Come home for dinner?

Its pride month, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are being spoken about widely. These words are often used synonymously, and the essence of them is lost in translation. But it’s important to know how each of these truly contributes to forming a work/community environment that truly serves the productivity and well being of every employee/citizen. 

So I’ll try to explain this in simple terms. Let us take the example of finalizing a menu for a dinner party. 

Diversity: You have two options - only a pizza, or a mix of various cuisines. The latter is preferable since it offers you with a variety, and your guests get to choose basis their palette and preference.  This is diversity. 

Incorporating a range of people from varied backgrounds/genders/age/etc. is Diversity. 

Equity: You have decided to go ahead with cookies and icecream as desserts. You will store the cookies in a tin outside, while the icecream will have to be refrigerated.

It is important to provide the right environment to people to help them flourish, this is establishing Equity. 

Inclusion: And when you finally lay out all the different cuisines on your dinner table, you give your guests the choice, each of your dishes have an equal opportunity to be picked. 

This is inclusion, the practise of providing an equal place on the table, irrespective of the differences. 

Hope this helps in giving justice to the issue, and using these terms appropriately.