How building a digital culture leads to a more diverse and inclusive workforce

Nisha Marwaha is a finalist in the ‘Head of Diversity of the Year’ category at the 2024 Diversity Network Awards

What do your employees need to feel comfortable to do their best work? How can you build a workplace that is inclusive and gives everyone equal opportunity to thrive? And what does digital empowerment look like for your workforce?

These are all questions that leaders should be tackling as technology continues to take an ever more prominent role in business operations and workplace culture.

While the benefits of technology for operational efficiency, automation and profitability are often front of mind in decision making, an effective digital culture can be key to developing an engaged, high-functioning workforce performing at the top of its ability.

With endless tools available to potentially improve your employee value proposition, putting digital at the centre of your people planning can be game changing for your organisation.

So how can technology drive a more diverse and inclusive workforce?

Digital culture refers to the integration of digital tools, data and mindsets into the core of an organisation's operations and culture.

In a strong digital culture, technology isn’t an afterthought. It’s a fundamental component that shapes how work is done, how decisions are made and how employees engage with one another.

This has several benefits for your employees.

Firstly, technology can enhance accessibility for employees with disabilities. Assistive technologies such as screen readers, speech recognition software and ergonomic devices ensure all employees can fully engage in work life.

The introduction of video recording and meeting transcripts has had a significant impact on how we as an organisation can support neurodiverse members of our workforce as well as those who need flexibility to engage with work because they have caring or other responsibilities.

By introducing these supportive technologies, we enable flexibility and choice about when and how employees consume key information. Rather than being restricted to attending or not attending meetings, for example, employees can choose to watch back a call or read a transcript when it suits them. And with a business comms platform, like Workplace from Meta or Microsoft Teams, if it’s an important meeting they will be alerted as colleagues comment and react to it.

These tools enable our people to succeed at work and balance the responsibilities in their personal lives.

Of course, you can only achieve this with the right digital infrastructure: high-bandwidth connectivity to support video calls and a robust rollout of devices such as webcams and microphones. Unified communications (UC) systems, for instance, ensure every employee is connected to the workplace in a way that suits them.

Digital centricity isn’t about addressing each individual employee situation as it arises. It’s about building a workplace from the ground up that allows everyone to thrive, because when you cater to the margins, you benefit the masses.

Building a full picture of your team’s needs allows leaders to deliver effective digital change to improve working conditions.

By identifying pain points and working with your digital suppliers to build this consideration into your infrastructure, leaders can implement meaningful change to support the entire workforce in delivering to their best.

Beyond functionality, a strong digital culture can unlock further improvement for UK organisations. It is well known that survey tools enable effective data collection to analyse staff wellbeing and business challenges.

But how can you ensure the data collected is accurate?

Managers need to create a safe digital environment to gather accurate datasets. Anonymous surveys and suggestion tools enable employees to voice their concerns, share ideas and provide input on company policies and practices.

This feedback loop empowers organisations to make data-driven decisions that properly address the needs of their workforce.

Rather than being concerned about potential consequences, anonymity plays a significant role in creating psychological safety for your employees to contribute open, honest and more diverse feedback.

By conducting a staff survey, for example, we were able to recognise the need for pregnancy loss to be recognised as distinct from other types of loss covered by our bereavement leave policy. This drove a change in our policy to better support the needs of our workforce.

Effective communication from leadership about how the collected data will be securely stored and used to inform strategy decisions, can also help staff provide honest and constructive responses.

In turn this helps build an effective digital culture through better training, clearer communication or even new tools, which further strengthens future response cycles as staff can see the positive impact their feedback has on workplace culture.

Ensuring staff understand what the available services are, for example, is critical for wellbeing. You might have an employee assistance plan in place, but this is only valuable when your team are able to access it in the moment they need support.

Data is a powerful tool for organisations. When analysed carefully it can help you understand the gaps in your diversity and inclusion efforts and the steps needed to address them.

Beyond simply tracking progress towards your goals, data can help identify areas for improvement.

If you are actively trying to build a more diverse workforce, digitally tracking where for example women or ethnic minorities or LGBTQ+ candidates are dropping out of your recruitment process, can highlight potential biases and create opportunities to remove barriers.

This creates a more inclusive process where people can thrive no matter who they are. Through adopting a test and learn approach alongside setting clear goals and tracking key performance indicators, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies over time.

Adopting a data-driven approach allows for continuous improvement, ensuring diversity and inclusion efforts are not just symbolic but result in meaningful impact.

Whether you are looking to improve the current work environment or to diversify your team, it starts with listening to your employees and recruits.

Effective digital cultures are built on a safe work environments and processes which protect your people’s wellbeing and data.

Once your team trust leaders to use the data they provide effectively, tech becomes a powerful tool to ensure your employees’ voices are heard and your digital culture thrives.

And while digital culture is a powerful enabler of diversity and inclusion, we must not forget the irreplaceable value of meaningful in-person support for the moments that matter.