Want To Make DEI Happen In Your Organization? HR Can’t Do The Job Alone

When businesses enact diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, they often give the human resources department sole responsibility for turning those initiatives into reality.

Maybe that’s not surprising. Isn’t DEI all about hiring a diverse workforce, and finding ways to inject equity and inclusion into the company’s culture and policies? If managers or employees encounter a DEI problem, don’t they go to HR in search of a solution? Yes, DEI sounds like a job for HR through and through.

Or maybe it doesn’t – at least not all the time in every situation.

Viewing DEI as strictly an HR function is a disservice, both to the HR department and to the rest of the organization. DEI needs to be the job of every department – a part of an overall business strategy, not just an add-on or a hiring plan that disappears the moment the right mix of diverse employees joins the staff.

Certainly, HR plays a key role in helping to turn an idealistic DEI vision into an everyday reality, but without strong participation elsewhere in the organization there will be limits to what is accomplished and limits to the longevity of those accomplishments as well.

And success on the DEI front is important because customers, future employees, and other parties are looking for proof of your company’s dedication to the work. It sends a powerful message to prospects when they see your company taking DEI seriously. It also sets a positive tone that can improve the marketability of your organization, letting it be seen as a wonderful place to work, to partner with, to do business with.

All of that is less likely to occur without participation from every department in the business’s organizational chart.

Let’s take as one example the marketing department, which is tasked with promoting the image of your company. Do photographs or other images used in advertising campaigns, on your website, and on your social media reflect diversity? Is the messaging inclusive, or does the language you use inadvertently leave someone out? Are the media outlets you use to spread your message limiting your reach because of their own limited audiences? HR may not think about such questions, but marketing should. It’s no secret that many consumers have become more culturally aware, and they prefer when possible to do business with companies that match their values. How DEI is made evident in marketing efforts will play a role in their decisions.

Let’s look at another department, purchasing, where DEI can be a factor in choosing the suppliers your company decides to do business with. One way to achieve that is to set diversity-oriented goals for employees who are in charge of buying. Robust organizations not only track and increase supplier diversity, but also reach out to enable diverse suppliers to win their business. Once again, this is something the purchasing department—not HR—would need to take ownership of if you want to attain success.

Of course, within each department DEI is also about more than the outreach beyond your company’s walls. It’s about what’s happening inside those walls as well. Is the department staff representative of a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, and ages? Do the team members feel empowered to speak up when they have an opinion, or do they remain quiet, fearful of being shot down or punished if they voice ideas outside of those typically heard?

HR is not going to be in every meeting, in every sales call, or in every brainstorming session to ensure that the virtues of DEI are being given room to flourish

Finally, when DEI is viewed as strictly an HR issue, it’s even more susceptible to the fix-it-and-move-on mentality so many people bring to the topic. DEI becomes a checklist – do this, do that, do this other thing, all done – rather than a long-term commitment, which is what it must be.

But when DEI is handled correctly—and the responsibility is spread beyond one corner of the enterprise—your organization will have the opportunity to achieve the success and satisfaction that comes from fostering true inclusion.