Workplace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Many organizations worldwide have expressed a new or renewed commitment to workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). It refers to a workplace that includes employees of various sexes, genders, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations.

A diverse workforce is inherently stronger because it includes a wide range of voices. Team members from various backgrounds bring with them varied experiences, points of view, and knowledge. These idiosyncratic perspectives are critical to maximizing creativity.

In the aftermath of 2020, global companies, including LinkedIn as reported in a recent Business Insider article, used the last year as a point of reflection to assess its DEI in the workplace and found that they may have come up a bit short.

There is no doubt that organizations must devote more attention and resources to moving forward in 2021 and beyond. But, given what has been happening around us, how do we foster this culture in such trying times?

At Republic Bank, we have been making a concerted effort to enhance the diversity of our workforce as we believe that improving DEI in the workplace is a necessary strategy. In practice, a push for corporate workforce diversity entails interviewing and recruiting people from many areas of life. The logic behind interviewing, vetting, and ultimately hiring people of different races and ethnicities is not to meet a diversity quota; rather, the overarching goal of a workplace diversity initiative is to improve the company and its products/services.

Our perspectives combine aspirational vision with the necessary metrics and processes to effect change in a sustained and proactive manner, rather than as a reaction to current events. To ensure that this is a sustainable movement, we closely monitor what we’re doing internally; we are constantly and consistently re-evaluating the way we view diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Our people are being impacted by the deep uncertainty of the future more than ever before. And this will have an impact on how we work, both in terms of productivity and relationships with each other.

Furthermore, as younger generations become the dominant groups in the workplace, organizations will have to place a greater emphasis than ever before on becoming diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

We recommend the following three actions:
1. Do your research - identify DEI priorities based on the organization's present situation.
2. Get the work done- select a team to overlook and execute the strategy to create the future that was planned.
3. Be sustainable - continue to practice and develop the organization by societal times.