Employment | achord

Diversity and Inclusion in Employment

The world of employment is a vital arena for improving relations between groups in Israeli society, and diversity and inclusion within it create broad opportunities for employees and employers alike to achieve both personal and organizational goals. Advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace requires changes in perceptions, emotions, and behaviors among employers, employees, and job candidates.

Our work in the employment arena is designed to influence both employers and job seekers. Accordingly, we collaborate with partners who have wide-reaching influence in the field. As part of this activity, we develop interventions and practical tools and train hundreds of human resources professionals, as well as managers in dozens of companies, to help them implement diversity and inclusion in practice, from identifying candidates from diverse groups, through recruitment and onboarding, to embedding inclusive management practices.

Our Interventions and Trainings

In the field of diversity in employment we offer interventions, training, diagnostic processes and metrics, as well as practical tools for the various phases in the employment life cycle:

Inclusion study, mapping the organizational situation regarding the inclusion of different groups;
Consulting and accompaniment for diversity and inclusion programs;

Workshops on:

o Diversity and inclusion – the basics
o locating candidates
o diverse recruitment
o optimal absorption
o managing a diverse staff
o fair evaluation and feedback
o communicating organizational messages
o promoting diversity and inclusion
o coping with periods of crisis in relations (such as security-related tension)

For all workshops and activities of the Employment Department for organizations:

All Employment Department activities

Department staff at aChord

Psychosocial Infrastructure and Models

Models developed at aChord conceptualize and describe the connection between social psychological theory and practice. These models form the basis for our work in the employment field.

The inclusive organization model

aChord's model for the inclusive organization rests on literature in social psychology that deals with inclusion and describes the social psychological elements of individual experience in the organization.

The model is accompanied by valid indices and enables organizations to diagnose the challenges before them, along with their often unrecognized strengths, in the context of diversity and inclusion. Based on the model, a targeted intervention plan to promote inclusion can be devised for the organization in those areas where diversity and inclusion are found to be insufficient. The model includes four components of inclusion from the perspective of individual consciousness: belonging, voice, fairness and tolerance.

tolerance

The tolerance component expresses the extent to which employees conduct themselves in a tolerant manner toward others, and the extent that employees from diverse groups feel that they are respected, accepted and treated with tolerance.

fairness

The fairness component expresses the extent to which the organization is perceived as fair by its members: the degree to which employees sense that the organization is working to promote fairness and to create equal opportunity for workers from all social groups employed there.

voice

The voice component expresses the degree to which employees feel comfortable expressing themselves and making their voice heard: speaking in organizational forums; expressing their opinions and ideas authentically, even when contrary to the majority position; expressing, their unique group identity in the organizational space, including through their dress, language, and cultural customs. The voice component is affected by the individual's degree of security and comfort in the organizational space, which is affected by the perception of the norms and messages that the individual registers.

belongingness

The belongingness component expresses the degree to which employees feel and view themselves as an integral part of the organization. In social psychological terms, belongingness is related to their degree of identification with the collective organizational identity, including: identification with organizational values, interpersonal connections with others in the organization, and the significance of the organizational identity in their self-perception.

The Model of Intergroup Relations During Periods of Tension and Escalation

The reality is Israel is replete with situations of conflict between different groups, also in times of escalation usually accompanied by extensive media coverage and extremist discourse on social media. This reality requires thoughtful management of relations in mixed teams. In response to the need on the part of employers, we developed a model describing the psychological infrastructure of different ways in which people experience stress during periods of intensifying intergroup conflict. According to the model’s organizing principle, deteriorating relations between groups outside the workplace raise much tension inside the workplace. The model allows us to identify psychological reactions and different behavior patterns that may develop within teams towards colleagues from the out-group. Since May 2021, aChord employment department staff accompanies employers during such periods, through training, workshops and consulting processes based on the unique model developed at aChord. These offer managers tools to understand the situation among the employees and practical ways to deal with it that are tailored to what is happening in their organization.

Guides & Tools for Collaboration in Diverse Organizations