Diversity charters are bringing about the changes that laws alone have been unable to accomplish. - By Jill Motley

Teaching companies about diversity is the easy step. Convincing them to embrace the concept and implement it as a strategic corporate issue is much more difficult. Managers can attend training and development sessions and then walk away, never acting on the information presented. Developing and implementing policies, procedures, and practices that promote diversity and inclusion require an ongoing commitment. Recognising this fact, the European Union developed a change instrument called a Diversity Charter that asks businesses to voluntarily sign a nationally adopted commitment to accept and integrate diversity in their respective companies. The psychology of this approach is impossible to miss. A company executive physically signing a commitment is more likely to follow through than one who sits in a meeting and nods in agreement but never takes the first action step.