Creating a Culture of Diversity and Inclusiveness in India Inc.

Book excerpt: The book addresses the concept of diversity and inclusiveness (D&I) and brings stories from the corporate, practitioners, think tanks and NGOs. It advocates the need and implementation of the D&I concept to build society of the future. It strives to bring out a focused approach in connecting “Theory to Practice”. Every chapter delves into a different area and presents real-time practices as well as the challenges and the way forward. The book explains the various levels at which discrimination can occur such as demographic profiles, regional differences, religious alliances, college pedigree, marital status, sexual preferences, physical disability and health differentiation, pregnancy or returning mothers and technology competence. The book cites examples of inclusion from progressive organizations such as ABB India, Marico, TCS, PNB Metlife and Alsthom. Presenting the business case of D&I, the book emphasizes on creating a robust D&I strategy with a road map and alignment through internal and external frameworks as well as periodic audits. The Responsible, Accountable, Consultant and Informed (RACI) matrix is discussed while setting up the D&I analytics framework within the organization. The book also presents the growing role of artificial intelligence tools that can empower employees to participate in the D&I journey of an organization. It shares how tools such as Balloonr, Glint, Organization View, Planbox, Pluto and Waggl have been specially designed to allow employees to anonymously provide ideas and respond to ideas provided by others. Going forward, the D&I practices will have to be more customized than generalized, and this book brings up real evidences to make its point