How do I increase diversity without alienating people?

I have to implement a recruitment and promotion policy that attracts a broader group of people, including senior women. But how can the company engage its white male employee majority, who could feel threatened by inclusivity targets and moves to attract a broader base of people? Stephen Frost, UK head of diversity at consultancy KMPG, says: Diversity program often fail because they are framed poorly. You need to answer three questions for your key audience, the decision makers. Why are we doing this? What are you proposing? How are we going about it? Let us start with why?. The business case for greater diversity is compelling: it counters group- think, provides greater cognitive challenge and informs better decisions. However, the lack of action reflects the fact that many people do not fully accept this. Implicit bias is important to understand here. We are all biased. This means you need to be empathetic because you are challenging peoples view of their own objectivity. Moving to what?. Data enable us to display conceptual views of diversity or gender. For example, if we present the gender statistics at various grades in an organisation, we typically see a pyramid shape perhaps 50-50 men and women in junior ranks and a big narrowing of women at the top. By introducing proportionality by grade or department, we can challenge bias in a less threatening way. For example, if a third of a particular grade are women, yet the grade above is only 10 per cent, it raises the question: why are we not promoting about 33 per cent women to reflect the actual talent pool available? This is not positive discrimination but an effective and measurable check on naturally occurring bias. Crucially, the only way we will succeed with greater diversity programmes is to talk about how?. One way is to increase the decision-making timeframe. Quick decisions exacerbate bias. Instead of a one-year promotion cycle, consider a three-year time frame with midyear promotions. It gives diversity a better chance. Second, break the silos and make promotions in unison. If a manager is looking at one part of the business, there may only be two or three promotions. Looked at across the organisation, the number could be 10 times as large. And 30 male promotions company-wide stands out as a red flag, more so than two or three in one part of the business, thus making the system a natural check-and-balance tool.

Questions: 1. What are the pros and cons of diversity for an organization? 2. Why is it that some workplaces are not diverse when the labour market is? 3. How can diversity be increased in an organisation without alienating people? Give your opinion!