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DEI is integral to creating a more inviting and productive workplace. Embracing DEI principles at work can help guide the creation of practices, policies, and interactions that support a diverse workforce and encourage equal opportunities for all employees.
If you plan to foster a more inclusive work environment and need ideas for DEI activities, the following five are worth implementing:
DEI Activities for the Workplace
1. Organise a Cultural Potluck
The key idea is to ask employees to bring dishes representing their cultural backgrounds and share them with their colleagues. The event can be made more interesting by complementing food with stories and anecdotes about the recipes and their cultural significance.
Playing music or organising cultural performances are other ideas worth implementing as collectively, they can help promote cultural appreciation.
It will be wise to create a food guide (who will prepare what to avoid duplicate dishes) and ensure dietary restrictions (such as gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, or vegan) are considered while planning the cultural potluck.
Assigning specific responsibilities for arranging musical instruments, organising cultural performances, handling decoration, and post-event cleanup can ensure the event runs smoothly.
2. Start a Book Club
The fundamental idea is to start a book club with DEI-related and other books by diverse authors that expose employees to different perspectives, cultures, opinions, beliefs, and values.
By encouraging employees to become members of this book club and hosting open discussions where shared experiences, book reviews, or thoughts about a book’s central idea are discussed can enhance employee engagement, build a strong sense of community, and foster cultural awareness and appreciation.
By linking various book club activities to your organisation’s specific DEI goals or initiatives, you can create a workplace that’s more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
3. Host a Secret Exclusion Workshop
This activity involves employees putting pen to paper and anonymously writing down instances of bias or exclusion they have experienced, which can then be read out aloud by the workshop facilitator. The key objective is to understand the feelings of exclusion.
The instances can be related to work or life, in general. By encouraging employees to share their experiences without fear of reprisal or judgment, you can create a culture of transparency and communication and raise awareness about the impact of bias and discrimination on an individual and the organisation.
Additionally, such a workshop can help foster empathy as listening to the real-life experiences of others can make privileged people consider the perspectives of marginalised or under-represented groups and challenge some of their own assumptions.
For organisational leaders, such a workshop can be an eye-opener and reveal problem areas that need to be addressed effectively to create a more inclusive workplace.
4. Invite a DEI Expert to a Lunch-and-Learn
The objective of this activity is to introduce your employees to new concepts in bite-sized, easy-to-digest sessions.
By hosting lunch-and-learns where you invite an external DEI or subject matter expert, you can make your employees aware of the significance of DEI and even encourage knowledge growth and skill enhancement.
This activity can be done by creating a relaxed, informal setting where employees and organisational leaders meet over lunch and listen to a guest speaker. The subject can be DEI in the broader sense, the organisation’s company culture, new DEI initiatives, or specific topics like team building, time management, leadership skills, and personal development.
You could even plan a lunch-and-learn where employees get an opportunity to ask the guest speaker questions and discuss DEI/career topics they feel strongly about.
5. Put Up a Bias Jar
This is a self-reflection diversity and inclusion activity to help participants recognise and consider their own biases. You will need a jar (or any other container) and slips of paper and pen distributed among your employees.
Every employee needs to write anonymously about a recent situation in which they showed bias. It would help to talk about common biases (beauty bias, culture/colour bias, attribution bias, name bias, confirmation bias, ageism bias, affinity bias, etc.) before starting this activity to help participants spot one.
Once everyone has deposited their slips in the box, you can pull up a few and read aloud the biases. This can be followed by a group discussion on the common biases that have been mentioned in the slips and what strategies and ways can help people overcome and avoid these biases in the future.
Final Words
DEI in the workplace is much more than just hiring different people. It’s about creating a cohesive team where everyone has empathy for one another, respects diverse viewpoints, cultures, personalities, and backgrounds, and works collectively for the betterment of your business.
With the help of the above-mentioned diversity activities, you can cultivate solidarity among a diverse group of people and foster a sense of community to create an inviting and inclusive workplace.
If you need experts to help meet your DEI goals in hiring, contact us at InHunt World!
This article was written by Sonali