When running a business, there are many challenges involved, including trying to turn a profit, improving talent, growing the company, and more. You also must be aware of being inclusive and having a diverse talent pool within your organisation. How do you go about this, though? At Kirkwood Wilson we not only provide small business accounting advice online and projections in business, but we can help you improve your diversity and inclusion, continue reading our guide below.
Diversity and inclusion in business
The first step to creating or improving diversity and inclusion in your workplace is understanding where you’re at right now. Depending on the size of your firm, it may be helpful to run a staff survey as this helps you to gain insights into how diverse and inclusive your own team feels the company is at present.
Take time to analyse the diversity of your current team and consider past employees as well. Ask yourself questions like, ‘why did they leave?’ and ‘could the company have been more inclusive?’. If you could have been more inclusive, would they have stayed?
Once you’ve mapped out where you are, you can create aims and objectives around where you want the company to be in the future. This could be in the space of six months, 12 months or more, but it sets achievable goals within a set timeframe for you to improve diversity and inclusion.
Consider the current policies in place, too. In order to ensure that diversity and inclusion is not just lip service to current and new employees, you have to make an inclusive culture part of the fabric of your business.
Making a change from the top
Start your process of transforming the company by taking a top-down approach and lead by example. Ensure that your company’s leadership team is diverse and inclusive because this sets the tone for the entire business. The leadership team should lead the way on creating a business culture that embraces more diversity and inclusion.
Increasing the depth of your talent pool is key to building a more diverse and inclusive workforce too. Consider your current recruitment processes and review where you could improve the diversity of the team. Could you adopt more inclusive approaches to hiring?
Perhaps you could invest in some unconscious bias training to help your recruitment team overcome any biases that dictate the type of people that they hire. Attracting, hiring and retaining a diverse mix of talented people are all crucial steps in building a more diverse and inclusive business. However, it doesn’t stop there.
You must create a career development structure within the company too. Leadership teams in businesses across most sector often lack diversity, with non-white makes occupying only a small percentage of senior roles. Achieving gender and racial equality in top level leadership roles starts with making diversity and inclusion a business priority, especially when it comes to career development opportunities.
Senior members of a business should endeavour to create a sense of belonging for everyone within the company. For each individual to bring the best version of themselves to work each day, a sense of belonging must first be established. A greater connection between company and staff with a clear career path can only help to produce greater engagement, productivity and creativity.
Race for talent
As the battle for talent in recruitment continues for businesses, employees are becoming increasingly interested in working for companies whose diversity and inclusion initiatives are aligned with their values. If your company can set the tone and stand out as a diverse and inclusive employer, attracting talented team members should become a little bit easier.
Small business accounting advice online and projections in business at Kirkwood Wilson
Kirkwood Wilson is a family-owned company of Chartered Accountants, offering accounting advice online. We understand the challenges faced by family-run businesses and have the knowledge and expertise to support you in overcoming these challenges.
We can support your business by attending meetings, assisting with an exit strategy, planning for any capital gains or inheritance tax and reorganising the business structure.
Our experienced team can also offer you guidance on trusts, small business accounting advice, and retirement planning.
If you’d like to find out more about what we do at Kirkwood Wilson and how we can help you, don’t hesitate to contact us today on 01704 546000 or email us at enquiries@kirkwoodwilson.co.uk.
