6 key questions to help shape diversity and inclusion plans in 2023

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for me here at The King’s Fund. It’s the time where we reflect on a year’s worth of diversity and inclusion work and the fruits of change borne out of that work while also starting to make plans to shape equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives in the year ahead. For me, this time of year is always tinged with excitement because the new year is a blank sheet of paper, a story yet to be written, and I know from experience just how many things can happen in a year.

Different organisations have different approaches to planning the year. Here at the Fund we decide our priorities in November and December so we start the new year with a plan that we’re ready to share with the team at the first all-staff update meeting of the year in January. Other organisations have already communicated their next year’s diversity and inclusion initiatives to their teams – and yet others leave planning until the start of the year.

Whenever and however we engage in the work of planning and deciding organisational diversity and inclusion priorities, the overarching question to be answered as part of the process is: ‘What levers are the organisation going to pull across the year to bring about true and lasting cultural change?’

It’s not always an easy question to answer, especially if your organisation is earlier in its inclusion journey, as at that stage it can seem like there are an infinite number of levers to pull. When you add to that the limited availability of data in early years to predict potential effects of different courses of action, it can be quite the conundrum. Over the years I’ve used the six questions below to help me both develop diversity and inclusion plans and critically assess them.

1. What was your last year of inclusion work like?

Give yourself permission to be truly honest in the answering of this question, or bring a group of people who represent a cross-section of the organisation together to answer it with you. Critically assess your programme of work across the year. Think specifically about what your biggest successes were in the year and the things that contributed to them being such a success. Make sure you are bringing some of that magic to your next year’s plans. Also consider interventions or activities that didn’t quite hit the mark and lead to the change you expected. Try to pinpoint what made them less successful – and check your current year plan to make sure the risks of those recurring in the new year is reduced.

2. How will you determine what the priorities are?

Here at the Fund, we prioritise initiatives that can create parity and course-correct for minoritised groups who have historically been disadvantaged by the organisation. We also prioritise the actions that have the potential to bring about positive change for the highest number of people across the Fund and the activities that were most requested by our team across the year.

Whatever your organisation chooses to make a priority, it’s important to be open and transparent across the organisation

We specifically target recurrent issues – things that keep coming up again and again from different groups and in different forums as we’ve been listening throughout the year. Whatever your organisation chooses to make a priority, it’s important to be open and transparent across the organisation about how and why those were selected as priorities, and equally important to not only choose to prioritise based on ease or speed. This is not about ticking boxes – it’s about making sustainable and valuable change.

3. Does your plan consider consistency and continuity?

One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is treating every year’s plan as stand-alone. To be able to build and make progress, your new year’s plan should include the threads of your current year plan. Anything you planned to do in the current year, that wasn’t achieved and remains relevant should be included in your plan for the new year. It shouldn’t just disappear into the ether. If someone put several years’ worth of your plans and priorities side-by-side they should be able to see clear links year-on-year. It should tell a story. You risk losing the gains you made, if your plan doesn’t include maintaining them so you are able to build on them.

4. Is your plan accessible to all people in the organisation?

Whatever you produce at the end of the planning process, it needs to be accessible to everyone in the organisation, no matter where they are in their own personal journey of inclusion.

'By its very definition, diversity and inclusion work is for everyone.'

Every single person should be able to understand what your priorities are for the year, even someone completely new to the organisation. After all, by its very definition, diversity and inclusion work is for everyone. Use simple language, avoid acronyms and as you do your first walkthroughs of the plans, if you get questions like ‘What does this mean?’, understand that it’s a signal to return and clarify your language.

5. Will you be able to measure progress?

One of my least favourite things about the year-end processes for inclusion work is the debates about whether or not something was completed or achieved. After all, my definition of what ‘done’ means and someone else’s definition of done could easily be two completely different things – both of which are valid. But the end of the year isn’t the time to be getting consistency on what done means. It should be part of the plan from the outset. Your priorities should be written in a way that makes it clear to everyone whether and when they have been achieved. Knowing what success looks like from the start also helps fuel action in the right direction.

6. Are you striking the right balance?

Before you sign off on and commit to the plan as an organisation, it’s worth taking an overall look to determine whether or not the plan is a balanced one. When there’s a lot that needs changing it’s always tempting to try to tackle everything all at once and as quickly as possible. Putting too much on the agenda, that cannot sensibly be achieved in the time frame, is ultimately demotivating for teams and encourages work at a pace that is unsustainable. This can lead to burnout and change that doesn’t last very long – which is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. Inclusion work takes time, so be sure to give yourself and your organisation that time. A balanced plan is ambitious enough to help achieve a real cultural shift, but not unattainable.

Even with all of those questions asked and answered, it’s important to remember that there is no perfection in the work of inclusion. This includes planning the work of inclusion. There is no ideal process, no set of steps that if you follow guarantee the results hoped for. As always, we learn as we do, and we have to give ourselves the grace and the space to do that learning. But at the same time, it’s important to remember not to spend so much time planning that it gets in the way of the actual doing.

'Finally, a plan is only worthwhile if it’s embraced by and followed by the people for whom it was created.'

Finally, a plan is only worthwhile if it’s embraced by and followed by the people for whom it was created. A beautifully detailed planning document that is published and then filed away, that no one references across the year is ultimately useless. The shaping of your priorities and the building of a plan is just the start, the communicating of it and getting buy-in and action toward the change imagined is where the true work of the year begins.