How to Become More Inclusive at Work: The Real Talk No One Wants to Give You

Connect with us: SB Nation | Medium | Quora | Pexels | Eventbrite Community

I was sitting in another diversity workshop last month - you know the type, the one where everyone nods along politely while internally checking their phones - when it hit me. We've been doing workplace inclusion completely backwards for the past decade.

The facilitator was droning on about unconscious bias (again) when a bloke from accounts piped up: "But what do I actually DO on Monday morning?"

Silence. Awkward shuffling. More corporate speak about "creating safe spaces."

That's when I realised we've been overthinking the living daylights out of this whole inclusion thing. After 18 years of watching companies fumble through workplace diversity initiatives, I've got some unpopular opinions that might actually help you become genuinely more inclusive. Not performatively inclusive. Actually inclusive.

Stop Treating Inclusion Like a Compliance Tick-Box

Here's the thing that gets my goat - most organisations approach inclusion like they're filling out a tax return. Grudgingly. With lots of paperwork. And hoping nobody asks too many questions.

I worked with a Brisbane manufacturing company last year that had spent $40,000 on inclusion training. Forty thousand! Know what happened? Sweet bugger all. Why? Because they treated it like a one-off event instead of a skill set that needs practice.

Real inclusion isn't about memorising the right buzzwords or walking on eggshells around colleagues. It's about developing genuine communication skills that actually work in practice. And that takes time. And effort. And yes, probably some uncomfortable conversations.

The truth is, most people want to be inclusive. They just don't know how. And frankly, a lot of the training out there is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

The Four Things That Actually Move the Needle

1. Learn to Ask Better Questions (Not Fewer Questions)

Controversial opinion: we need MORE questions in the workplace, not fewer. I see too many people tiptoeing around colleagues from different backgrounds because they're terrified of saying the wrong thing.

Last year I was working with a Perth mining company where the site supervisor - good bloke, been there 15 years - was driving himself mental trying to figure out how to manage his new team member who wore a hijab. Should he ask about prayer times? Was it offensive to offer her a beer at knock-off drinks?

You know what solved it? A simple conversation. "Hey Sarah, I want to make sure you're comfortable here. What should I know to be a better supervisor for you?"

That's it. No diversity consultant required.

The magic isn't in avoiding questions - it's in asking them with genuine curiosity rather than making assumptions. Most people appreciate directness over awkward avoidance.

2. Fix Your Meeting Culture (This One's Huge)

Want to know the fastest way to exclude people? Run terrible meetings. And mate, most Australian workplaces run absolutely shocking meetings.

I've sat through meetings where:

• The loudest person dominated for 45 minutes straight
• Half the team was checking emails on their phones
• Three people made the same point five different ways
• Nobody asked the quiet team members what they thought

That's not inclusion. That's workplace anarchy with a side of ego stroking.

Real inclusive meetings have structure. They have designated speaking time. They actively seek input from everyone - not just the usual suspects who love the sound of their own voice.

Woolworths actually does this brilliantly in their head office. They use something called "round robin" input where everyone gets 90 seconds to share their perspective before open discussion starts. Sounds rigid? Maybe. But it works.

3. Stop Confusing Inclusion with Agreement

Here's where I'll probably ruffle some feathers. True inclusion means making space for different viewpoints, even ones that make you uncomfortable.

I'm not talking about tolerating discrimination or harassment - that's never acceptable. I'm talking about genuine philosophical differences about how work should get done.

The most inclusive teams I've worked with aren't echo chambers. They're places where a 23-year-old graduate can respectfully challenge a department head's strategy. Where someone can say "I think we're approaching this wrong" without getting frozen out of future projects.

But here's the kicker - this only works if you've built genuine psychological safety through better workplace communication. People need to trust that disagreement won't derail their career prospects.

4. Make Inclusion Everyone's Job (Not Just HR's Problem)

Most companies delegate inclusion to the HR department like it's some sort of specialist skill that requires a university degree and a lanyard.

Wrong.

Every person in your organisation - from the CEO to the work experience kid - has a role in creating an inclusive environment. The receptionist who learns how to pronounce difficult names correctly. The project manager who notices when certain team members never get asked for input. The finance bloke who stops making assumptions about who can and can't work overtime based on family circumstances.

These aren't grand gestures. They're basic human decency amplified by a bit of awareness.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Microaggressions

Look, I'm going to say something that might get me in trouble with the inclusion police. The whole microaggression framework has created more anxiety than action in most workplaces I visit.

Don't get me wrong - subtle forms of exclusion are real and damaging. But when you turn every awkward interaction into a potential HR incident, people stop interacting altogether. And that's the opposite of inclusion.

I worked with a Sydney tech company where team collaboration had basically ground to a halt because everyone was terrified of saying the wrong thing. People were communicating through email instead of face-to-face conversations. Project meetings became stilted affairs where nobody challenged ideas anymore.

That's not progress. That's paralysis.

Instead of obsessing over perfect language, focus on building genuine relationships. When you know someone as a person - their kids' names, their weekend plans, their professional aspirations - you're far less likely to exclude them unintentionally.

What Actually Works: The Melbourne Manufacturing Case Study

Let me tell you about Diamond Engineering in Melbourne. Three years ago, their workplace culture was, to put it politely, stuck in 1987. All-male leadership team. Jokes that wouldn't fly today. New employees from non-English speaking backgrounds struggling to integrate.

Instead of bringing in consultants for a two-day workshop, they did something radical. They made inclusion part of everyone's performance review. Not in a punitive way - in a developmental way.

Supervisors got points for successfully onboarding diverse team members. Team leads were measured on how well they facilitated input from all team members in planning sessions. Even senior management had to demonstrate how they were creating opportunities for underrepresented employees.

Three years later? Their employee satisfaction scores jumped 34%. Staff turnover dropped to almost nothing. And their productivity increased because they were finally tapping into ideas from their entire workforce, not just the loudest voices.

The secret sauce wasn't complicated training programs or expensive consultants. It was making inclusion measurable and giving people practical tools to improve.

The Generational Divide Nobody Talks About

Here's something that's driving me bonkers in inclusion conversations - we're completely ignoring the generational component. You've got Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z all trying to work together, and they might as well be speaking different languages half the time.

A 62-year-old tradie and a 24-year-old digital native don't just have different communication styles - they have fundamentally different assumptions about how work should happen. That's not a character flaw on either side. It's a reality that needs managing.

The most successful inclusive workplaces I've seen acknowledge these differences explicitly. They create structured opportunities for cross-generational mentoring. They train younger employees on face-to-face communication skills. They help older employees navigate digital collaboration tools.

Again, it's not rocket science. It's just acknowledging that people are different and designing systems that work for everyone.

The ROI Nobody Calculates

Want to know what really annoys leadership teams? When you talk about inclusion as a "nice to have" rather than a business imperative.

But here's what most companies don't calculate: the actual cost of exclusion. The brilliant ideas that never get shared because someone doesn't feel comfortable speaking up. The talented employees who leave because they can't see a path forward. The customers who take their business elsewhere because your team doesn't understand their needs.

I did some rough maths for a Brisbane retail chain last year. They were losing approximately $180,000 annually in recruitment and training costs alone because of high turnover among diverse hires. Not to mention the opportunity cost of missing insights that could have improved their customer experience.

That's not social justice math. That's basic business sense.

Starting Monday Morning

So what do you actually DO when you walk into work next week? Here's my completely biased, based-on-years-of-trial-and-error action plan:

Week 1: Pay attention to who talks in meetings and who doesn't. That's it. Just notice.

Week 2: Ask one quiet team member for their opinion on something work-related. Make space for them to answer properly.

Week 3: Challenge yourself to learn something personal about a colleague you normally wouldn't chat with. Their weekend plans. Their professional background. How they like their coffee.

Week 4: Speak up when you notice exclusion happening. Not in a dramatic way - just "Hey, I'd love to hear what Sarah thinks about this" when someone gets talked over.

See? No diversity training required. No HR involvement necessary. Just human beings treating other human beings like they matter.

The Thing Nobody Wants to Admit

After nearly two decades in this game, I've learned something that might shock you: most exclusion isn't malicious. It's just lazy.

People default to working with others who think like them, communicate like them, and approach problems like them because it's easier. It requires less mental energy. It feels more comfortable.

Inclusion requires effort. It means asking better questions. It means designing processes that work for different personality types. It means occasionally feeling uncomfortable while you learn to see situations from perspectives different than your own.

But here's the payoff - once you get good at it, everything else gets easier. Your teams perform better. Your workplace culture improves. Your customers are happier. And yes, your business results improve too.

The choice is yours. You can keep pretending that one-off training sessions will magically transform your workplace culture. Or you can roll up your sleeves and do the actual work of becoming genuinely inclusive.

Just don't expect it to happen overnight. Real change takes time. But it's worth it.

Trust me on this one.