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There is no doubt that this is a challenging time for inclusion professionals. In the UK we are seeing what the government have labelled the “biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation.”
Yet, globally, there is a visible and significant shift towards more right-wing politics and ideologies. This means reduction in spending, repeal of human rights protections and an overall move away from important equalities work. The Trump administrations ‘war on EDI’ is the latest, most visible, and one could argue, most far reaching of these shifts.
Unfortunately, some organisations are using global trends to ‘give them permission’ to move away from inclusion work. This can leave people professionals managing the dichotomy of introducing new protections for workers, whilst dealing with a loss of support and funding for inclusion work. International and global organisations have the layered challenge of managing a widening range of provisions and protections for their operations across the globe.
Why do people challenge inclusion work?
As long as people have worked to create more equity, there’s been resistance. In some countries the resistance is cultural and in others it’s also legal. For example, by 2024 in the US 85 separate bills had been passed across 28 states limiting or prohibiting inclusion work. In the UK, we see increased protections for some groups, whilst others are further marginalised.
Part of the challenge is lack of understanding, a feeling that the work is unfair to some. Education has helped in this space. Part of the resistance is fear of something different. There are also some who resist inclusion work to protect their own position and power. No matter the reason, there are ways to keep making progress.
Considering how to engage with and mitigate each resistance type has been part of the bedrock of good inclusion work for the last decade. But in today’s climate, we are seeing a move towards more structural work. The reason for this is twofold.
While sharing of cultural events and celebrating awareness days can build understanding of others, it isn’t the work which drives the most meaningful impact in the workplace. Where inclusion work is focused on a diversity calendar only, it often drives up understanding and resistance in equal measure.
Structural work focuses on changing the systems and structures which uphold the inequitable status quo. By doing this work, we can create impactful, sustainable change. A move to focus on structural work is helping to reduce the resistance, whilst accelerating the impact.
What can you do?
- Think strategically
Inclusion practitioners need to understand the environment they work within to influence it. Understand your organisation and industry, what are the opportunities and challenges. Research other organisations, do they have similar challenges? Find out how others have used inclusion work to mitigate some of their challenges or accelerate progress towards goals. What can you learn from this?
- Create a compelling argument
Understand your stakeholders by analysing them. Who has the power to make decisions and influence others? What are they interested in? What challenges are they trying to solve? How do they like information to be presented? Use this analysis to craft a compelling argument for the work and use it to influence the right stakeholders to sponsor and drive the agenda forwards.
- Use the data
Senior stakeholders, those who have the positional power to help make change, are influenced by data. Data is a powerful tool in any inclusion practitioner’s toolkit. If you don’t have good data for your organisation, then use census data and industry benchmarks to demonstrate the issues and collect qualitive data in your organisation to show the same conditions or barriers exist.
- Focus on work with demonstratable impact
Understand the difference between performative and impactful inclusion work. Most senior stakeholders will only be influenced if you can prove the work proposed will make a difference. Structural, impactful work should form the core of your inclusion strategy.
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Do you feel equipped to respond?
To effectively respond in these challenging times, you may need a skills boost. Along with staying abreast of the evolving landscape, there are four core skill areas which will help.
- Influencing Skills – Being able to credibly influence at the highest levels showcasing how going beyond compliance, and implementing real inclusion work can accelerate progress towards an organisation’s objectives.
- Stakeholder Management Skills – Identify, manage and leverage stakeholder’s position and power to grow support for meaningful inclusion work.
- Strategic Thinking – Understand the context of the organisation, its culture and leadership. And use the context to prioritise efforts and budget for work that will deliver meaningful, measurable, systemic change.
- Understand human behaviour – Use behavioural change methods to plan and support delivery of the inclusion strategy, effectively landing the changes into the organisation’s ways of working.
Advance your career and drive inclusion with our CMI accredited courses
Our CMI accredited training programme offers a range of course’s designed by industry experts to support skills development for inclusion practitioners.
Our Business Skills for Inclusion Practitioners course is the first of its kind, focusing on strategy, impact, context, stakeholder management and change management in the context of inclusion work.
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