Avoiding a tokenistic approach to I&D in 2023

The start of a new year is a time for reflection on the past and making plans for the future. Many big events and social shifts have happened even since 2020, with no sign of the pace of change slowing any time soon. Now, perhaps more than any time in recent memory, organisations are expected to respond to, or at least be aware of, wider world events and the impact they have on staff.

Events including the murders of George Floyd and Sarah Everard, the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minoritized groups, the war in Ukraine, climate change and global movements such as Black Lives Matter has forced organisations to confront these inequalities.

Inclusion has for many employers become inescapable. All of this is positive; we are seeing genuine change happen, finally, at organisational level not just interpersonal. However, this shift brings risks with it. The risk now is that the actions taken can be performative, tokenistic and disingenuous.

What is performative Inclusion and Diversity?

Performative means it is a ‘performance’, it is done for show. When actions are performative the purpose is to make the individual or organisation look good without thinking about what will benefit marginalised and underserved communities. Actions may lack integrity, words and actions aren’t aligned and organisations are not fulfilling their promises and commitments.

Tokenism is similar: it means symbolic or performative efforts are made to create the appearance of equality, diversity or inclusion without actually creating genuine change.

Performative or tokenistic actions are not always deliberate. For many organisations, they aren’t consciously setting out to pay lip service, get some good PR and then move on. Of course, for some organisations this is exactly what they do, but often it is a result of well-meaning but naïve attempts to do good, or knee-jerk reactions coming from a place of panic or fear,

If we look at responses to George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent popularisation of Black Lives Matter, many organisations rushed to act. Unfortunately, this led to knee-jerk responses and tokenistic actions such as Instagram ‘black squares’ during the peak of Black Lives Matter in Summer 2020, the proliferation of which were widely criticised by Black people at the time. However, where many people and organisations moved beyond performative or tokenistic actions came after the event.

As this article from Pascale Diverlus explores, for many organisations the Black Lives Matter movement spurred them into making genuine change. These organisations muddled through taking actions, making mistakes, learning and growing as they found new directions. This is the key to avoiding performative or unsustainable inclusion change: your first step might be performative, or even a bit naïve, but you follow it up with consistent action and accountability.

How performative I&D has a negative impact

These tokenistic or performative actions don’t work precisely because they aren’t genuine: they are rarely attached to concrete actions and often don’t look at the wider context of an organisation’s cultural and inclusion challenges. In addition, people can tell when something isn’t genuine, and the biggest risk is that a lack of authenticity delegitimises your inclusion efforts. Once that trust has been broken it is difficult to re-engage staff, as they will always be wary of your true intentions.

Performative inclusion can also lead to fatigue for those attempting to influence change and a subsequent disengagement. It damages reputation and trust – both internally and externally. 

Examples of performative I&D

Common examples of performative inclusion and diversity include:

• Focusing on winning I&D awards, accreditations, or sponsoring events rather than really understanding and addressing the problems
• Having I&D policies on paper which aren’t applied in the workplace
• Having one-off I&D training that isn’t followed up or embedded into the employee lifecycle
• Acting only to bring in diverse talent instead of working to create a culture where diverse talent can flourish
• Focusing on external-facing branding (e.g., diverse imagery) instead of internal cultural change

Often performative inclusion is about grand gestures or big words without any actions, for example, statements of outrage on social media without actually taking any action; or having internal Inclusion and Diversity commitment statements that don’t have ‘teeth’ when it comes to accountability and governance.

How to avoid performative I&D and what you should do instead

Performative and tokenistic actions are often:

• Taken quickly, without thoughtful decision making
• Focus on looking to be doing the right thing rather than actually facing up to the challenges
• Close down conversation rather than make space for it
• Taken to avoid feelings such as guilt, fear or panic

My top tip for avoiding these situations is to stop, breathe and think. Be vigilant for when you and other people are rushing to make decisions and reacting in a hurry rather than thoughtfully responding. Engage your higher-order thinking skills: creativity, curiosity and collaboration.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor Frankl

1. Look at the bigger picture

Your first step for any inclusion and diversity change should be taking a holistic view of your organisation. For instance, you could undertake the Inclusive Employers Standard to establish your baseline and use the report to build an action plan.

2. Build accountability

Be rigorous in how you define the success or failure of any interventions. Accountability is key, so make sure you build a clear governance structure.

What actually changes for people as a result of an action?

What does your data tell you?

Self-evaluate and ensure your words and your actions are in sync.

3. Be prepared for the journey

Real change takes time. It involves dismantling inequalities that are systemic, institutional and embedded in our processes, ways of working and culture.

Support your organisations to understand that there are no “quick fixes”, and work needs to be transformational, ongoing and consistent.

Deloitte research suggests that organizations frequently underestimate the depth of the change required, adopting a compliance-oriented or programmatic approach to diversity and inclusion.

For most organizations, change requires a culture reset. To be meaningful it cannot be a series of HR initiatives but needs to be a layer over everything your organisation does. Think about your customers, marketing, IT, supply chain, and facilities.

4. Connect to the purpose

Before taking action around I&D undertake a deeper examination of needs, goals and motives to understand why inclusion action is essential and what you are trying to achieve. This will help to connect with your driving force for change and propel real action.

5. Engage allies

To be meaningful inclusion needs broad engagement and the work cannot be left to underrepresented and marginalised communities. Individuals can be given the burden of speaking up for their group, and are put in the spotlight often without regard to their existing workload and position.

Work undertaken should be informed by the lived experience and expertise of those that experience injustices but not left to them to carry out.

How Inclusive Employers can support you in 2023

When you don’t know the answers, Inclusive Employers can help. Here are some ways Inclusive Employers can help:

• Utilise our Members’ Desk and ask all of our 300+ members about their organisations
• Check out our members’ resources and give access to them to your other colleagues so they can login and find the answers themselves
• Drop an email to your account manager to see if they can help you – we’ll always do our very best!
• Look ahead at all our webinars and book yourself in before your diary gets busy.

Many of our account managers have previously been internal I&D colleagues, so we understand what you’re facing, please feel free to be open with us.

If you’re not already a member, find out how Inclusive Employers membership can support your inclusion journey.