In the wake of the social and political events of 2020, many organizations realized the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The words diversity and inclusion are usually used together, complimenting each other, but they mean different things. Diversity makes every employee unique; their skills and knowledge will be different based on their prior work experiences. More importantly an employee’s human demographic differences like age, current sex, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, disability, and education make up an organization’s diversity. Inclusion is a feeling of “fitting in”, which many employees measure by how their values and ideas are respected by their co-workers.
Organizations realize the importance of diverity and inclusion in the workplace because of the social importance, and how it can make an organization more successful. Studies have shown organizations with a strong diversity and inclusion strategy are able to attract more talented applicants, retain more employees because they feel included and valued, which increases creativity and productivity among co-workers, creates a positive impact an organization’s culture and better financial returns.
Employees prefer being happier and working in an environment that promotes diversity and inclustion, this isn’t something new, but it has become more important to employees who are wanting to have a career at an organization, rather than just a job at one.
Oracle/PeopleSoft HCM, has many features for helping organizations with inclusion and diversity like self-identification of disability, ethnicity and veteran status. PeopleSoft recently delivered a new feature where employees can self-identify their gender identity, pronouns and sexual orientation.
Check our next blog to find out more details about the employee self-identification indentity and expression feature.
If you can’t wait for the next blog, check out the video on the Gender Identity and Expression feature.