Only 41% of organisations in Brussels and Flanders actually take concrete actions to promote diversity within their organisation. More than 60% do have a diversity policy, but it therefore regularly remains a ‘dead letter’. The main reason for this is that managers still do not see diversity and inclusion as a competitive advantage. This is revealed by a study of more than 200 companies in Flanders and Brussels conducted by vonk, the network for internal communication, in collaboration with communications agency Inclusified and HR research agency Starfish.

Let us start with the good news. The majority of the organisations surveyed believe that their employees are given equal opportunities based on their competencies and that diversity is embedded in the company’s strategy. Nearly 60% say that initiatives have been developed to ensure that every employee can be themselves.

However, the challenge lies in translating this into concrete actions. Only 41% believe that their company takes concrete initiatives to achieve this.

“The explanation for the lack of concrete actions was not difficult to find in our figures. Less than half of managers (41%) are convinced that diversity offers a competitive advantage”, says Jeroen Naudts of Starfish, who analysed the figures. “This figure surprised me greatly”, adds Hanan Challouki of Inclusified. “The added value of diversity is apparently still not clear to many people. Yet numerous studies prove the opposite. If more than half say that they do not see a competitive advantage, then it is also logical that fewer actions are being taken to promote diversity”, says Challouki.

The translation of policy into workplace practice is also reflected in the diversity of management and communication teams. “Only 1 in 4 respondents believes that their management teams are composed in a diverse way. Lack of time, knowledge and diversity within communication teams are the biggest barriers to inclusive internal communication,” adds Erwin Van Overloop, director of vonk, the Flemish network for internal communication.

The companies surveyed consider diversity in terms of disability (75%) and ethnic background (43%) to be the biggest diversity challenges for their organisation. In terms of age, gender and sexual orientation, most respondents consider their company to be sufficiently diverse.

We examined the extent to which internal communication within organisations takes different aspects of diversity into account. When it comes to the content of internal communication, the biggest pain point is disability and illness (76%), followed by sexual orientation (68%) and only then ethnic background (32%). If we look at the format of communication, such as the use of images and photographic material, ethnic diversity scores considerably better. Here too, sexual orientation and disability remain pain points.

The research report can be downloaded at www.vonknetwerk.be.

This study was conducted between 4 and 31 May 2021 through an online survey distributed by vonk, Inclusified, Starfish and various partners, including the Belgian Association of Marketing and the HR community of Zigzag HR. More than 200 companies participated in the survey, 57% of which employ more than one thousand employees. Almost 3 out of 4 participating companies are active in Belgium.

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