7 Technology-driven Approaches to Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

From monitoring with AI to leveraging specific data, there are many different ways to promote DEI with technology.

Get an AI-driven Diversity Monitoring System

One of the most effective approaches is an AI-driven diversity monitoring system. This system can track and measure diversity metrics in the workplace, such as gender, age, race and more. It can also provide insights into areas where diversity and inclusion need to be improved.  This AI-driven system can also help by making hiring decisions, career development pathways and other processes more equitable. By understanding the data and making decisions based on it, leaders can create an inclusive environment that encourages equality and respect for all. 

Leverage VR Technology

Through immersive simulations, VR allows employees to reflect on their actions and become better informed about DEI initiatives within their workplaces. By using onboarding programs that immerse new hires into a VR environment that mirrors the company’s culture and values, organizations can ensure they start on the right foot with an understanding of DEI issues.  For example, a company could create a virtual office space with videos of employees talking about their experiences with DEI at work. Employee Training Initiatives VR can also be used as part of employee training initiatives around diversity, equity, and inclusion. For instance, leaders can use VR technology to provide employees with realistic scenarios that show how they would react in certain situations—such as how they would respond if someone said something offensive or acted inappropriately. 

Try Blind Recruitment Software

Blind recruitment software is a tool that I highly recommend for organizations who want to remove bias from the recruitment and hiring process. This technology hides certain information about candidates from recruiters or members of a hiring committee to reduce instances of bias during the review process.  In a world where everyone has unconscious bias, mitigating it before it has a negative impact on hiring decisions is an essential step in promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace.  Often, discrimination against candidates begins with a simple review of their resumes. When you eliminate culturally identifying factors such as an individual’s name, universities or colleges they have attended or organizations they are affiliated with, you are creating a fairer process, giving marginalized communities an opportunity to compete for jobs in a way that is fair and inclusive. 

Encourage Meaningful Engagement

Because of the pandemic, teams have become more geographically distributed, requiring organizations to be more thoughtful in their approach to fostering an inclusive employee experience.  Leveraging communication tools like Zoom can enable employees to have face-to-face conversations, build relationships, and foster a sense of community, no matter where they are in the world. Features like captioning in multiple languages, displaying pronouns, and the “raise hand” feature are a few of my favorites that allow teams to engage with one another meaningfully.

Meet Diverse Talent, Don’t Expect Them to Find You

For years now, tech companies have been stuck in what feels like a pool of quicksand with their diversity recruitment, often falling between 5-10% of BIPOC employees year after year. In order to create meaningful change and promote DE&I in the workplace, it is important that leaders engage with diverse talent early on.  We can achieve this with intentional recruitment strategies, such as partnering with HBCUs, and diverse tech communities and using diverse job boards. By adjusting external outreach strategies to meet talent where they are gathering, the talent acquisition teams at these companies can display more genuine initiative at the start of the recruitment process and also collaborate with key stakeholders who can express insights and pain points that these candidates may have.  This approach would provide more impact and a larger percentage of diverse candidates in the company’s talent pool, which will ultimately support the hiring and retention of diverse talent in the workplace. 

Delete “I’m Going to Butcher This Name”

What’s in a name? Everything. And technology can drive inclusion by embedding audio and written pronunciations of people’s names across systems. The burden of work has been on the wrong people.  People with rich, beautiful meaningful names spend days over a lifetime teaching others to say or spell their name or hear it butchered. These names aren’t difficult; they are just names you haven’t said before. Technology can mitigate awkwardness, strengthen team relationships, and liberate folks to enjoy the basic human dignity of hearing their name said accurately when their coffee order is ready.

Lead With Data by Using DEI Tech

One technology-driven approach to consider as a people leader promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace is to lead with data! A DEI data platform can create a personalized strategy for organizations to speed up, manage and measure the impact of DEI.  Too often, we see DEI progress stall because leaders are unsure of where to focus their resources. Using technology to build a data-backed DEI roadmap allows people leaders to be strategic with their initiatives, track and report on actual progress, and keep their focus where it matters: their people.