In an ideal world, we do not have to write a book about diversity, equity, and inclusion. People know that the world out there is full of people with different characteristics, backgrounds, experiences, needs, wishes, and dreams. They are as colorful as the rainbow - but what we see is that somehow these colors start to fade away when entering the doors of a company.
This book is for organizations who want to understand how the colors that each of its employees can bring impact its business performance, brand recognition, and retention rate positively, all the while enrichening the everyday life of a company, where it is a positive experience to work, create and be together as a community, in psychological safety. This book is for organizations that want to build an open corporate culture, embrace diversity, and include as many segments of society in their employee base as possible to reflect their customer base as much as possible.
It sounds easy, because most of us have good intentions, right? But the thing is that we are full of biases and one of our core biases is that we as humans love homogeneity. Similarity is always a comfort zone because we tend to favor people who are similar to us in terms of age, skin color, educational background, sexual orientation, physical abilities, etc. But this exact similarity bias blinds us to diversity's strengths and limits opportunities for those who don’t fit our narrow definitions of "similar." When we repeatedly choose people who mirror our own backgrounds and experiences, we reinforce privilege by giving certain groups a head start while others remain overlooked and underrepresented. This perpetuates a cycle where those who are already advantaged — due to their sexual orientation, skin color, gender, or socioeconomic background — are continuously favored, leading to a lack of diverse voices in the workforce.
Breaking out of this bias requires more than goodwill; it demands awareness and active effort to embrace differences. For building an open, diverse, and inclusive culture, you need strategic thinking and you need people who can implement these corporate strategies and policies, and reach the objectives that you set for yourselves. Thus, this book is for everyone who as an employee is involved in building and implementing strategies: for CEOs, HR managers, and business leaders, and everyone who wants positive change in their organization.
For over 11 years, WeAreOpen has been actively engaged in the Hungarian and international markets, exploring how to build openness and psychological safety in corporate environments. As one of the largest business communities in Europe, the organization boasts 1,100 signatory companies of its manifesto and collaborates with more than 100 partners to foster an open culture. This extensive learning journey has led to the development of a unique methodology and a well-rounded perspective on inclusion and belonging that we present to you here in this book.
Many companies today recognize the importance of inclusion and often focus their efforts on supporting specific groups, like women, people of color, LGBTQ+ communities, or individuals with disabilities. While these targeted initiatives are valuable, they can sometimes create siloed efforts that don’t address the underlying structures and biases impacting all groups. Instead of focusing on inclusion for one group at a time, we believe that companies should prioritize creating inclusive processes, policies, and behaviors that support everyone. When organizations build a foundation of inclusive practices, they establish a culture of inclusion that naturally benefits all communities, making inclusion sustainable and pervasive.
Would you like to know more? Download the whitepaper here: https://www.nyitottakvagyunk.hu/resources-reports/inclusive-design
