Diversity starts where a process has to change
Work design and inclusion · 7 July 2026
A large organisation once explained that it had already completed its diversity project. It concerned other groups, not people with disabilities. I did not hear hostility. I heard a description of the method: the company chose the areas it could present, count and handle without changing schedules, KPIs, roles or managerial responsibility.
Key points
- Support, campaigns and declarations are different from a decision to hire and retain a person in meaningful work.
- A test of intentions counts training and initiatives. A test of results examines recruitment, hiring, retention, promotion and access to adjustments separately for each group.
- Disability tends to expose the operational cost of inclusion sooner than other dimensions of diversity. The discussion has to move from slides to the design of work.
What this means for a company
The board does not need another combined engagement measure. It needs to see which groups enter the process, which leave it and where the system produces exclusion even when everyone involved does their job correctly. Diversity that changes no process remains a communications exercise. It becomes strategy when it has an owner, budget, outcome measure, permission to change the process and someone accountable if the result does not appear.
Originally published 7 July 2026.