Many organisations have been committed for years to promoting a culture of inclusiveness, which guarantees all people equality of treatment, rights and opportunities to belong.  But how can we increase the chances that, from the moment they join the company, new people will be aligned with and contribute to this commitment? This is the question we were asked by the HR department of a multinational company, and in this article we tell you how we answered it.

For some years we have been developing a simple but effective model for promoting and managing inclusive leadership. The model consists of four areas of behaviour, divided into two factors for each area, each factor described in depth by specific indicators of behaviour, to aid practical observation. The model has been developed over years of fieldwork on the topic of DE&I within very different organisations and through years of reading and exploring the subject. It has been mainly used to raise awareness among employees and to accompany the performance management cycle; it is presented as a standard that then requires, of course, to be adapted and contextualised through some specific indicators.

The question in this case, however, did not concern the performance of existing employees, but the possibility of opening a window on the future of possible newcomers, in particular through assessment centre sessions aimed at testing, among other talents, the potential for inclusive leadership. After an initial phase of clarifying the objectives with the client, we created a battery of exercises and observation grids with ad hoc descriptors, which was followed by a day of training and testing of the model with the internal assessors, followed by a test of the materials on a real group of eight engineers during the assesment centre, one of the phases of the recruitment process. The model was unanimously validated, with some adjustments. We collected feedback on the experimentation, readjusted the model (in particular on the need to have more behavioural indicators on the four areas of competence to facilitate the work of the assessor) and offered a training day on the subject to another group of internal assessors (who also tested the model themselves and will be the next to use it) for a final validation.

It is clear that final validation of the model will have to await verification in the field. In particular, after a significant number of utilisations in assesment, it will be necessary to make observations on the actualisation of the potential of the competence, once the newcomers chosen also on the basis of this parameter, will have entered the role. And to go further there would need to be a control group to have a rigorous verification. If you are in a HR position and interested or interested in the trial, let’s talk about it 😉!

The project has brought, so far, at least two very interesting “side” results:

    1. The first is that the managers involved did not find themselves in the now classic awareness-raising course on diversity or unconscious bias, but in a situation in which the awareness-raising had the objective of supporting a particular role for them, that of people at the entrance to the organisational frontier, decision-makers on who enters and who does not. It was an opportunity to talk together about the company’s cultural models and how far these can affect the choices that are made, which, in turn, impact on performance and also on their own decision-making architecture, on individual and group decisions. In short, it was an opportunity for in-depth training without looking like it, which the people present found exciting.
    2. I was very impressed by the reaction of the young people involved in the assessment. During the part of the work dedicated to the battery of exercises on inclusive leadership, the atmosphere in the group changed radically. Surprisingly, there was more of an atmosphere of dialogue around the fireplace than an assessment centre. Rather than a competition, the participants seemed to be participating in a collaborative group in which the aim was to help each other, give each other feedback and create links. The feedback they gave on the experience was very positive. At a time when it is very difficult to find talent, and with respect to the explicit or implicit demands that the Millennial generation is making of workplaces (consistency, management of diversity, fairness, respect for the work/life balance, the possibility of the most authentic self-expression possible, warmth in ties, etc.), the message that is received in first contacts with the organization is fundamental. A company which is attentive to the dimension of organisational citizenship, of belonging, and which concretely demonstrates this attention from the very first stages of contact will see its reputation enhanced and, perhaps, become a place which the younger generations (and not only) will look to as a place capable of (re)igniting the desire and regenerating a relationship with work which for some years now has generally been losing its attractiveness.