We often say that inclusion is about being seen. But in practice, it is far more often about being heard.
Over the past few years, the conversation around inclusion in Indian workplaces has grown louder, and that is a good thing. But volume is not the same as depth. What many organisations still miss is this: the most important work in building an inclusive culture happens not in what we say, but in how we listen.
Not performative listening. Not checkbox listening. The kind that shapes systems, challenges assumptions, and centres lived experiences, even when those experiences are unfamiliar.
Listening, in other words, is not a soft skill but a strategy.
What Listening Means in India
Inclusion in the Indian workplace operates in a deeply layered context. Most DEI templates arrive from Western paradigms, but here, identities intersect with caste, language, family roles, economic realities, and gendered expectations.
For many LGBTQIA+ individuals, the workplace may be the first and only space where they feel safe to be out. For employees with disabilities or from underrepresented regions and backgrounds, the same holds true. This makes the role of listening even more essential because we cannot assume we know what people need. We have to ask and be ready for the answers.
Moving from Feedback to Insight
Many organisations collect feedback. Fewer are structured to actually hear it.
We often rely on engagement surveys or exit interviews to tell us how people feel. But by the time a concern reaches that point, it is already a symptom. True listening must be upstream, designed into how teams are managed, how policies are reviewed, and how people are included in decision-making.
One of the most overlooked insights in inclusion work is this. People do not expect everything to change overnight. But they want to know they were truly heard. That what they said did not disappear into a polite silence.
The Quiet Bias in Who Gets Heard
There is also the matter of who gets heard. Inclusion fails when only the most articulate or already-empowered voices are welcomed.
For instance, there is an unspoken bias across corporate India when it comes to hiring LGBTQIA+ professionals, especially in frontline or customer-facing roles. Even when organisations are open to hiring queer talent, the default assumption is, “Will they be comfortable here?” That question, while well-meaning, often disguises another: “Will we be comfortable having them here?”
It is time to flip that narrative.
Frontline roles are public-facing, high-trust, and central to how companies show up in the world. They should also be inclusive by design. When LGBTQIA+ professionals are hired into these spaces, it normalises visibility, builds aspirational pathways, and redefines what representation means.
At Godrej Capital, we launched Pride Path to do exactly this. Listening to queer candidates told us this was a space they wanted to grow into. That insight challenged our own assumptions and gave us an opportunity to build new scaffolding. Manager sensitisation, inclusive onboarding, supportive policies. Things every employee deserves, but few are asked about directly.
This is what deep listening unlocks. Not just change, but clarity.
What Listening Looks Like in Practice
So how do we build systems that listen? It starts by treating feedback as data, not opinion. And by ensuring there are formal and informal spaces where employees can show up without fear of judgment or consequence.
Employee communities and ERGs, when empowered well, can act as early indicators of culture. They raise concerns before they escalate and surface invisible barriers.
Direct access to leadership, not in one-off town halls but as an ongoing practice, shows people that their insights do not have to be filtered to be respected.
Regular design reviews, not just policy updates, ensure that inclusion is not frozen in time. It stays responsive to evolving needs.
At its best, listening leads to co-creation. When employees see that their voice helped shape a benefit, a form, or a hiring practice, that is when inclusion becomes real.
The Role of Leadership: Less Answering, More Asking
One of the simplest, most effective things leaders can do for inclusion is ask more questions.
Not rhetorical ones. Not ones that invite safe answers. But open, reflective, even uncomfortable questions.
What am I not seeing? Who is not in this room? What am I assuming by default?
Listening at a leadership level is not about being agreeable. It is about being accountable. It is about saying, I may not have lived that experience, but I believe it, and I will act on it.
We Can’t Build for the Future without Listening to the Present
Inclusion is not a campaign. It is not an annual report section. It is a practice, shaped by everyday decisions, everyday silence, and everyday curiosity.
The most inclusive organisations in the years ahead will not be the ones with the best statements. They will be the ones that built the best systems to listen, respond, and redesign again and again.
Because people do not just want to be seen. They want to know they have been heard. And when that happens, that is when real inclusion begins.
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