What is inclusivity? It is ensuring that you provide equal opportunities to everyone regardless of their race, gender or physical disabilities, treating them fairly and not marginalizing the minority communities. Nowadays you see a lot of organizations harping about their culture of inclusivity. Many a time, this culture is reduced to a statistic where leaders are given targets to include a certain number of women, members of the LGBTQIA community, or physically disabled people in their teams. Many organizations love to show off how well they are performing against these targets. However, inclusivity is not just about meeting these numbers, it is more about inculcating an awareness within our teams about embracing these diversities where the LGBTQIA community still fares low. Is it enough to hold rainbow parades or give away mugs and other goodies to celebrate LGBTQIA? Or do we also need to be well equipped to handle their issues at a grass root level? Do they feel welcome into the team? Do we have some hidden biases against them? Are they being discriminated against? Are we ready to shift gears and move in the direction where the west already is by not being overtly judgemental against certain behaviours that are attributed to these communities and the terms “gay” and “lesbian” are used as derogatory?

And when it comes to people with physical disabilities, are we showering them with fake empathy instead of being genuinely concerned about their well-being? Looking at them as objects of curiosity and showcasing how well they are being taken care of in different forums but not taking care of their basic requirements like ensuring that they have easy accessibility to common areas, they are able to navigate independently, their washrooms are well maintained, defies the entire objective of creating an inclusive workspace.

When organizations take it upon themselves to recruit people from such minority communities, it is their integral responsibility to train their employees and create awareness at a ground level on how to behave towards them. What are the dos and don’ts of making them feel a part of the team. What can be done to make them more independent – for e.g., providing motorized wheel chairs, ramps, Braille signages, etc. But most important of all, what can we do to address the problems that they face when they feel marginalized.

You may celebrate the inclusion of minority communities in the organization; but the moment of truth is not when they are appreciated in public, but whether they actually feel respected when their basics are taken care of – both physical as well as mental. If not, it’s just a subtle way of telling them that they are not valued as individuals and what they stand for.