Through a different lens: A new approach to motivate and support organisations in developing evidence-based diversity policies

Illustratie van een vrouw met diverse kapsels

Creating an inclusive organisation is not an easy task. How can organisations develop and implement diversity policies that improve the organisation’s climate for inclusion? What are effective ways to communicate diversity policies? In this project, funded by Instituut Gak, we aim to answer these questions.

It has been proven to be particularly difficult for organisations to attract and retain individuals from underrepresented or marginalised backgrounds. An important cause of this is the existence of biases among employers towards these groups. Interventions aimed at raising awareness or counteracting these biases (such as anti-bias training) often show mixed results. For this reason, we take a different perspective in this project. Rather than focusing on reducing or identifying bias, we focus on reducing the consequences of bias.

Specifically, we investigate:

how organisations can effectively implement diversity policies,
what is the impact of realistic vs. non-realistic communication of diversity policies on job seekers and employees and
whether it helps to pay attention to both visible and invisible diversity characteristics in (the communication of) diversity policies. We use data collected with an evidence-based tool, the Netherlands Inclusivity Monitor (NIM).

In addition, we analyse diversity statements of those organisations that signed the Diversity Charter. We complement these field insights with a series of experiments to test in a controlled and systematic way how communication of diversity policy leads to positive outcomes among prospective and sitting employees.