All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

–Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 1), adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) of December 10, 1948

“Diversity makes business sense”—this slogan greeted me as I walked into the lobby of a large international high-tech company headquartered in California. I was there at the invitation of the CEO to evaluate the company’s diversity policies. As a first step, before embarking on a large-scale organizational study, I asked members of upper management to allow me to conduct qualitative interviews with employees from different levels in the organization and of various backgrounds. Although some interviewees expressed the belief that the company was “blind to ethnic and gender differences” and therefore fair in its practices (a mistaken perception of fairness), many women and members of racial and ethnic minority groups talked about lost job opportunities, missed promotions, and lack of engagement. Interviewees with diverse backgrounds indicated that they were not recognized or appreciated for their true identities but were expected to conform to the mainstream culture in the organization. The word most often used by interviewees to describe their emotions was exclusion. They felt left out of social and informational networks and barred from the organization’s decision-making process. One middle-aged Latina manager, recalling the difficulty in rising to her current position, told me that her promotion was initially blocked because her supervisor expressed a concern that she “did not possess the communication skills needed for a managerial job.” “That was nonsense,” she said. “The fact was that I just didn’t fit in—and management’s solution was to exclude me.” She fought the decision and eventually was promoted. She was not alone. One interviewee after another recounted similar stories of being excluded from networks of information and decision making because they were different than the mainstream. After more than 30 in-depth interviews, it finally dawned on me that inclusion was the key to effective diversity management and that we needed to understand what inclusion meant. That was almost two decades ago.

Since then we have made some strides in (1) recognizing the importance of inclusion in the context of diversity; (2) laying out the theoretical foundations for understanding inclusion; and (3) providing initial research evidence of the connection between inclusion and individual, organizational, and community factors related to outcomes. More work is needed for us to more deeply understand the construct of inclusion and to draw linkages that will support evidence-based practice to create and sustain climates of inclusion in organizations.

Read more in Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance.