“Diversity and Inclusion” should go beyond the obvious

Throughout the month of April we are celebrating diversity here at Vodafone Americas, so I wanted to share a few thoughts and reflect on the topic. Last week, many around the country celebrated ‘Equal Pay Day,’ which continued to shine a light on the glaring issue of underpaid women across the workforce. As my colleague Andrew Morawski has written about a number of times, gender equality (which includes equal pay) is an issue that organizations need to address immediately. There are many businesses looking to make positive change here – and I’m proud that Vodafone is one of them – to ensure women are properly compensated and have the exact same opportunities as men do in the workplace.

Gender equality is a big part of diversity and inclusion (D&I), and rightly so, but people can sometimes end the D&I conversation there. The reality is that D&I goes well beyond gender equality and goes into things may not be observable. A passion of mine is working to recognize the hidden disabilities or mental health situations that people live with that are likely not obvious to most. The sad truth is that in today’s workplace, if a disability is not obvious or observable then there are not many things put in play to make sure individuals are included.

The evolution of important D&I initiatives need to make sure we can address depression, addiction, or even Aspeger’s syndrome, and have a workplace that can be successful and rewarding for anyone who has a hidden disability. We need to have cultures that welcome this kind of diversity and does not take accommodations as favoritism.

Monster as a great article on this very issue that is worth reading. The piece highlights a few tips to addressing hidden disabilities and combating disability discrimination, including:

• Keep the workplace performance-based and don’t assume that a disability will affect work quality.
• Use people-first language and ensure you use appropriate terminology whenever discussing the disability.

You can read the full article here. Do you view D&I as a core component of your organization? How do you see if coming to life?