Are Your D&I Efforts Helping Employees Feel Like They Belong?

Diversity brings many benefits to organizations — but it is not enough on its own. An organization with a diverse workforce is not necessarily an inclusive one. Diversity efforts now often fall under the banner of “Diversity and Inclusion” for this reason, but new research in a forthcoming issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science shows that inclusion may also fall short because it does not necessarily lead to a sense of belonging.

Employees may feel they don’t belong for any number of reasons, but in each case the result is the same: what researchers term an “identity threat.” Defined as any situation that makes salient that one is different from others, identity threats can range from trivial to troubling. Consider the manager who talks to her low-wage employees about upcoming international travel plans, or the co-worker who expresses surprise that a Black colleague doesn’t conform to a stereotype.

Read more at: the website of HBR (EN)