Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

For well over thirty years, initiatives designed to improve diversity and inclusion (D&I) have been a priority for organisations – but are the plethora of D&I initiatives actually creating the organisational change they aspire to? In Australia, as well as overseas, the general consensus appears to be that D&I progress in organisations has been slow in pace and limited in scale. In fact, our research found that three quarters of D&I practitioners report that their change initiatives are not always implemented effectively. One explanation for this is that many D&I initiatives are designed and executed with little regard to what the research tells us works when it comes to achieving organisational change. To address this important oversight, DCA developed an evidence-based model for designing and implementing D&I organisational change, which empirical research indicates will enable organisations to more effectively achieve D&I outcomes in the workplace. This paper discusses this research, which applies change management strategy and processes to diversity practice, urging businesses to approach and manage D&I like any other major transition that can happen in a workplace. This model has been designed to be applicable to any D&I change an organisation wants to make, and wants to make stick.