Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) refer to policies and programs that enhance the participation and representation of various groups of people, including individuals of different ages, abilities, and disabilities. DEI also covers people with diverse skills, backgrounds, experiences, and expertise (Ciszek and Lim). Currently, workplaces are changing in intensive ways, from communication to corporate culture and daily jobs. New technologies and permanent marks of the global pandemic have also added to the intensity experience at workplaces. Due to this, companies have constantly been forced to innovate their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
Diversity involves all the ways people are different, including the other characteristics that make an individual or group different. Diversity includes mental ability, religion, gender identity, veteran status, sexual orientation, and physical ability. Diversity can also have a range of perspectives, ideas, and values. Further on, equity ensures opportunity equality, fair treatment, as well as advancement for every person (Ciszek and Lim). Equity also recognizes and eliminates obstacles that prevent some individuals or groups from participating fully. The primary responsibility of equity is to enhance fairness, justice, and equitability within the distribution and procedures of resources by systems. To handle issues related to equity, individuals are required to understand the root causes of result disparities in an organization or society.
Finally, inclusion is assigned to build a culture that ensures everyone feels welcomed through an active invitation to participate and contribute. This welcoming and inclusive environment embraces and supports differences and respects all individuals in actions and words (Ciszek and Lim). A workplace with inclusivity supports, concerns, collaborates and aims to ensure that employees have an opportunity to contribute and participate—an inclusive workplace endeavors to eliminate all intolerance, barriers, and discrimination. Generally, diversity, equity, and inclusion complement each other to ensure an organization becomes successful while adhering to its mission and making profits.
Contribution of DEI to Organizational Success
Each component in DEI is robust, making it a more comprehensive, operationalized strategy. An organization that uses DEI demonstrates that it is committed to its strategy, business practices, and mission. DEI also ensures that the organization protects the name of competitive business advantage (Ciszek and Lim). Therefore, an organization that develops and supports DEI will be more successful than its competitors. This section aims to discuss how the use of DEI leads to organizational success.
The benefits of an organization’s commitment to DEI tend to compound over time. DEI usually develops a magnetic reputation that assists an organization in retaining and attracting top talents. For example, numerous people seek employment; due to this, most organizations consider diversity an essential factor while offering jobs. Therefore, DEI ensures talent management that sustains organizational performance by providing crucial knowledge and strategies for improvement and change (Ciszek and Lim). It also helps organizations identify the most talented employees with the potential to become future leaders when the need arises. Hence, DEI will ensure that the organization successfully manages its workers and prepares for replacement whenever needed.
When an organization uses DEI, it makes it more creative and adaptable. In addition, having frontline decision-making teams in an organization reflects a diverse and inclusive culture that helps to surpass its financial goals. A perfect example is when a manufacturing company decides on value addition based on the inclusivity of all its employees (Ciszek and Lim). This will ensure successful innovation in the whole company and increase profits. In other perspectives, for example, a company that DEI provides that all employees’ ideas are listened to and evaluated to test their success rate. This will encourage creative thinking in the organization, creating more products that increase sales. Therefore, DEI increases creativity and innovations that improve the organization’s profitability.
Barriers that Hinder Inclusion
In most cases, individuals make mistakes in responding to other people because it makes all the difference. For instance, if an employee in an organization slips up, they get a second chance or are forever considered careless. Due to such cases, some people in an organization have changed their blame to external factors when their group members make mistakes. However, when an individual from out-group makes mistakes, they are usually attributed as personal flaws (Ciszek and Lim). In addition, supervisors can build a good relationship with one employee and simultaneously ostracize another with a penalty. Due to such inconsistent responses to makes made by employees, it hinders inclusion in some organizations.
Another barrier is insensitivity; this happens in an organization that does not realize how changes their employee and member demographics might require a few tweaks to their social traditions. Events, jokes, and comments that were traditional components of the organization’s culture might negatively impact a more diverse employee (Ciszek and Lim). In addition, insensitivity causes workplace stress low morale, causing burnout, and in some instances, more advanced consequences such as violence and drug use. Due to all these consequences caused by insensitivity, it makes it hard for its feels to feel included in the company’s matter, and sometimes it can lead to costly employment lawsuits
Culture of DEI in Budweiser
The company ensures equality by creating more employment vacancies for women in the beer industry. For instance, half of its U.S. breweries and more than a quarter of its breweries in Europe, Argentina, and China are women-led as head brewmasters. This type of equality has made women have a key role in brewing some of the company’s best-known products. In addition, to equality, the company believed that equal work means equal pay. When President Obama announced the equal pay pledge, Budweiser was among the first major brewer to sign the pledge (Ciszek and Lim). In another instance, in places such as Latin America, the company has publically declared its support for the U.N. Women Compact by signing the CEO agreement of supporting Women’s Empowerment principles. All these actions by Budweiser have proved that the company supports gender equality.
The company has reflected support for LGBT through different programs to prove inclusivity. For example, in Brazil, the company branded a beer that sponsored the Brazilian LGBT pride parade. This gesture has enhanced awareness of LGBT inclusivity through numerous campaigns to date. Bud light has the longest supporter since its first-ever LGBT-specific print ad in 1995 (Ciszek and Lim). All these gestures have shown that Budweiser is inclusive regardless of an individual’s sexuality.
The company also accommodates diversity because, for more than 150 years, it has honored to spend time and raise funds for veterans through programs such as folds of honor. In addition, a section of revenues from the Budweiser Freedom Reserve Red Lager, which the company’s three veterans created, has been pledged to the folds of honor program. The company also shows patriotism by providing educational scholarships to military families. For example, last year, the company raised over $10 million to sponsor education for military families (Ciszek and Lim). Due to these programs, the company has been considered one of the diverse beer brewers in the U.S.
Work Cited
Ciszek, Erica, and Hayoung Sally Lim. “Perceived Brand Authenticity And LGBTQ Publics: How LGBTQ Practitioners Understand Authenticity“. International Journal of Strategic Communication, vol 15, no. 5, 2021, pp. 395-409. Informa U.K. Limited. Web.