Opinion: Why everyone benefits from D&I

Diversity & inclusion is not a 'feel good' exercise; it's good business sense, writes Tom Shields

Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace has become a key focus for Australian businesses as organisations understand the positive impact it delivers to the business and employees; greater profitability and productivity in the workplace and stronger employee engagement.  

Covering areas such as gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual preference, religion and age, Diversity and Inclusion is part of the modern complex workplace.

The Diversity Council of Australia Inclusion@Work Index for 2017-2018, highlights that if you work in an inclusive team you are 10 times more likely to be highly effective than workers in non-inclusive teams, 9 times more likely to innovate, 19 times more likely to be very satisfied with your job than workers in non-inclusive teams, with these types of results, it’s crucial to business success that businesses properly address Diversity and Inclusion and it is integrated into all parts of the business.

Workday’s diversity dashboards and score cards give companies a view into what the diversity make up is like within their organisation. As companies continue to focus on D&I, we’ve leveraged data to create a holistic view.  This allows companies to assess their opportunities, and look for ways to better balance the demographics in an organisation.   

Workday not only provides the technology to enable businesses to embrace and manage diversity and inclusion, we actively support it within our business. At Workday, 49% of Workday’s product management team is women, 38% of Workday’s management positions are held by women, 45% of Workday’s management positions are held by minorities, and 42% of Workday’s employees are a minority.

Workday has a Belonging & Diversity Program that is focused on allowing employees to bring their best selves to work, and offer their unguarded perspectives and ideas in an inviting place. Called the Workday Employing Belonging Councils (EBC), they are internal employee groups with a goal to support a more diverse population and advance the professional development of its members. The councils include Veterans @ Workday, Women @ Workday, and Workday Pride. There are 19 EBC chapters globally.

Our Women @ Workday council supports women through industry-leading events and partnerships such as the world’s largest women in computing conference, VMware’s Women Transforming Technology Conference, and Girls Who Code, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology.

Workday’s Career Acceleration Program (CAP) in the US provides technical training and internships at Workday for military veterans - men and women who are challenged with transitioning from military life to meaningful careers in civilian life.

Workday was recently recognised by the Human Rights Campaign on its Corporate Equality Index. receiving a 100% score for the company’s corporate policies and practices in support of LGBTQ workplace equality. Workday also ranked number 24 for women and number 12 for diversity in the Fortune’s Great Places to Work report.

At the Workday Thought Leadership Event on Diversity and Inclusion last week, LinkedIn and PayPal shared their thoughts on what corporate Australia needs to do to in terms of D&I.  

LinkedIn believes that the key to successful D&I initiatives is to create a sense of belonging in an organisation and that there is still much to do in terms of transgender in the workplace.

PayPal said it is important for corporate Australia to really understand the agenda and make sure they are not running D&I programs to just tick corporate boxes. It needs to be meaningful so businesses should be asking themselves what are we trying to solve and are we truly making a difference?

Both organisations, like Workday, agree that D&I is not an HR issue that we are doing to feel good, it’s a business issue and when embraced by everyone in the organisation, it can deliver amazing results.

About the author

Tom Shields is Vice President, Workday, Asia Pacific