8 Ways Supervisors Can Foster Diversity

There’s an unfortunate truth HR professionals must deal with: It only takes one errant supervisor to undo all the hard work put into creating and perfecting polices and initiatives. Your company’s diversity initiative is no different.

According to diversity consultant and founder of QUEST Diversity Initiatives LLC Natalie Holder-Winfield, you can’t just write up your diversity initiative or policy and hand it to your supervisors and expect them to fully understand and integrate it into their daily routine. As with any other program or policy you want to initiate, you should provide your supervisors with training and even directions for how they should engage in the initiative.

“Often, I say that companies get diversity, but it’s their managers who don’t. When you look at some of the companies that are sued for gender discrimination, harassment, all sorts of discrimination, you’ll find that they have some of the best and well-written diversity initiatives on paper. But the supervisors didn’t go forward with implementing and really carrying out the spirit of the initiative,” Holder-Winfield explains.

So what is a supervisor’s role in diversity? According to Holder-Winfield, “The supervisor really is that missing link between the diversity officer and the employees. A diversity officer can do as much as he or she possibly can in terms of outlining and creating a strategic vision, but if the supervisor is not going to take serious and courageous steps towards diversity, all of the diversity officer’s efforts are really just efforts on paper.”

Tips for Supervisors

According to Holder-Winfield, supervisors should:

• Be a Source of Information and Champion. Make sure your supervisors are fully trained on and understand the company’s diversity initiative and definition of diversity. They should be able to answer employees’ questions about the company’s diversity initiative. The manager should also lead by example by championing the diversity initiative.

• Be Cognizant of Diversity when Filling Positions. When hiring, supervisors should not only consider diversity when making an offer but even earlier in the process. “Supervisors should think of how and where they are looking for candidates. Are they simply using a major search engine that has a tendency to attract a certain type of candidate, or are they really going out there to different job fairs that tap into markets that are traditionally geared toward ethnic and racial minorities?” Holder-Winfield asks.

• Intervene when Needed. Sometimes, supervisors will shy away from intervening when two employees on their team are involved in seemingly innocuous behavior, for example, jokes or hazing. “You can look at case studies [from discrimination and harassment lawsuits] and see how jocular conduct can mushroom into a bigger issue of discrimination or harassment, and eventually evolve into a lawsuit. Why didn’t the manager get involved? Oftentimes, a manager would say in a deposition ‘Oh, I didn’t want to get involved in a dispute between adults,’” Holder-Winfield states. She reminds HR that when training your supervisors, you must remind them that a big part of their role in the diversity initiative is to get involved or stop horseplay when necessary.

• Don’t Play Favorites. Instead, supervisors should be on the frontline showing employees that there really is an equal opportunity when it comes to advancement and success.

• Draw Them a Map. Supervisors should sit down with employees and tell them exactly what it takes to advance in the company. Share with employees different positions and opportunities available to hard workers in the company. Again, Holder-Winfield maintains that it is extremely important for your women and minority employees to see that there is equal opportunity in your company. “It goes back to how an employee feels about his or her place in the workplace. If an individual doesn’t feel as though there are true opportunities for advancement within a company, they may rightfully resent how their career development is arrested. Professionals may leave or they plateau until they can find the next opportunity,” she says.

• Be Vocal. Holder-Winfield maintains that it’s important for supervisors to pull employees aside to tell them how great they are doing or how they could improve in order to position themselves for greater opportunity. When that happens, she says, “psychologically, people do start shifting their ways of thinking and start feeling as if they are a much more valued member of the team as opposed to an interloper. Once they see that, there’s a great shift in how they think about their place in the workplace. They think of themselves as much more valuable.”

• Give Quality Work Assignments. Giving work based on employees’ abilities, capabilities, and expressed desire to handle more work will show employees you are serious about giving them the opportunities to advance that they desire.

• Lead by Example. While it would seem that this would go without saying, it really does need to be said (and repeated): Supervisors shouldn’t engage in inappropriate conduct. That includes off-color jokes, behavior, comments, or any sort of “hazing” (surprisingly, this still happens a lot in the American workplace) when working with people traditionally underrepresented in the workplace. “You may have employees who are engaging in that type of behavior, but it’s a real dagger in the heart of the success of a workplace when a supervisor engages in that type of conduct,” Holder-Winfield admonishes.

Holder-Winfield reminds HR that “right now is the time to really focus on what is going to meet the company’s bottom line. Nothing meets the bottom line quicker than making people more productive in their jobs. Naturally, when there is a sense of harmony and community in the workplace, people work together more effectively and efficiently.”