can make it harder to lean into tough conversations about what’s getting in the way of achieving fair outcomes for everyone.

Action: Raise the visibility of this important area by discussing common biases and ways to mitigate them; bias training is a great way to do this.  And have open conversations with your team members and teammates, asking them to share about themselves and what they perceive to be inequitable at work.

I have significant experience in all the areas set out above, so please get in touch on robin@robindaviesconsulting.co.nz if you’re keen to know more.  I’m always up for a chat!