Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – lessons to be learnt from safety

As an Occupational Psychologist, I began my career specialising in human error and the factors that lead to organisational failures, sometimes with catastrophic outcomes.

I spent ten years working in this space with a range of industries, conducting research, investigating near-misses and accidents, and developing tools to assess and support safe behaviours. 

When events occur, the individual person is almost never the root cause. In fact conditions within the 'system', perhaps inevitably, lead to a behaviour which triggers an event. However, a psychological concept called the Fundamental Attribution Error, coined by Lee Ross in the 1970s, suggests we may often overestimate the individual's role and underestimate the situational context when evaluating someone else's behaviour.  

If we overfocus on the individual, preventative measures become about changing the person not the system (e.g. through training). But if the system is at fault (e.g. a badly designed process) and remains unchanged, others are still highly likely to make the same mistakes. This need for a systems approach in safety is widely recognised across high hazard industries and more broadly (e.g. health (Weaver et al., 2021); road (Larsson et al., 2010)).

I now find myself working a lot with diversity, equity and inclusion, and can see parallels with safety. It can be easiest (and laziest) to apportion 'blame' and therefore responsibility for change to the individuals at the front-line (e.g. women must 'lean in'). This focus may also extend to an overreliance on Employee Resource Groups, or to the few people who have specific roles to improve diversity, equity and inclusivity. However, an individual lens results in no, slow or only short-term and small-scale change.

Instead, if we adopt a systems approach to inclusivity, what might that look like? 

Make it matter (to everyone)

The benefits of a safe working environment are relatively overt – poor safety could impact any of us. Even so, this message has had to be consistently reinforced for many years within high hazard industries, to become cultural so that all (including office-based workers) follow certain behaviours (e.g. holding the handrail). The benefits of an inclusive environment may be less clear for people who have never felt excluded (and relying on the 'business case' can backfire: see Georgeac and Rattan, 2023). The people who care the most are often those who are personally invested (either directly impacted or through their families e.g. fathers of daughters or mixed-race children), but there are innovative ways of building that emotional connection. For example, ask men questions women might be asked; or embody avatars of a different race (Eastwick & Gardner, 2009). 

Engineer for inclusivity

As with safety, designing what we want into systems (e.g. fail-safe mechanisms) is one of the best ways to mitigate for human failings. We could also apply this approach to inclusivity. For example, manufacturing and sourcing workwear that is suitable for a range of people, ensuring images in brochures, social media and on office walls indicate inclusivity. Collecting, analysing and reporting data is also normalised best practice for safety, and equally should be for inclusivity (Hirsh & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2018).

Embed within processes

Developing systems and processes that increase safety is another standardised approach, for example the use of checklists ahead of starting a job. To embed inclusivity, approaches such as gender-blind sifting in selection, or ensuring diverse interview panels, can be effective. There are some nuances in these approaches, and it is important to understand when and how any intervention might or might not work (Fath, 2023). For example, diversity training is often not impactful, but recent research found that focused training delivered immediately before selection decisions did increase diverse hiring (Arslan et al., 2025). As with a 'pre-job risk assessment or pre-job brief', adopting this as a part of any selection or promotion decision process could be powerful. In safety, we know that human error is inevitable – you cannot rely on people to be 100 per cent vigilant at work all the time, and so we put guard rails in place to help. Similarly, to avoid bias-related 'injuries', adopting processes which can help maintain alertness and focus can be helpful.

Develop an inclusive culture 

As we also know from safety, social norms are powerful determinants of individual behaviour. Making inclusive behaviours 'the way we do things round here' (rather than an afterthought) will make change more sustainable. For example, embedding meeting etiquette to ensure everyone's voice is heard, adopting inclusive decision making, calling out excluding behaviour, are all practices that could support inclusivity. (Stephens et al., 2020). As we know, senior leaders have a significant impact on organisational culture and so leaders being selected for their inclusive behaviours and receiving development in this area would also signal its importance and value.

Provide individualised support and development 

As well as addressing the system, there is some work to do to 'undo' internalised stereotyping and assumptions that have been made throughout history. Within safety, intervening to challenge and change gender typical 'macho' behaviour in male-dominated high hazard situations has been important to enhancing safe behaviours (Ely & Meyerson, 2010). Similarly, supporting under-represented and majority groups to question assumptions can be very effective for advancing individual careers and inclusivity in general, especially through mechanisms such as group coaching (e.g. Filleti & Jones, 2025). What is less helpful is 'sheep-dipping' through training based upon stereotypes (e.g. all women attending assertiveness training), which not only implies that only those being trained need to change their behaviour, but also that they need to change in order to align to the prototype of 'leadership behaviour' (generally based upon a white, middle-class, man).

Maybe with these types of changes we will start to see real progress within the workplace.

References

Arslan, C, Chang, E.H., Chilazi, S., Bohnet, I. and Hauser, O.P. (2025). Behaviourally designed training leads to more diverse hiring, Science, 387 (6732) 364-366.

Boddy, N. and Avery, A (2023). A systems approach to the safety and efficiency of prescribing at the primary-secondary care interface. Future Healthcare Journal, 10(3), 205-210

Fath, S. (2023). When blind hiring advances DEI – and when it doesn't. 

Fillleti, P. and Jones, R.J. (2025). Can Group Coaching Support the Career Advancement of Women? International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 23 (1), 236-251.

Franczak, J. and Margolis, J. (2022). Women and great places to work: Gender diversity in leadership and how to get there. Organizational Dynamics, 51 (4) 100913.

Georgeac, O.A.M. and Rattan, A. (2023). The business case for diversity backfires: Detrimental effects of organizations' instrumental diversity rhetoric for underrepresented group members' sense of belonging. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(1) 69-108.

Hirsh E. & Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (2018). What Works report, from a conference hosted by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. 

Larsson, P., Dekker, S & Tingvall, C. (2010). The need for a system theory approach to road safety, Safety Science, 48(9), 1167-1174.

Stephens, N.M., Rivera, L.A. & Townsend, S.S.M. (2020). The cycle of workplace bias and how to interrupt it. Research in Organizational Behavior, 40, 100137.

Weaver, S, Stewart, K. & Kay, L. (2021). Systems-based investigation of patient safety incidents. Future Healthcare Journal 8(3), 593-597.