To change workplace culture, connect leadership commitment to accountability, diagnose barriers in your own organization, improve decisions across the employee lifecycle, and regularly evaluate whether those changes help employees participate and thrive. Representation and training can be part of the work, but neither by itself proves that a workplace is inclusive.
The practices below are starting points, not a universal formula: evidence varies by intervention, employee group, and setting. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, UK Inclusion at Work Panel, and Government of Canada offer useful guidance, but their findings have different scopes and should be applied with attention to local conditions.
1. Make leadership commitment visible in decisions
Senior leaders signal whether diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) are organizational priorities. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that subject matter specialists viewed top-level commitment as a clear sign of seriousness and business relevance. A statement of support has more substance when employees can see it reflected in decisions, resources, and regular communication.
Leaders can explain what the organization is trying to change, why it matters, who is responsible, and how progress will be reviewed. They should also model respectful participation: inviting dissenting views, listening without retaliation, and following through on concerns.
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GAO’s 2024 report identifies nine interrelated management practices for federal workforce management. It is practical guidance, not a complete account of legal duties for every employer.
2. Assign accountability and choose relevant goals
Translate broad commitments into named responsibilities at appropriate management levels. Set goals that relate to the barriers the organization has identified, and specify how leaders will review progress and respond when it stalls. Goals might concern access to hiring, development, promotion, retention, or employees’ experience of participation and fair treatment.
Targets can help focus attention, but no single target design is established as effective in every setting or for every group. The Government of Canada’s evidence guide describes internal representation and equality targets as effective for women and promising for some other designated groups, while noting where high-quality group-specific evidence was not found. Its conclusions are framed by Canada’s Employment Equity Act, not as universal rules.
The Canadian guide distinguishes actions by evidence category and population. Use its distinctions to inform choices, then check that goals fit your organization and comply with applicable law.
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3. Diagnose local barriers before choosing a fix
Start with the organization’s own workforce and employee-experience evidence rather than assuming the same barriers exist everywhere. Look for patterns across relevant stages of employment and listen to employees about how policies operate in practice. For example, a hiring disparity and a promotion disparity point to different questions and may require different responses.
Be clear about the purpose of data collection, who can access it, how it will be protected, and how findings will inform decisions. Share what can be shared without exposing individuals or small groups. Data collection without a credible plan for action can erode trust.
The UK Inclusion at Work Panel cited a CIPD 2022 survey finding that 38% of UK employers collected some form of equal-opportunities monitoring data. That is a survey result for UK employers, not a global estimate or evidence that collecting data alone changes workplace outcomes. The panel recommends context-specific practice and evaluation, while noting that causal impact is often difficult to establish.
4. Improve recruitment and selection
Review how job opportunities are written, advertised, and assessed. Consider whether outreach reaches the relevant candidate pool, whether job materials introduce unnecessary barriers, and whether selection criteria are tied to the work. Make the process consistent enough to examine decisions while preserving room to assess candidates fairly.
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Interventions should fit the problem. Specialized outreach may address who hears about a role; clearer job materials may address how a role is presented; structured assessment may help scrutinize how candidates are evaluated. These are not interchangeable fixes, and evidence strength can differ by population and context. The Canadian guide rates some recruitment actions differently for different groups, so avoid treating a measure as universally proven.
5. Examine development, promotion, retention, and flexibility
Hiring changes cannot create an inclusive culture if employees face unequal access to opportunity after joining. Examine the whole employee lifecycle and ask where participation or advancement may break down.
- Development: Review who receives stretch assignments, mentoring, training, and information about opportunities.
- Promotion: Check how readiness is defined, how decisions are made, and whether expectations are applied consistently.
- Retention: Look for differences in employees’ experiences and reasons for leaving, using appropriate privacy protections.
- Workplace flexibility: Assess whether arrangements and working practices unnecessarily exclude employees or limit access to meaningful work.
The Government of Canada evidence guide organizes recommendations across development and training, promotion and retention, and flexibility as well as hiring. It distinguishes effective, promising, and avoid-or-use-caution actions, and flags where evidence for particular groups is insufficient. Use those qualifications rather than assuming one policy will work for every workforce.
6. Create conditions for employees to contribute and speak up
Inclusion is also about everyday working conditions: whether people can share ideas, ask questions, disagree respectfully, and raise concerns without fear of humiliation or retribution. The Government of Western Australia’s public-sector guide describes this as psychological safety. It is not a promise that every idea will be adopted or that difficult feedback will disappear; it concerns the conditions for speaking and being treated fairly.
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The Western Australian guide reports findings from Diversity Council Australia’s 2019 Inclusion at Work Index: employees in inclusive teams were five times more likely to innovate to solve problems and three times less likely to leave their current employer. These are reported associations, not proof that any specific practice causes innovation or retention.
7. Evaluate, learn, and adjust
Before putting an intervention in place, state the outcome it is intended to improve and how you will assess it. Track relevant measures over time, review employee experience as well as representation, and look for unintended effects. If an approach is ineffective or counterproductive, revise or stop it rather than preserving it because it was well intentioned.
Compare options by asking whether the evidence applies to the employee group and setting, whether the intervention addresses the diagnosed barrier, what implementation effort it requires, and whether evaluation can detect harm as well as benefit. The UK Inclusion at Work Panel recommends scrutiny of impact and value for money. It also cautions that workplace causality is difficult to isolate and that evidence of intervention impact is mixed and often inconclusive, so avoid promising guaranteed business returns.
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Where training fits—and where it does not
Training may support a broader effort when it is connected to operational changes, but it should not be treated as a stand-alone culture-change solution. UK Government People Group guidance, published in 2020 and updated in 2023, says research reviews conclude that unconscious-bias and diversity training interventions do not seem effective at improving workplace diversity outcomes. Evaluate any training against the specific purpose it is meant to serve and the wider changes around it.
The UK guidance on training evidence summarizes that conclusion. It does not establish that every kind of training has no value for every purpose; it does challenge relying on training alone to change diversity outcomes.
How to tell whether culture is changing
Visible representation and meaningful inclusion are related, but one does not establish the other. The UK panel emphasizes that visible diversity alone is not evidence of meaningful diversity or inclusion. Assess progress using measures suited to the goals you set, including both workforce patterns and whether employees can participate, contribute, and raise concerns.
Interpret results carefully. A positive change after a new policy does not by itself prove that the policy caused it, and a single measure can miss other aspects of employees’ experience. The panel cited a 2019 Diversity Council Australia finding that people who experienced inclusive teams were more likely to report innovation and less likely to report intent to leave; those associations should not be presented as a guaranteed return from a particular intervention.
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Quick Recap
Sources and scope
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Federal Workforce: Leading Practices Related to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, published 23 May 2024; reviewed scholarly and peer-reviewed literature and interviewed 21 subject matter specialists.
- UK Inclusion at Work Panel report, published 20 March 2024.
- Employment and Social Development Canada, How to improve workplace equity: Evidence-based actions for employers, 2022; researched and authored by the Behavioural Insights Team in collaboration with ESDC.
- UK Government People Group, Unconscious bias and diversity training – what the evidence says, published 15 December 2020 and updated 18 August 2023.
- Government of Western Australia, Psychologically Safe and Inclusive Workplaces.
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