Ethnicity and gender pay gaps, working from home and more have been the priorities of the diversity and inclusion conversations in 2020, but what does 2021 have in store? Writing for DiversityQ, Perrine Farque predicts the following.

Workforce diversity reports transparency
Public authorities and industry associations will request that organisations share their workforce diversity reports and be more transparent with their diversity initiatives. Looking at Glassdoor and Crunchbase's recent diversity feature, the trend of sharing organisations’ diversity is becoming more and more prevalent across all industries.

Corporate discrimination fines
Corporate fines and legal sanctions related to workforce discrimination, harassment and unfair treatment are set to increase in 2021. Organisations that fail to attract and retain a diverse workforce, including at senior leadership and board of directors level, will be sanctioned for their lack of diversity. Recently, Oxford and Cambridge universities were threatened with fines for their lack of diversity and an increasing number of cases are reported.

Mandatory unconscious bias training
Unconscious bias training will become mandatory for most organisations. Boycotts of brands that fail to embrace diversity and inclusion will become more common and more public. The Facebook platform was recently boycotted by advertisers, including Verizon.

The rise of the Chief Diversity Officer
The Chief Diversity officer will become the newest C-suite role. Following the Black Lives Matter movement, many industries have been searching for a Chief Diversity Officer to join their organisation. From the fashion world to the technology industry, most organisations will hire a Chief Diversity Officer as well as diversity personnel to drive more diversity and inclusion in their organisation.

Investors driving diversity initiatives
Corporate investors will demand that companies they invest in have a diversity programme to increase diverse workforce representation. Investors in the technology industry have already started including #MeToo clauses in start-up deals, forcing entrepreneurs to disclose complaints about sexual harassment in the workplace, as more women speak out about sexism in the industry. The industry has had to respond to sexism in technology.

Featuring diverse voices
Event planners, conference producers and content managers will have to feature new and diverse voices in their events, conferences, publications and panels. The events industry has been under the spotlight for its ‘manels’, or all-male panels, as well as featuring agendas with a majority of senior white men taking centre stage. Similarly, publications across different industries have been criticised for featuring voices of a small portion of the population. In 2021, event planners and media outlets will have to diversify the variety of voices they feature in their agendas and in their publications, including women, people of colour, disabled people, LGBT+ and up-and-coming voices.

Perrine Farque is a professional keynote speaker and diversity expert who empowers leaders to leverage diversity as their competitive advantage.

DiversityQ advocates and promotes diversity and inclusion in the workplace and supports organisations in creating a culture where everyone is heard and respected.