Elusive Inclusion: the Need for Cultural Data Analytics in People Management and Business Intelligence

About the author: Ifeanyichukwu Eze is a Diversity and Inclusion Specialist (freelance) with a solid background in Cross Cultural Communication, Project Management, Project Planning, Research and Teaching. He believes human differences (diversities) are assets, not a curse, and could be leveraged to achieve sustainable development in the world. He has participated in various research projects and authored several papers spanning the topics of Diversity and Inclusion, Human Resources Management, Technology, Global Economy, Tourism and Precision Agriculture.

Inclusion Has Not Been Achieved

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has become a hot potato recently, receiving caustic attacks from different quarters. These attacks and expressions of discontent all point to one thing: inclusion has not been achieved. Some people are doubting the promise of inclusion in society and the workplace, whereas others have characterised the DEI promise as a decoy for giving jobs to unqualified people.

Almost every individual and all groups in society desire to be adequately included in economic opportunities, but it appears inclusion has been elusive. This was made all the more obvious when US President Trump was seen on live television raising issues of exclusion and discrimination against whites in South Africa with the President of South Africa. Though South Africa debunked this claim, it shows that everyone in society desires inclusion.

The desire for inclusion is a major human need in today’s world, where so much seem to divide humanity – ‘race’, gender, religious, political and ethnic categories, global economic issues, and many others. As it has been enacted, DEI has foibles, but destroying it completely because of its foibles is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Many issues may fester if unaddressed. Like Jessica Guynn notes, ‘The conversation now is about the best way to ensure that workplaces are managing against bias and discrimination.’ The good news is that innovative deployments of data analytics in the study of human identities are addressing the concerns and weakness in people management practices and the way inclusion is sought. 

This new approach helps to minimise the foibles in DEI and deploy its benefits for the good and advancement of humanity. It addresses the major reasons why inclusion has been elusive and offers a roadmap for achieving it.

Lack of insights into the true nature and causes of exclusion has been a major challenge in the quest for inclusion. In addition, inadequate understanding of the nature, dynamics, and interdependencies of human diversities, or differences or otherness, and the havoc these can wreak in society, especially in the context of globalisation, has been a major challenge.

A short trip into history reveals that most of the major crises in the world have been triggered by miscommunication across differences or diversities or otherness.

Cultural Infusion’s Atlas

Cultural Infusion’s Atlas is increasing intelligence through the collection of critical data in the area of human identities and transforming this data into business insights. The Atlas uses seven major pillars to elicit critical identity data that underpin the expression of personality, namely Belief system, Place, Language, Heritage, Mutuality/Representation, Demographic and Personal Attributes, and Experience Metrics. Underpinned by its vast democratised datasets, the comprehensive data retrieved for these seven pillars are analysed for insights that inform strategy.

Data is an invaluable resource in addressing the major complains raised against DEI. The data collected by the Atlas, which Cultural Infusion sometimes describes as hi-res data, gives organisations, both private sector and government, a detailed snapshot of the true state of inclusion, exclusion, wellbeing, and belonging in their organisation, and provides reliable evidence for launching initiatives that are not solely based on trends, intuition, stereotypes or guesswork, but on facts.

The Need for Predictive Cultural Analytics

This advance in cultural data analytics, especially in the context of globalisation, makes my proposal for a structured and formalised People Management Practice more compelling than ever in a 2023 paper titled: ‘Defining Diversity and Inclusion as an Art and Science Devoid of Operational Misconceptions with Human Resources Management’, where I attempted a broader definition of DEI and the structural modifications needed to establish it as a professional practice for solving societal problems.

Because culture is dynamic, analysing and understanding how people change over time after coming in contact with other cultures heightens the need for predictive cultural analytics to help in predicting the causes of violence, exclusions and discrimination, as well as offer solutions on how to overcome them. How to measure, predict and deactivate the drivers for discrimination is the focus of my future research and potential collaboration with Cultural Infusion’s Atlas. Meanwhile, a high-quality data-driven solution for inclusion is a great advance in knowing exactly who is in a given organisation – beyond surface differences – and who is missing.