Event on "Creating impact with D&I policy"

Would you like to know how to make impact with your diversity and inclusion policy? Attend our conference on May 22nd in Amsterdam! Sign up here!

Every employer wants to make impact with their diversity and inclusion policy. In practice, this turns out to be easier said than done, because ‘impact’ is a vague concept. What is meant by ‘impact’? On which levels of policy and organization can we identify this? And how do we take the right steps?

These questions are key during the event ‘Impact maken met D&I-beleid’ (Making impact with D&I policy) on Wednesday May 22nd from 13:30 until 17:00 at the Nationale Postcode Loterij in Amsterdam. We look forward to meeting you there!

During the afternoon, we share insights on making impact from the research project ‘Het moet wel werken’, a collaboration between Utrecht University, InclusieNL and SER Diversiteit in Bedrijf, which is made possible by the Goldschmeding Foundation. Furthermore, the Nationale Postcode Loterij will give a look behind the scenes of their own policy and we will discuss together.

Are you interested? Sign up now!

Masterclass "Kijken met een andere bril naar D&I-beleid"

Yet another cohort of D&I champions has received the coveted certificate for completing the three-part masterclass “Kijken met een andere bril naar D&I-beleid” (Looking at D&I policy through a different lens) at Utrecht University.

Their organizations’ D&I policies are in capable hands!

Together with lecturers Melissa Vink, Onur Şahin, Milynn Koene and guest lecturers Yonn Bokern and Youssef Chrigui, I have enjoyed their eagerness to learn and very interesting practical cases.

Thank you for your great efforts, Rumeysa Unal, John Verpoort, Marianne Kooistra-Jonker, Andhika Rutten, Rogier Kock en Veerle Huyers.

Keynote at NVP Jaarcongres

On March 21st, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination , I gave a keynote on facilitating diversity and inclusion in organizations for the Network of HR-Professionals (NVP).

With approximately 135 HR professionals and HR students in the audience, and thanks to the great interactive discussions and inspiring contributions of my fellow speakers and panelists it was a very successful event.

A recap of the day can be viewed here

Bi+ inclusion at work: Insights and recommendations

In collaboration with Bi+ Nederland, my research team at Leiden University and I conducted an exploration shedding light on the experiences of bi+ individuals in the workplace, a group often overlooked within the LGBTQI+ community. Despite comprising the largest segment under the LGBTQI+ umbrella, bi+ individuals face significant challenges at work, with limited understanding of their experiences and effective inclusion strategies.

Drawing on a literature study and interviews with bi+ individuals and experts, the exploration reveals the complexities that bi+ individuals encounter in being open about their orientation, often due to fear of backlash, lack of support, or misconceptions. Micro-aggressions, stemming from a monosexual norm prevalent in many workplaces, compound these challenges, leading to feelings of invisibility and discomfort. Moreover, heteroprofessionalism further marginalizes bi+ individuals, rendering their identities less valued or even dismissed in professional settings. To foster inclusivity, organizations should prioritize acknowledging, promoting visibility, and ensuring representation of bi+ individuals in the workplace, akin to existing efforts for gay and lesbian employees (although these may also be further improved).

Curious about our research insights? Read the exploration here (in Dutch)

Ready to take action in your organization? Use our helpful guide for employers here (in Dutch)

English translations
 of our conclusions and recommendations will follow soon, so stay tuned!

Much thanks to our interviewees and sounding board members for providing the invaluable input, to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for the support, and to my partners at Bi+ Nederland and Leiden University, Iris Buizer, Daphne Hermsen, Jantine van Lisdonk, and Barbara Oud, for the smooth collaboration.

Benchmark event Netherlands Inclusivity Monitor

During the yearly benchmark conference of the Netherlands Inclusivity Monitor (NIM) on March 7th, I presented the most recent outcomes of the research that we conducted at currently 65 organizations and Marlous Strout from Lister shared how she applies the NIM research in practice. And all this inspiringly led by Sander Haas, board member of InclusieNL.

The factsheet and summary of our findings and recommendations can be found here.

We examined to what extent the D&I policy of organizations are coherent, systematic and evidence-based, ánd how inclusive employees experience the organizational climate to be. What stands out at policy level, is the large focus on the inflow of diverse talent and creating an inclusive culture. Throughflow and outflow are domains that currently gett less attention. In addition, we notice that only a few organizations evaluate the outcomes of their policy and actions properly, and that goals could be formulated more SMART. Amongst employees, what stands out is that people who feel different from the majority, experience the organizational climate to be less inclusive than the majority group. Particularly people who feel different based on education or ethnicity experience a less positive inclusive climate.

Read more here.

The factsheet and the event were made possible by the Goldschmeding Foundation.

Stakeholder event on "Evidence-based practices to reduce bias at work".

On March 5th, the Interuniversity Network on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion organized a stakeholder event on “evidence-based practices to reduce bias at work”.

We started with poster presentations by Chenhao Zhou, Onur Şahin, Sarah Grootjans, and Johanna S. W. Kruger who, respectively, shared their ongoing research on the impact of lgbt+ identity disclosure on social perception and cooperation intentions (Zhou), the impact of explicit coordination on gendered domestic division in expecting couples (Sahin), the influence of work messages on the care gap (Grootjans), and young, female doctors’ lack of fit with the profession's agentic stereotype (Kruger).

Then, in a plenary talk, Lieselotte Blommaert and Marcel Coenders shared the findings from their work on the effects of anonymized hiring procedures and support among managers, job applicants and the general public. Their findings showed that anonymous application procedures, particularly when combined with the use of standardized forms, significantly reduce ethnic discrimination in the screening process. Alarmingly, however, many managers still believe discrimination is not a problem, in stark contrast with results from a field experiment showing clear evidence of bias in hiring. You can read more here.

Dr. Huyen T. T. Nguyen, furthermore, shared first findings from a vignette experiment on differences in beliefs and self-presentation strategies across genders and ethnicities n the US and UK labor market. Findings revealed that job seekers somewhat distrust AI-based recruitment tools and would rather be assessed by human recruiters, who they perceive as more nuanced in their assessment and better able to see the person behind the CV.

We rounded off the event with a discussion on how to solve the tension between, on the one hand, the positive impact of standardization and formalized hiring procedures and, on the other hand, employees' needs to feel authentic at the workplace and valued for who they are.

Thank you to all participants for a very interesting discussion!

We are grateful to Future of Work Hub, Universiteit Utrecht, European Research Council (ERC), Workplace Pride, InclusieNL for supporting the event, and look forward to the next activities!

Diversity in the picture

Today, the Ministry of General Affairs’ Public Information and Communications Service (DPC) presented the bundle Diversiteit in beeld. Een verkenning van inzichten [Diversity in the picture. An exploration of insights]. In this bundle, different experts on the cutting edge of visual communication and inclusion share their insights on the complexity, challenges and opportunities of diverse imagery for inclusive communications by the government.

My reflections on the topic were also recorded in the bundle. I focused on the power of stereotypes and how they can both help and hinder a message that aims to communicate diversity and inclusion. I also warned against blindly taking over so-called best practices from others, and advised to apply best methods instead. This means there is no concrete checklist for inclusive communication, rather a list of questions that communication specialists should ask themselves before picking their visuals. These questions regard reflections as to how a visual message may be perceived, for instance by members of different groups, which images already speak to the target audience, and what existing stereotypes are.

Understanding employees' support for D&I policies

I am proud to share our recently published paper on employees’ support for the diversity and inclusion (D&I) policies implemented by their organization!

Together with Wiebren Jansen, Yonn Bokern, and Naomi Ellemers, we introduced a taxonomy of D&I policy support and validated this empirically in a large-scale survey study (n=2913). In doing so, we advance existing scholarly work by providing both a theoretical account of and empirical evidence for the different ways in which D&I policies may find support or resistance from employees. In addition, our work offer practitioners a practical tool to examine employees' support and therefore enables them to design and implement more effective D&I interventions.

This article is the first scientific publication of our project "Het Moet Wel Werken. Het bevorderen van inclusiviteit op de arbeidsmarkt door synergie tussen wetenschap en praktijk", made possible by the Goldschmeding Foundation, and is the result of a collaboration between Utrecht University, InclusieNL and Diversity at work.

Read the paper here

The danger of a single story

“Stories matter, many stories matter”

To ward off the feelings of gloom which arose from the election results, I let the following wise words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from her Ted Talk “The danger of a single story” inspire me:

"Power is the ability to not just tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. [...] The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete. [...] They make one story become the only story."

The ‘rhetoric of the single story’, which stands out in the PVV’s party program and seems to appeal to a large part of the Netherlands, needs to be counterbalanced. Not just to argue against the single story, but also to understand the appeal of this rhetoric. After all, there is a story behind every vote.

Chimamanda shares her views through storytelling and writing, but I, as a researcher who aims to identify and understand patterns in cognition, experience and behavior, will take her advice to keep sight of the complex, multifaceted stories of people to heart.

Watch the Ted Talk here

© James Duncan Davidson 

Coming Out Day at UWV

This morning, the rainbow flag was hoisted at UWV for Coming Out Day, a day on which we focus (once more) on the importance of an LGBTQI+ inclusive workplace. Afterward, I shared our findings and insights with UWV employees about the power of the norm and the challenges it poses for LGBTQI+ employees. I also had the opportunity to speak with Liesbeth van de Garde, Christine Holtkamp, Djindra Akloe, en Peter Haarms. It is always a great pleasure to sit down with experts and learn from them about the challenges and bright spots in practice.