Inclusivity has become a buzz word for companies around the world but rarely does anyone get deep into what inclusivity really means. Is it about the diversity of employees? Or is it about creating a workplace culture that accommodates various people? There may not be a single correct answer, but for Phase One Karma inclusivity is about creating a community where each person can develop a sense of ownership and belonging.
Let’s imagine a company as a puzzle: each person carries their own piece into a huge collective attempt to create something exceptional. There are several approaches to creating an inclusive environment where each person’s puzzle piece is valued.
The first approach sees inclusivity in gathering around diverse people with uniquely shaped puzzle pieces. The wider the range, the better. As a result, the company will have a much more diverse range of puzzle shapes and a better end-product.
Another approach believes diversity always starts in a company’s culture. If a company constructs enough different shapes for different puzzle pieces, then diverse individuals will feel they can join and fit into the company.
Both of these approaches can work pretty well, but they have a common flaw: each team member lacks a sense of belonging. By ‘belonging’ I mean an individual’s feeling of active, conscious contribution to a team effort, during which everyone is supportive and welcoming. On many occasions, the described approaches to inclusivity make a person either feel like their puzzle piece was chosen specifically because of its shape, or like the entire puzzle is pre-planned, and they were just a nice fit for it.
At Phase One Karma, we have a different perspective. We believe that inclusivity is about letting everybody collaborate and create unique shapes and patterns. That way, the end-product is literally the result of collective effort. The individual and collective ownership over the result is what makes P1K a community of belonging. This sense of belonging is the key to a diverse work environment for every imaginable human being.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t accommodate our corporate culture to diverse needs or that we don’t check ourselves on the diversity of our employees. Of course, we do. It’s just that at the center of our inclusivity puzzle is the ideal of a community co-created by each team member. Check out our open jobs if you feel like this approach suits you. We are a growing community so there are always exciting job opportunities at P1K!
