Inclusive communications in the workplace: a talk with deidei
In this blog post, we’ll talk about the concept of inclusive communications as well as ways to adopt it in your company’s strategy. For the occasion, we had a very insightful talk with Jasmin Assulin and Iina Salminen, co-founders of deidei and DEI experts.
Inclusive communications: there is so much to say about this topic, given its exceptionally broad nature. By googling it, you will stumble upon different general definitions, but how can we help and create a more practical understanding of the topic?
I had the pleasure to have a thought-provoking chat on the matter with Jasmin Assulin and Iina Salminen, co-founders of deidei and specialists in DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) & communications. At deidei, they combine their DEI and communications expertise with organizational understanding. They believe that when we talk about DEI in organizations, we should also understand how the characteristics of our society are reflected in working life.
Iina and Jasmin see communications as an essential tool for driving any change. Communication is such an essential part of our lives, both as workers and as individuals. We can find it in everything we do, as we communicate all the time: internally or externally, implicitly or explicitly, inclusively or exclusively. It is therefore very important to understand the impact that communications has in our everyday life and reflect on how we can develop as communicators in a professional context, too. So let’s now jump right into the topic of Inclusive Communications and explore the main highlights of the discussion with Iina and Jasmin!
deidei’s team. From left to right: Nasim Selmani (COO & Co-founder), Jasmin Assulin (CEO & Co-founder), and Iina Salminen (CD & Co-founder). Copyright: deidei
What is Inclusive communication?
Iina and Jasmin start by defining what inclusion means: it is an ongoing effort to create environments where all people are respected, valued and feel a sense of belonging.
Consequently, if this is the broad and abstract definition of inclusion, inclusive communications strive to apply this concept: they strive to make people included, heard, and respected, both in internal and external ways of communicating.
“Communications might actively or passively exclude people. For example, if you are a person of colour and never see people like you represented in an organization or its communications, it doesn’t really create a sense of inclusion or belonging. As Marian Wright Edelman once said ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’. However, diversity washing is not the answer.”
Jasmin Assulin
In an ideal state, inclusive communications are authentic and true to the company’s own culture and values. A research by Getty Images has demonstrated that “80% of consumers surveyed said it isn’t enough to have people of various ethnicities, backgrounds, and appearances in advertising but that they expect companies to do a better job at capturing people’s true lifestyles and cultures”.
From an external communications perspective, Iina highlights that inclusive communications value the diversity of the company’s target audience. But:
“This doesn’t mean that in every context your communications need to address every single group of people existing in the world! What your company needs to care about is to communicate inclusively to the target groups you’re trying to reach without actively or passively excluding any potential stakeholders. How have you determined your target groups? Are they based on data or on your personal gut feeling and therefore potential biases?“
Iina Salminen
In the discussion we highlighted that there are some basic pillars to pay attention to, when talking of inclusive communications, both internal or external:
- Language: what languages do we use (e.g. should your job ads be written in Finnish? In English?)? But also, what type of reality are we building around the company through the language we’re using? Are we for example using gendered language? As a matter of fact, in languages whose grammar is traditionally based on exclusively male or female options, this might represent a challenge that we can, however, overcome.
- Visual aspects: in the design phase, companies need to think about who they want to attract and embed this in the design of their visual identity, making it inclusive for the totality of their target audience. This means paying attention for example to the use of colors, fonts, shapes, illustrations, and photos. What kind of a world does, for example, a black and blue color theme create? How about pastel? What role does representation play in photos? However, these two examples are only the tip of the iceberg: if we think of the extremely wide spectrum of Diversity we can easily understand that there is so much more than that!
- Accessibility: studies have shown how important accessibility is in the online presence of a business, in terms of communication and customer service. Good accessibility is directly proportional to good user experience, which leads to conversion way more easily. For these reasons, you need to ensure that your content and the platforms you use to deliver it are usable by people with disabilities (physical, vision, cognitive, hearing, etc.), which are more than 1 billion people globally (15% of the world’s population!). Statistics show that 71% of users with disabilities will leave a website with low or no accessibility, which translates directly into a potentially heavy revenue loss.
Inclusive communication is the key for attracting the right stakeholders
On a general level, companies need to adapt to being inclusive and to have an inclusive communication strategy for several reasons.
On one hand, Finland is already a diverse country that needs to have a bilateral conversation with its consumers and workforce, acknowledging differences and learning how to navigate its complex society. Additionally, the fact that for Finnish companies internationalization is a must in order to survive and thrive is already old news. For this reason, campaigns have been developed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland in order to make Finland an internationally attractive place to work, study, carry out research, and invest. It goes without saying that this great plan is not feasible without a general, thorough understanding of the topics of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I). And how are we going to attract international talent (and investors!) without an inclusive external communications strategy?
On the other hand, it is clear that the future and the requirements of the workforce are changing: to stay globally competitive and to develop up-to-date services and products, companies must recognize the importance of DEI by embedding these values into their company strategy – and communications represent a big part of it. As the Washington Post points out, “over the past decade, highly educated young professionals have increasingly prioritized personal values in deciding where to work, whether it’s a commitment to sustainability, philanthropy or social impact”. By 2025, millennials will represent 75% of the global workforce and they will choose and support companies that reflect their values, contributing to a massive cultural systemic change. So, if Finnish companies want to be players in the large global scenario, they must deal with this reality and act now.
On a more practical and direct level, the reality is that your business will lose a big part of the audience if you don’t timely adopt an inclusive communications strategy. In fact, you just won’t be able to reach the target customers and convey your message to them. In addition to that, if you plan to scale your company and grow abroad, you won’t be able to do it in the long run with no inclusive communication strategy in place.
Inclusive communication requires a holistic approach
As we often stress the importance of implementing in your workplace a DEI strategy in a holistic way, Iina and Jasmin are of the same opinion when talking from a communications perspective. As they point out, inclusive communications cannot be compartmentalized and aren’t limited exclusively to a specific sector (e.g. recruitment, marketing, etc.). Quite the opposite: companies need to adopt a holistic approach and the change must interest the whole organization structure (both internally and externally). As we already highlighted with reference to the development of a Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) strategy that involves all the company functions, also in this case the proactiveness of the leadership is key. Leaders must acknowledge the importance of inclusive communication first of all as an internal matter and should implement inclusive communication processes throughout the organization’s structure. This is a great first step that will positively influence external communications, too: as we mentioned before, change and inclusivity should come from within the company and should not be treated as a “check the box” exercise.
So what can companies improve in their processes? We therefore talked more in-depth about three areas that can benefit from adopting inclusive communications:
- Recruitment. It’s easy to get a lot of things wrong in this field if you don’t pay close attention to it. The first thing is to have a critical look at your job ads: language, wording, accessibility, representation, and channels definitely make a huge difference. And how about your recruitment process? Is it fair, accessible, and inclusive in relation to your company’s context? Lastly, showcasing an understanding of the DEI topic in your job advertising and in your company culture is crucial to attracting diverse talent: if they can’t see themselves represented by your brand, they are less likely to look at you as a potential employer. You can surely improve the level of inclusivity in recruitment but, if the company lacks an inclusive company culture, polishing your job ads or your recruitment process won’t really solve the core problem.
- Internal communications. As we know, while our world changes more and more rapidly, our workplaces are becoming more and more diverse, too. How to foster internal change in order to create an environment where everyone feels included? By improving your inclusive internal communications! These play an extremely important role when it comes to successfully leading diverse teams, as it makes possible for leaders to motivate and engage employees while fostering a successful change in this rapidly changing world: it was indeed demonstrated that well-managed diverse teams significantly outperform homogenous ones and, of course, communication is a key tool to achieve that.
- External communications. This aspect is – at least ideally – strictly connected to the former: to project DEI outside, you first need to have it within your own company! Representation must be authentic: if you’re a cis-white hetero company there’s no point in including a different demographic in your external communications (e.g. advertising & marketing) just to somehow prove you’re in step with the times. The suggestion here is: be true to yourself and to the target audience you want to reach. If you’re not diverse enough (or at all) and you feel like you have no good understanding of the matter, work on that internally first! There are plenty of services that can help you in assessing your Diversity & Inclusion maturity or in understanding what your first steps could be. With a more diverse set of talent, you’ll be able to grow your company and stop missing opportunities (read more here on the benefits of Diversity & Inclusion in the workplace).
About the author:
Aurora Grion is the Inclusive Marketing & Communications Specialist at BusinessWiz and a Diversity, Inclusion, and Cultural Studies enthusiast. She has been living and working in 4 different countries in the last 5 years and has therefore a very concrete take on Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) in workplaces, especially when it comes to inclusion of international talent.
Aurora holds a MA cum laude in Cultural Management and is the Vice-President of +Collective, an organization which promotes equality and inclusion in Finland through events and media production.