As a manager, you are a role model. Your employees will look to see what you say and do to evaluate your dedication to addressing diversity issues. It's essential that you understand the business case for diversity, why it's important for your organization to address diversity issues, and what the specific diversity issues are that you want to resolve within your organization. In short, you'll need to have some talking points around diversity.

Senior managers will want to develop a diversity statement for their organization. You also will probably want to have your leadership team participate in a team-building exercise around diversity.

The suggestions below fall into three categories: communication (what you say), action (what you do), and accountability (what you're willing to take responsibility for).

Communication

You will need to communicate throughout your diversity initiative from the time you first begin to identify issues until you implement and measure your results. In short, communication is an on-going process that will need to reach many audiences both internally and externally. Listed below are some suggestions for demonstrating your commitment to addressing diversity issues through communication.

Write a memo or letter to employees stating your commitment to identifying and resolving diversity issues. You will want to be as specific as you can in this letter and delineate the process you intend to pursue. If this is your first communication, you want to balance your enthusiasm for creating a diverse and inclusive work environment with the realistic understanding that change is complicated and takes time. You should not write a letter that merely states your commitment to a diverse workforce that is free of bias and discrimination. Employees will see through such an empty gesture.

Develop and deliver a formal presentation on diversity to internal audiences. It's important that your employees see and hear you speak about diversity issues. You can kick off the diversity effort with a formal presentation, or you can save the presentation until after the research phase. Once changes have been implemented, you can update your presentation with any progress and the outlook for the future.

Talk about diversity in regular business forums. It's important that diversity is integrated into the typical operations of the organization. Because diversity can improve your performance in many ways, it is desirable to ask about diversity results during routine business update meetings.

Talk about diversity in informal settings. You should look for opportunities to have a two-way dialogue about diversity, for example, using town hall meetings, or brown bag luncheons. During these sessions, you may want to speak for 15 minutes at the beginning and then take questions. Allowing your employees to air their concerns will be a powerful demonstration of your commitment to diversity.

Make speeches about diversity outside the company. Talking about diversity in external forums demonstrates your commitment to diversity and enhances the company's reputation in the community among employees, customers and other business partners.

This toolkit is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace legal, compliance, or other professional advice. TWP assumes no liability for the use of this toolkit.
Web-based Leaders' Toolkit, © Copyright, 2002. Technology Workforce Partners. All Rights Reserved. Technology Workforce Partners was a consortium of high technology companies that worked collaboratively on diversity issues in the workplace from 1995-2005.