In the modern business world, fostering diversity and inclusion remains a critical goal of any company’s leadership. It provides a great way to build a welcoming culture to attract the best candidates and retain top employees. After all, today’s professional wants to work for an organization with a real vision for a positive future.
Holding meetings with a focus on inclusivity helps businesses achieve this meaningful goal. So let’s take a closer look at a few tips on making your company’s meetings more inclusive. Ultimately, it’s the right approach for organizations that want to stand out from the pack in regard to diversity.
Ensure Everyone Gets a Voice
In many business meetings, managers and more outspoken employees tend to dominate the proceedings. This situation ends up hampering any efforts at fostering inclusivity. So make sure every attendee gets a chance to offer their own insights and opinions.
Following the approach of Agile standup meetings in the software development world helps achieve this goal. Simply stated, give everyone a chance to speak in a roundtable fashion. When everyone gets a voice, it breaks down any silos that prevent teamwork and collaboration.
Foster Healthy Debate and The Exchange of Ideas
A successful meeting usually includes some measure of debate and a useful exchange of ideas. The previously mentioned concept of ensuring everyone get a chance to speak their piece definitely helps. However, don’t let the perception of agreement cloud your managers’ judgements when discussing important and potentially controversial issues. From healthy disagreements come even better ideas!
Provide a Way to Follow-Up After The Meeting’s Over
Of course, some tech professionals already feel their company holds too many meetings. So giving everyone a voice might increase meeting length, taking valuable time away from work. In this situation, provide a way to follow-up after the meeting ends. Using a collaboration tool like Slack works perfectly for this scenario. It also gives more soft-spoken employees a better chance to “speak out” in writing.
Rotate Meeting Leadership
One simple way to ensure diverse viewpoints get aired during meetings simply involves rotating the meeting leaders. Having senior management always lead meetings tends to result in them dominating the conversation. A different person in charge each time provides the means for more employees to get involved. Over time, this helps forge more of a sense of inclusion.
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