When all employees feel welcomed by their peers and leaders, feel empowered to speak their minds, valued for their contributions, and feel they can bring their full selves to work (especially those from underrepresented backgrounds), then you know you've got it right.

At Fair HQ, we've built a framework of 5 key dimensions of inclusion: psychological safety, belonging, openness, fairness and voice. Are you curious to learn more about how we built our Inclusion Model? We've dedicated an entire blog post to it!

Read it here.

Read on for a deep-dive into each Inclusion area.

The dimension of fairness is all about how employees perceive your processes and policies. If it seems like people get ahead because of who they know, what they look like or where they come from, then your fairness scores will suffer. Implementing equitable and transparent processes across the board is the most impactful way to boost perceptions of fairness. In the end, it's about ensuring a fair and unbiased distribution of work, benefits, recognition and opportunities.

Belonging means feeling accepted and included by those around us. When employees feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work and feeling part of the team, then belonging will flourish. The combination is essential: employees need to feel both accepted and able to show their distinctive colours.

Having a voice means being both invited to contribute and then also being listened to. This is important for every employee - whether they're junior or senior, or part of a well-represented or underrepresented group. Building an engaged team means valuing everyone's perspectives and opening up channels of communication. At a broader level, it’s also about having the ‘power’ to affect change in the organisation.

High-performing teams need psychological safety: it allows them to take risks, innovate, and learn from each other. In teams with low psychological safety, people worry that speaking up, making mistakes or reporting issues will lead to trouble. To make sure everyone works together productively, it is important to build a culture of trust, safety and support.

Having an open culture means listening to each other, sharing information and ensuring that everyone has their say. In teams where openness is low, people feel that it's challenging to have open and honest conversations, and may struggle to ask for help when they need it.

Read more about inclusion and why it's important on our blog post.