HR professionals can be “the biggest block” to improving diversity and inclusion at work, a leading diversity specialist has said in a report published in People Management:
“Speaking at the Wainwright Trust annual event, Stephen Frost, head of diversity and inclusion at the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, said the situation was “a scandal” and called on HR to take up the challenge and lead change.
“I think it’s a scandal that HR professionals who should be the biggest agents for change in the workplace are often the biggest blockers. So I would like to get HR to focus on and lead on the issue of diversity and inclusion.
“Anybody doing diversity work will know that by necessity it is hard,” he continued. “There’s a real tension between doing the necessary creative best to encompass all the variables and people and diversity and on the other hand needing rigorous outputs including bringing about change. This tension has to be managed and I don’t think HR and diversity people are doing a great job of that. I’d say if you can create change you have to.”
Following a question during the debate Frost also criticised people “masquerading” as diversity heroes that are in fact maintaining the status quo. He said he always judged people on what they had achieved in their organisations rather than by their public pronouncements.
Frost also highlighted the Paralympics as a key opportunity to engage people in the conversation about inclusion at work as “disabled people are still massively under employed,” he said.
We have also said this earlier in our forthright article in Personnel Today – the CIPD needs to give genuine leadership and direction in this area, and is failing to do so at present. HR is the critical profession in this country if we are to improve diversity in the workplace, and there should be pressure from the government and the private sector to persuade it to change and put positive skills and resources around the training and innovation in this area. The leaders should do so through direct example, and strategic focus and resource allocation.
Here are some practical tips of how this can be achieved:
- There should be CIPD Board members and executives who come from minority backgrounds such as ethnicity and disability - there is too much focus on gender at present and too little on other minorities
- A special task force should be set up to provide strategic leadership and guidance in this area
- The course curriculum and training provision should be revised to ensure diversity principles are fully embedded and topics like cultural intelligence and faith included
- Ethnic and disabled members of the CIPD should be pro-actively engaged and consulted on the diversity strategy
These tips would certainly set them moving in the right direction.
Article added on 12th January 2012 at 9:41am