How Employee Feedback Can Improve Diversity and Inclusion

Author: Jerry Pett, published: Apr 12, 23

Diversity and inclusion are one of the main concerns for businesses that are striving to ensure they have a balanced workforce. A diverse workforce can be hugely beneficial for companies. With diversity, you have a workforce of people from different backgrounds and experiences, which can enhance creativity and innovation. It can also improve your client base; for instance, having other languages within your team can help when growing your business globally.

One of the most effective ways to improve diversity and inclusion is through regular feedback, and these are some reasons why.

Improve Recruitment Practices

The best place to start improving your diversity and inclusion practices is during recruitment. To do this, you can use feedback surveys to understand how employees feel about the interview process and whether there are any improvements you could make on diversity and inclusion during the recruitment process.

Set Expectations

One of the most important reasons for using feedback is that it allows you to set expectations. Doing this can reduce the likelihood of employees feeling unsettled and even stop them from questioning whether they are being evaluated on other factors, such as age or religion. In addition, if employees are clear that they are being assessed purely on their abilities, it will help encourage a diverse and inclusive environment.

Anonymous feedback on sensitive issues

It can be challenging for managers and business owners to fully understand the culture of their business and how their employees feel without asking for feedback. Regular feedback from employees, especially anonymous feedback, can inform managers about any sensitive issues within their organisation. Only then, when weighing up the feedback, can they make informed decisions to improve diversity and inclusion. For instance, an employee may raise concerns about racist jokes or ageist remarks. With continuous feedback, managers can deal with these issues before they become part of a negative culture.

Feedback from multiple sources

To ensure that feedback is not just based on one perception, which could potentially lead to bias, managers can utilise various feedback forms, including 360-degree. It is also beneficial to ensure feedback is undertaken on a regular basis or ‘always-on’. It allows you to get a balanced opinion of an employee’s performance, and therefore, it can improve diversity and inclusion.

Educate Employees

Regular feedback works both ways. It allows you to appraise the employee and gain useful feedback from them. Within the feedback, you can educate employees on the language they use at work and how this can affect those around them. For instance, saying that someone “wouldn’t have a clue about TikTok” because of their age may seem like harmless banter, but it could potentially isolate or cause harm to an individual. Employees must understand that the language they use can have a very real impact on their colleagues.

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You can learn about our range of feedback options by emailing us at hello@thymometrics.com or by calling 01223 750 251. We provide a range of solutions, including anonymous feedback, exit surveys and 360-degree.