Inclusive Language in Policies and Procedures - Stratford Group Ltd.

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you may have noticed a theme running through our posts this month, we’ve taken the common practice of spring cleaning and applied it to various components of our daily business practices to inspire you to optimize your operations and policies. This week, for the second instalment of our EDIB Perspectives series, we’re zeroing in on spring cleaning your policies through the adoption of inclusive language.

Springtime marks a crucial juncture as many organizations, nearing the halfway point of the year, begin to review their strategies and evaluate progress towards strategic goals and KPIs. This provides a perfect opportunity to audit your policies and ensure they are as inclusive as possible. We encourage you to use this time to not only check in on your achievements but also to implement and reinforce inclusive policies across your organization. This approach helps create a more welcoming and equitable workplace.

In today's professional environment, it is essential for every employee to feel included in every aspect of the organization they work for. As our society works to embrace and welcome diversity, several organizations are still behind without even realizing it.

Some of us are so focused on having diversity in our organization, in attracting people from different backgrounds, shapes, nationalities, beliefs, and more that we forget that the goal isn’t only attracting diversity but also to inspire feelings of inclusiveness and belonging of the different employees as well. Language is an extremely powerful tool. It can unite people and facilitate shared understanding.

One of the first steps to fostering an inclusive workplace is to make sure the language we use is up to date. Unfortunately, our communication often fails to reflect the message we want to vehiculate especially in our internal policies, our different emails and job postings. How we use language and the significance behind our word choices are fluid and continually evolving, making it crucial to ensure a regular audit of your language is on the calendar.

The first step to develop an inclusive language is to remove our assumptions in our communications. We often assume people’s gender, pronouns or even the category of people a message should be addressed to. That is why the Ebony Gussine Wilkins quote “Ask yourself about the unconscious assumptions you’re making about your audience” is so important because it encourages everyone to be mindful and respectful of each other.

If you are planning to “spring clean” your policies this month, consider hunting for the dust-bunnies of non-inclusive language that might be lurking in outdated policies. Here are some areas where these old practices often accumulate, waiting to be refreshed with more inclusive terms and approaches:

• • Job Postings – Avoid gendered terms like “salesman” or “chairman”. Instead of “he/she” consider using “they”
  • Emails – Do your email guidelines encourage inclusivity? Instead of “Hey Guys”, “Dear Gents”, or “Hi Ladies”, promote gender neutral greetings such as “team”, “all”, or “folks”. Consider adding options for individuals to share preferred pronouns in places like email signatures.
  • Benefits and Leave Policies – instead of “maternity” or “paternity” leave, consider the more inclusive “parental” or “family” leave to acknowledge more diverse family structures.
  • Calendars – does your standard calendar and stat holidays favour Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter? Consider offering floating holidays for employees to use for religious or cultural days that are important to them such as Eid, Lunar New Year, or Rosh Hashanah to recognize diverse celebrations and make sure this is explicitly stated in your policies.

To demonstrate a genuine, consistent commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, global companies must start to implement value-driven policies wherever they operate.

The question I want to ask is when was the last time you reviewed your internal policies? Not only the different procedures but the language in your policies… If you are still using specific pronouns… it might be the time to review ALL of them.

You May Be Interested In: How to Make your Organization’s Language More Inclusive (HBR)

About the Author:

This post is part of our ongoing EDIB Perspectives series offering insights and reflections on equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging (EDIB) topics from a business perspective, brought to you by leaders and colleagues at Stratford. Through this series, we aim to share experiences, challenges, and successes in fostering an inclusive corporate culture. 

With a more personal tone, the goal of these posts is to offer diverse perspectives on how individuals at Stratford authentically live and embody the principles of EDIB in their daily lives and work.