An organization can enhance their ability to achieve better business results through inclusion. This can be done by engaging people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives through participatory decision making. It is time to truly harness the power of a diverse workforce.

An organization’s understanding of diversity, however, should not only focus on the visible aspects, such as race, age, gender, and physical ability. We should also think of diversity through the diversity of thinking. Leveraging the different perspectives people have on problems and varied ways to address solutions can be a great advantage and an important way to include everyone in the organization.

The 4th Annual Inclusion Summit, which will be held in Reston, Virginia, from August 22 to 23, will feature insightful and practitioner-led sessions that will enable you to create, track, manage and perform on a strategic inclusion and diversity plan that yields to an innovative and highly productive workforce and workplace where all employees can contribute to their maximum potential. 

To start with, we should ask ourselves the following: What actions is my organization taking to foster an inclusive work culture where uniqueness of beliefs, talents, backgrounds, capabilities, and ways of living are welcomed and leveraged for learning and informing better business decisions? 

Also, having a strategy is important and an inclusion and diversity strategy is most effective and sustainable when it:

  • Directly aligns with and helps achieve key business strategies and plans
  • Has the full active engagement and support from both senior leadership as well as the general employee population
  • Objectively measures progress from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective
  • Takes account of your company’s organizational culture and readiness and capacity for change

The Inclusion Summit will be a great place to learn about inclusion and diversity strategic plans from experienced professionals on the subject. Some of the speakers at the event include Rosanna Durruthy, Chief Diversity Officer at Cigna, Jodi Davidson, Director Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives at Sodexo, Ronald Guillory, District Manager at Sodexo, Michael Gonzales, Leader of Corporate Diversity & Inclusion at Hallmark Cards, and many more. 

For more information about the event, visit the Inclusion Summit’s webpages.