Diversity consultancy is the area of consulting practice that develops business functions, enabling them to be more inclusive. It supports a business to understand the business benefits of diversity and inclusion and helps to promote active engagement in building a diverse and inclusive business.
There are several reasons why a business may seek the services of a diversity consultancy. Diversity and inclusion is increasingly becoming a measure of success, within best in class business organisations.
A diversity consultancy is a professional firm, or agency, that operates exclusively within the area of diversity and inclusion. Professionals, known as diversity, or diversity and inclusion consultants, are qualified and experienced in the delivery of consulting services.
These consultants support the development and implementation of policy, procedures and practice to embed organisational inclusion.
They are experts in developing inclusive people and process solutions.
Diversity and inclusion consultancy enables the process of end to end organisational best practice for business organisations. It can also support you with learning around all aspects of inclusion for management and staff teams.
Whilst it is a relatively new service area of consultancy, it has gained widespread popularity in recent years, as diversity and inclusion becomes a key focal point for business. Let's talk about how it can benefit your employee and business results!
What are the benefits of diversity consultancy?
Professional diversity consulting is not just useful to help an organisation to attract best in class recruits. It also helps to increase the potential audience of a business brand by enabling the promotion and showcasing of values based diversity and inclusion.
Diversity consultants helps you to audit your organisation to identify those areas where your business can benefit from enhancing and embedding and diversity and inclusion.
By helping businesses to identify potential problem areas, diversity consultants help to establish a vision for effective diversity and inclusion strategy. They support leaders and managers to develop the policies, practices and processes, that will enable inclusion.
Diversity consultancy helps businesses to unlock the potential for inclusion, whilst strengthening leadership confidence around the subject area. It helps organisation to develop an inclusive workplace environment, foster a sense of belonging, and a culture that nurtures diversity and inclusion as a key business benefit.
Let’s look at some of the most common reasons that a business seeks the support of a diversity consultancy.
Common Reasons to engage Diversity Consulting firms?
There are several reasons why businesses ask diversity consultancies for help.
Sometimes, organisations try to develop traction around diversity and inclusion with very little success.
Sometimes, they need a professional to look over their current position and give professional advice on how to proceed.
There are several areas where diversity consultancy can help to align diversity and inclusion with your business objectives, to develop and integrate a strategic mechanism through which to embed inclusion.
Below are just some of the areas where businesses engage with diversity and inclusion consulting firms.
Recruiting through a More Diverse and Inclusive Talent Pipeline
A diversity consultancy supports your business to attract and retain employees from a wide range of backgrounds. This enhances the talent pipeline to a business and enables a business to recruit from best in class global talent.
The benefit of this to business is an increase in the diversity of ideas and strategies that help to design and product a more varied service and / or product offering.
Developing Inclusive Leadership
Building leadership accountability for diversity and inclusion is imperative for achieving D&I objectives, right across the business. Engaging a consulting practice, helps to support with current challenges as well as avoid potential problem areas.
Diversity consultancy also supports project managers to scope a framework through which to promote inclusion at leadership levels. This helps to ensure that leaders are not only accountable for embedding processes, but also ensures the development of inclusive leadership, across Board and C-Suite levels.
Developing Inclusive Branding
A business may retain a diversity consultancy to support its branding and marketing efforts. This is useful to help develop content that will add value to marketing activities and develop an understanding of the benefits of cultural appropriation within marketing activities.
Developing an inclusive brand image, is fast becoming one of the most popular reasons why companies seek the services of a diversity consultancy. Increasingly, attempts are being made to promote inclusion to attract clients and customers, in an ever competitive marketplace.
Whilst these are common areas where a company may seek the services of a diversity consultancy, the list is certainly not exhaustive!
Many companies, genuinely want to ensure that they are doing their best to become inclusive in all areas of business. Very often, a company will engage the services of a diversity consulting firms to assist with D&I training and people development.
This helps to ensure that all members of staff are engaged with diversity and inclusion and how it impacts their working role.
For globalised businesses, a professional diversity consultancy will be able to offer e-Learning that will make sure that all employees, regardless of global location are ‘on the same page' when it comes to inclusion.
Training and development activities include the development of purpose built leadership seminars, HR training solutions and many more services to increase organisational competence around inclusion.
This is useful, as it enables management to be sure that not only is the company driving inclusive practice from the centre, but that it is making sure that diversity and inclusion is a whole business priority, regardless of location.
What will a Diversity Consultancy do to Help?
Diversity consultancy helps a business to develop a range of creative ideas that challenge discriminatory practice by promoting inclusion. Again, this can be in the form of training workshops, mentoring services and diversity management processes which help to manage an inclusion agenda.
It can also help with processes to promote inclusive marketing, content development and just about everything that a business is involved in.
By supporting an organisation to harness the intrinsic benefits of diversity and inclusion, diversity consultancy helps a business to identify, challenge and remove barriers to inclusion.
As the business landscape becomes more complex, it is important to adapt to changes in market conditions.
Business environments are subject to constant change, which impact on the ability to attract and retain best in class talent and increase relevancy in the eyes of stakeholders and customers.
By employing diversity and inclusion as a tool to attract and retain best in class talent, diversity consultancy serves several purposes. Not least, it helps to increase a varied customer base, and develops a competitive edge within industry.
There are a myriad of ways that diversity consultancy can support a business to become best in class.
Customised Diversity and Inclusion Solutions
Diversity Consultancy firms will professionally customise a solution, based on extensive knowledge and experience, of diversity and inclusion issues. The best diversity consulting firms, will go much further than merely collecting data and providing a report.
They will ensure that you are well supported with the tools to embed inclusion through strategic planning, training, coaching and innovative learning tools such as e-Learning and technology based solutions.
Tailored solutions benefit your organisation by casting a spotlight on diversity and inclusion right across your business.
This helps to ensure that organisational processes develop and maintain an inclusive workplace population.
The benefits of customised solutions for diversity and inclusion is that interventions are developed based on your particular organisational needs. They take into account your particular challenges and those across your industry.
Bespoke solutions to develop diversity and inclusion will include measures to ensure that the project is closely monitored. They also ensure that managers and leaders are given the appropriate support for their role, be that training, coaching, mentoring or a mixture of all three.
Diversity consultancy involves a wide analysis of current and emerging trends that impact on business ability to operate at its most effective, in an increasingly globalised economy.
It avails businesses, across industries, to secure substantial benefits through a range of bespoke solutions. Enabling better decision making and improved problem solving skills and a more driven and customer focused workforce, are two of the key benefits of diversity consultancy.
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Learn More: Read our guide to choosing a diversity consultancy
Read More: Using diversity management improve your inclusion strategy.
For more information on how Kenroi Consulting can support you with diversity consulting services, please get in touch. One of our consultants is waiting to take your call.
Kenroi Consulting is a diversity consulting business. We work with clients across a wide range of business industries. We support companies to build diversity into the fabric of their operations. Contact details below:
W: www.kenroi.com T: 0203 633 1185 E: info@kenroi.com
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