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When a diversity consultant is not a diversity consultant

A consultant who works in the field of performance management informed me that he was helping a client with their diversity strategy. He did not take well to my gentle question about the extent of his experience in this area. I was informed that his work in performance management had given him a lot of exposure to diversity issues.

Of course, this is likely to be true. But I question to what extent he knows and understands the vast body of diversity and inclusion knowledge that is necessary to guide his client professionally.

Here is what IDC considers to be the 10 essential areas of knowledge necessary to be a professional diversity and inclusion consultant:

  1. A good grasp of equalities legislation.
  2. An appreciation of the distinction between the terms: equality, diversity, inclusion.
  3. An appreciation of the history and evolution of diversity and inclusion as a business management discipline and its distinctive origins in different countries.
  4. An understanding that people's diversity includes both visible and invisible differences and that each individual has several elements of these (their layers of diversity) which have shaped their lives.
  5. An individual's layers of diversity are the filters through which they see the world.
  6. An in-depth understanding of exclusion and how it manifests itself differently for each of the six diversity strands.
  7. A familiarity with micro-inequities and the damaging effect these can have on business performance.
  8. A knowledge of cultural, ethnic, race, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, religious, generational differences and how these play out in the workplace.
  9. The ability to apply reliable methodologies to help clients determine the priority issues to address in their diversity and inclusion strategy.
  10. A broad knowledge of best practices involved in formulating and implementing diversity and inclusion strategies and how to underpin them with the D&I change drivers.

What isn't mentioned in the above 10 essential areas of knowledge is appreciating the business case, or that the field encompasses workplace, marketplace, supplier and philanthropic diversity and inclusion and many other topics. Diversity and inclusion is a vast topic and clients deserve consultants who have taken the effort to both understand and gain in-depth experience in it.

Another consultant acquaintance has now included diversity consulting into his portfolio when his intellectual capital is to do with sales and marketing. I have no problem with this if he was even aware of IDC's 10 essentials; but he's not.

IDC does not use 'D&I-lite' consultants and all are highly experienced in the 10 essentials and much more. Incidentally, most of the essentials have been covered in previous IDC viewpoints.

 

Related articles:

·      The critical success factors for an effective diversity intervention

·      Your diversity strategy must emphasise the need to build a productive, inclusive and meritocratic culture for all!

·      The principal and unrecognised cause of workplace exclusion – microinequities



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