Category: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

If your organization is one of the many taking a more active stance on diversity, equity, and inclusion in 2021, you hopefully already have a plan for how you’ll be honoring Black History Month in your workplace. Black History Month is an important time to actively acknowledge the pioneering African Americans and members of the Black diaspora who came before, and the crucial role they played in building our country and culture. February has been officially dedicated to this cause by every U.S. president since 1976.

Each year, the administration also designates a theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme is ‘Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity’. As remote working has given much greater insight into many people’s home lives than ever before, and as the needs of employee caregivers are being given more weight, this is an important topic to incorporate into the already crucial need for more DEI programming. How can you honor both this year’s theme and Black History Month in general in your workplace? We’ve got some dos and don’ts to help you plan a successful program.

Why it’s essential to honor Black History Month in the workplace

While it should come as no surprise to readers of this blog, inclusion is important. Josh Bersin found that inclusive companies had 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee over a 3-year period. He identified the embedded approach to diversity and inclusion at these organizations as one of the “magic practices” that drives the success of top-performing companies. The study furthermore found that the inclusive companies were 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market.

These bottom line benefits are driven by the fact that inclusive environments set employees up to do their best work. From recruitment to retention, engagement to productivity, inclusion impacts every aspect of the employee lifecycle, and increases happiness and wellbeing. In addition, inclusivity creates a level of psychological safety that enables employees to focus on their work rather than on worrying about past or future attacks and slights. It also opens the door for them to bring novel ideas to the table without fear of ridicule or retribution, thereby driving the innovation revenues referenced above.

Setting aside time to authentically honor and acknowledge the contributions of leaders of color through events such as Black History Month shows employees that your organization is willing to put their money where their mouth is. Allocating resources to such programs, coupled with genuine, ongoing DEI efforts, lets everyone know that inclusion isn’t just a front at your company, but something that must be practiced by every employee every day. Highlight the achievements of Black and African American pioneers across U.S. history, but make sure that you’re doing the same for the Black and African American pioneers within your organization. Celebrating Black History Month in the workplace isn’t just about recognizing the past, but about looking towards and building for a future where we can achieve real equity for all people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color.

Tips for authentically celebrating Black History Month in the workplace

The first and most important element when planning any Black History Month initiative is that February cannot be the only time that you recognize and champion Black and African American people. Your Black History Month efforts should be part of a larger coordinated strategy grounded in anti-racism and designed to build truly inclusive, equitable spaces for all people of color. Otherwise, anything you do will ring hollow. Make it clear to employees how any initiatives this month tie back to your larger focus on inclusion and belonging.

Once you’ve grounded your approach in your larger DEI strategy, consider these tips to ensure your efforts drive real impact:

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel. There are many organizations offering webinars and sessions that may be of interest to your employees. Tap into these networks. Research events happening near you, or being offered by organizations you partner with, and ensure your employees know about them. For instance, through the Global ERG Network, we’re offering a panel discussion tomorrow, 2/10 at 1pm Eastern entitled ‘Are You an Ally?’ focused around workplace responses to the Black Lives Matter movement (register here!).
2. Bring in the experts. If you have the budget, offering a relevant diversity, equity, and inclusion training during Black History Month is a great way to demonstrate your commitment to building a better workplace for African American employees. Many DEI trainers successfully transitioned their workshops to virtual formats earlier in the pandemic, so determine what you want the session to focus on, then find a practitioner to deliver a session to help you meet your employees’ needs.
3. Provide options. Not everything you plan will work with everyone’s schedule or will be something they’ll choose to participate in. Accordingly, it’s important to provide options to cater to different levels of knowledge, diverse learning styles, and varying schedules. For instance, if you’re planning a book club, consider providing a few different books for people to choose from, along with corresponding discussions. If you’re offering training, hold at least two separate sessions to help ensure everyone who wants to can attend.
4. Give back. Planning volunteer opportunities that support the Black community is a great way to honor those who came before in the effort to advance equity and social justice. Find a local organization that supports African Americans near your company headquarters, or partner with a national nonprofit and/or advocacy organization to provide your employees the opportunity to learn and to become an active part of the solution.
5. Hold space. It’s important not to put your Black employees on the spot as part of your Black History Month programming. Under no circumstances should they be responsible for planning or even participating in any initiatives, unless they have explicitly voiced interest in doing so. Allow and enable them to honor this month in their own way, and empower other employees with the space to stretch their boundaries and explore new topics in contexts where they’re supported to ask (non-offensive) questions.

Honoring Black History Month in the workplace is an important element of a holistic DEI strategy that actually drives inclusion and truly supports employees who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color. Ultimately though, Black History Month shouldn’t end on the last day of February, but should instead carry on year-round and through everything you do. Recognize and celebrate African Americans every day, those outside of your company, and especially those on your team, and strive to build a legitimately anti-racist organization. If you could use some help in creating inclusive spaces, we encourage you to check out the Global ERG Network and the Workrowd platform, both of which come stocked with DEI resources and support for building inclusive employee communities. As always, you can reach us at hello@workrowd.com.

Last week marked an historic day during which we saw the first in what will hopefully be a long line of non-White male occupants of our nation’s highest offices. After winning the election, Joe Biden promised to build ‘a Cabinet that looks like America’, indicating that he would nominate a number of underrepresented individuals to high-ranking positions. While saying it and doing it are certainly two different things, it’s nonetheless an extremely exciting proposition.

Perhaps more importantly, having the first Black, first South Asian, first female Vice President in the history of our country now actively serving is progress in and of itself, when taken against our multiple century history of only electing White men of a similar religious affiliation. While we have yet to see a female U.S. president, and have only had one non-White commander in chief, integrating new perspectives gleaned from diverse backgrounds at the top levels of our government is a step in the right direction. Rather than governing from a standpoint of never having lived through any of the events that many Americans experience on a daily basis, having people in elected office who understand can lead to better policies. The same dynamic plays out within companies.

Why it’s critical to have diversity in management

Having diverse leadership in executive, director, and management-level positions is crucial for a number of reasons. For one, BCG found that teams with diverse management vastly outperformed their peers when it came to innovation. According to the study, companies that had above-average levels of diversity among managers reported 19% higher innovation revenues than those with below-average diversity (45% versus 26%). In today’s rapidly evolving market, innovation is quickly becoming a key driver of company success, so suffice it to say that companies with fewer diverse managers should be concerned.

Similarly, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams are more than 20% more likely to have above-average profitability, according to McKinsey. Those in the top quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity were more than 30% more likely to see higher than average profits. Clearly the financial incentives are there, but beyond that, working for a company with diverse leadership is important to employees and job-seekers as well. In fact, nearly 90% of job-seekers believe that the level of diversity at a potential employer is an important factor that impacts their decision whether or not to work for them. If a company’s bottom line needs it, and top talent wants it, then why aren’t more companies taking greater strides to diversify their leadership?

Concrete steps for diversifying your management team

Part of the reason that little has changed in the upper echelons of American companies is that maintaining the status quo benefits those in charge. Ultimately, in order for new, more diverse faces to join their ranks, current leaders will need to move aside, as only so many C-suite and management-level positions can reasonably exist in any given company. Similarly, many people don’t want to have to break out of their shells to learn and consider new ideas. The reason so many companies use the ‘because that’s the way we’ve always done it’ line is because it’s easier than creating and implementing new strategies.

As we just laid out though, this perspective ultimately dampens companies’ profit potential. Accordingly, it follows that those companies that want to succeed should break out of their old ways and move forward into a more diverse, more inclusive future. In order to do so, they’ll need to:

1. Strive to eliminate hiring biases. Hiring bias is real, and it is extensive. Work to disarm it at every step in the process including how you write your role descriptions, where you recruit candidates from, how you design your interview process, and beyond. There are so many opportunities for bias to creep in, most of which aren’t even recognized by our conscious brains, so you have to be vigilant and employ tools to help you wherever possible. For instance, there’s software that can help remove gendered wording from job descriptions, and other platforms that will blank out names on resumes to help evaluators be more objective.
2. Diversify hiring at all points in the pipeline. Don’t just look to recruit entry-level talent from diverse sources; focus on hiring underrepresented folx at every level and in every department of the company. Having a couple of token leaders from diverse backgrounds won’t do much good if the entire rest of the company remains homogenous and impenetrable to minority candidates. Actively seek to hire the best person for the job in every instance, devoid of bias, and ideally, you’ll see more diversity across your entire workforce.
3. Design clear promotion pathways. While it’s one thing to bring diverse hires in the door, it’s entirely another to retain and nurture them. If you want to build a more diverse leadership team, ensure every employee, regardless of background, can grow with your company and rise within the ranks. Empower all individuals, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, with the tools and resources to reach the C-suite, and you’ll wind up with more managers from non-dominant groups across all teams.
4. Shift towards a more inclusive culture. In the absence of an inclusive culture, your diverse hires are more likely to leave your company for a more welcoming and supportive competitor, so press for inclusivity early and often. Conduct trainings for employees at all levels to teach them about inclusive behavior and mindsets, make them aware of their biases, and educate them on how to be a true ally. Ensure that diverse employees feel respected and valued, so that they’re interested in staying and incentivized to climb the ladder.
5. Repeat. This is a key piece that many companies overlook. Changing the face of management at your company will not happen overnight. It can only be achieved through sustained action on each of these points over the long-term. It’s not a one-and-done type of effort, so build your strategy to go the distance.

While this list may seem daunting, building diverse leadership is ultimately worth it if you want your company to succeed in the new world of work. Set your organization up to win by diversifying your management teams, and building a truly inclusive culture. If you could use some support in getting started, Workrowd has an engagement and culture management platform with diversity, equity, and inclusion resources built right in. Come see us at workrowd.com or reach out directly at hello@workrowd.com.

Last week was certainly one for the books. In the U.S., we saw record deaths from COVID-19, a flipped Senate, a certified new president, and an angry mob that stormed the Capitol (to put it mildly). Thousands of people died, and millions saw their beliefs crushed on the national stage, whether they were rooting for an alternative election outcome, or still clinging to a belief in civility. Undoubtedly, the majority of employees had strong reactions to the week’s events, putting employers in a difficult situation regarding how to respond to the compounding crises.

We talk a lot about inclusion, transparency, and encouraging employees to bring their whole selves to work on this blog. In an era characterized by such extreme polarization though, how can a workplace successfully uphold these ideals without completely contradicting themselves? How do you practice inclusion of everyone’s beliefs, be transparent about your own, and champion whole people when so many beliefs are directly predicated on exclusion? It’s a question we’ve been grappling with here at Workrowd recently, and we wanted to share our thoughts.

The double-bind of striving for inclusion in today’s day and age

Unfortunately, a significant number of Americans today espouse beliefs that are inherently exclusive. From overt racism to xenophobia to classism and beyond, much of our current civic life revolves around deeply held prejudices. While many protested against systemic injustice over the summer, we also saw large groups gather to protest against those people. Although many in that latter group will argue that their message is in fact not that Black lives don’t matter, but instead that ‘all lives matter’, by standing up in opposition to those fighting for the sanctity of Black and brown bodies, the implication is strong that some lives matter more than others.

Similarly, while they weren’t without prompting from the top, tens of thousands of people believed it was their responsibility to respond to the election outcome by physically harming those they deemed responsible. Within hours, we witnessed a surreal confluence of events, where Georgia elected two Democratic senators followed almost immediately by an insurrectionist uprising attempting to overtake the Capitol. Surely many workplaces have employees on both sides of the debate. With such divergent beliefs among your employee population, how can you respect everyone’s ideas? Moreover, what do you do when allowing people to bring their whole selves to work directly results in exclusion and/or outright harm to others?

Ways you can still champion inclusion for all when values differ

Ultimately, the only answer we’ve been able to come up with to the questions posed in the preceding paragraph is that you can’t. You cannot champion inclusion for all when some beliefs are inherently exclusive. In other words, everyone needs to collectively believe in inclusion while also maintaining their own beliefs that don’t contradict the top level ideal. This doesn’t mean that you can’t encourage people to share their opinions, but simply that the focus must be on inclusion first, unmitigated discussion of personal beliefs second. We’ve assembled a few tips to help you walk this tricky line:

• Be clear about your goals. Constantly expressing your desire for everyone to feel included while also stating that everyone should feel free to bring their whole selves to work is contradictory and can create a stressful disconnect for employees. You don’t have to devalue the importance of authenticity, but ensure that it’s clear that your topmost objective is to build a workplace where people feel welcomed. This means that everyone must make an effort to meet their colleagues where they are, listen with an open mind, and educate themselves on different lived experiences. Prioritizing inclusion over the free share of ideas may seem counterproductive or counterintuitive, but enabling the flow of ideas that create a hostile work environment for some is far more damaging.
• Offer trainings on how to be inclusive. As much as we want to believe that humans are inherently righteous and good, inclusion does not come naturally to us. Accordingly, it’s critical that you provide support, particularly for managers, in order to help everyone understand what you mean when you talk about inclusion. These cannot simply be one-off trainings, either; they should be held at least quarterly in order to keep everyone up-to-speed and continuously learning, rather than allowing them to simply revert to their baseline immediately after the once yearly session.
• Make space for difficult conversations. As much as it pains us to say this, inclusive work environments won’t work for everyone. Ultimately. there will always be people who don’t want to break out of their comfort zone, champion others, or learn about lived experiences beside than their own. If you truly want to create an inclusive workplace, you have to be ready to call those people out early and often, before they poison those around them with their words and actions. Speak with them first, make clear the changes that need to occur, and if they refuse to make an effort or continue to violate basic principles of inclusion, you may end up having to cut ties. It might not feel very ‘inclusive’ but it ultimately is the only way to actually build real inclusion for the rest of your team.

There’s certainly still a lot to process after last week’s uproar, and there will undoubtedly be more changes to come, but we wanted to start to put some language around it while we’re still in the ether. Just like exclusion, inclusion comes at a cost, and it ironically may require excluding those who don’t agree. This can be a difficult paradox to sit with, but progress has never come easily, and some people who have historically been very comfortable will have to be made uncomfortable for the greater good.

If you could use some support in building safe spaces and stretching towards inclusion, especially across a distributed workforce, come check us out at workrowd.com. We’d be happy to discuss how we’re navigating this contradiction internally, and learn more about any challenges you may be managing. Stay safe, everyone.

At this point, there should be no question as to whether diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are important to an organization’s success. Cash flow at companies with diverse teams is 2.3 times higher. Diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets than peers who don’t specifically recruit underrepresented talent. Companies with above-average diversity also have 19% higher innovation revenues. Diversity is important to job-seekers as well, with 7 out of 10 saying that they consider the company’s commitment to diversity when evaluating a potential employer.

Despite all of the evidence to support the business case however, there isn’t a great deal of information readily available on how to actually be successful at DEI. The majority of DEI work occurs in silos inside individual companies, and many employees working to advance DEI within their team or department go unrecognized and unsupported. Perhaps a consultant and/or trainer is brought in a couple times per year, but ultimately, succeeding at DEI requires a sustained and multi-pronged strategy that can’t be achieved through one-off initiatives.

Moreover, for all the talk about DEI, particularly during 2020, there are very few organizations that work across all areas and populations to foster true inclusion for every employee. While there are many organizations that seek to advance women, some that focus on BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+ folx, and others with even more specialized populations such as veterans, there isn’t a one-stop shop where companies can go to access information that cuts across demographics. This is only the case until 1/1/2021, though. That’s when the Global ERG Network launches.

Why our current approach to DEI can never succeed

Out of all of the employee indicators businesses strive to achieve, true diversity, equity, and inclusion has been one of the most elusive. Want to increase employee productivity? There’s an app for that. Institute more frequent check-ins, entrust your teams with more responsibility, ensure your office environment is optimized or that employees have what they need to make their work from home setups functional, etc. The list of best practices drags on. Want to increase retention? Improve your benefits offerings, offer better work-life balance, etc.; here too, there are myriad software solutions and well-studied best practices.

While the DEI tech solution market is expanding, and while there are patches of best practices consolidated on static websites around the Internet, DEI actually cuts across many of the other employee indicators making it very difficult to ‘solve’ with software. You can’t break down centuries of systemic bias and teach people empathy and instill them with life experiences other than their own through a few lines of code. You can’t do that with unlimited lines of code. DEI requires concerted human-to-human work on a daily basis to truly see change, because it has to happen within each individual in order to drive lasting impact.

DEI also isn’t a job responsibility that can be assigned to just one person. There is a reason that the Chief Diversity Officer role has such high turnover. These individuals join an organization with promises of intensive support and commitment from leadership, and then they’re left to unravel the infinite, complex, very human issues of bias entirely on their own. This is often compounded by the company providing them with only a very limited set of resources, almost always amidst unattainable expectations. Real inclusion cannot be built on the back of one individual, or even one team. It requires the entire organization to get behind it; in other words, it takes a village.

How the Global ERG Network seeks to change all of that

Employee resource groups are effectively the street team for most companies’ DEI efforts. They’re the boots on the ground, the ones in the trenches, doing the work every day. They’re the ones truly making a difference and driving inclusion on the individual employee level in a way that no Chief Diversity Officer or HR team can. Up until now, resource group leaders were largely left to their own devices. After speaking to many ERG, BRG, and Diversity Council leaders and members, we learned that there’s a lot of Googling happening amidst high levels of burnout and minimal support or recognition. Part of the problem is that companies simply don’t know how to do better by their resource groups. Luckily, in partnership with Talent Dimensions, we’ve built a platform to revolutionize all of that.

The Global ERG Network (GEN) is the first constantly evolving, 24/7 community for ERGs, BRGs, and Diversity Councils to network and learn across the globe. It’s packed full of best-in-class resources, exclusive events, and much more. Plus, it comes with real-time analytics so we can finally demonstrate the true value and ROI of DEI at scale. The digital-first experience is highly customizable, empowering every company to build future-proof diversity, equity, and inclusion programs grounded in data and best practices.

GEN launches on 1/1/2021, but in advance of that we’re holding a couple of webinars to enable folx to learn more and see if membership might be a fit for them. If you’ interested in equipping your resource groups with the tools they need to succeed, in order to build real, lasting inclusion for every employee, consider attending during one of the following times:

• Thursday, December 10^th at 1pm ET: Register here!
• Tuesday, December 15^th at 10am ET: Register here!

If you can’t make it, don’t worry; we’ll be posting both the presentation and the question and answer sessions for later reference. If you have questions in the meantime, feel free to check out our brief informational page at erg.workrowd.com or contact us directly at hello@workrowd.com. We’re excited to build this movement with you.

It’s been quite a year, and trying to budget for the next one can seem akin to staring into a crystal ball and anxiously waiting for something to appear. Ultimately, while this next year may seem even more uncertain than most, that doesn’t mean you should back off of critical investments such as those in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). While many companies rush to slash their DEI budgets at the first sign of financial uncertainty, this is in actuality a deeply counterproductive decision. Budgeting for diversity and inclusion drives critical initiatives that feed directly into companies’ bottom lines. By immediately jumping to cut that funding, companies show their employees in no uncertain terms where their priorities lie.

There are myriad reasons not to cut your DEI budget leading into 2021, but how do you frugally plan for inclusion initiatives during a year that may or may not be remote, may or may not include substantial policy shifts, and may or may not see your company doing well? There are certainly a lot of factors to consider. While budgeting for things you’ve never done before can be difficult, we’ve got your back with some best practice advice for budgeting for diversity and inclusion and building a robust DEI program in the coming year that drives measurable impact (you can also check out our newer post HERE for more details).

Why you shouldn’t cut your DEI budget as a way to save money

Unfortunately, despite spending $8 billion per year on DEI initiatives, many executives still believe that DEI is a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘need to have’. Part of this misconception may stem from the fact that the standard slate of DEI initiatives implemented by most companies is largely ineffective and targeted at box-checking rather than concrete business outcomes. With this line of thinking and little to show for the efforts they have made, it’s unsurprising that DEI programs would seem to be an unnecessary expense. In reality though, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Organizations that are more diverse and inclusive have been proven to outperform their peers across a number of metrics. For instance, companies with more women in C-suite level positions deliver 34% greater returns to shareholders. Harvard Business Review also found that organizations with higher than average diversity saw 19% greater innovation revenues. McKinsey reports that companies in the top quarter for racial/ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to surpass their peers. Lastly, companies with two-dimensional diversity are 45% more likely to have captured a larger portion of the market and 70% more likely to have moved into a new market in the past year. Clearly there is money to be made by investing in diversity and inclusion, but as with many things, it has to be done correctly in order to be effective.

How to ensure your DEI investments drive impact

The first step towards budgeting effectively for diversity and inclusion is to start treating DEI like any other business imperative. You wouldn’t short your marketing budget and still expect to receive the same results, so why does that expectation exist for DEI? Similarly, what gets measured gets managed. You wouldn’t put your sales people out into the field with no sales targets to just see how they do, so it’s similarly imperative that you put structures around your DEI program including measurable metrics and goals. Don’t assume that since you ran a half-day training, more diverse employees will just start flocking to your organization. You have to put in the work in order to reap the benefits.

It’s not just about counting the number of BIPOC employees at your organization, though. Companies have been tracking the number of underrepresented employees in their ranks for decades at this point; simply counting doesn’t lead to improvement without accompanying focuses on inclusion, promotion, etc. You have to aim higher. Use studies and statistics to inform your goal-setting and budgeting. Increased DEI leads to higher employee engagement, which drives productivity and other measurable outcomes, so you can design quantitative objectives accordingly.

Consider DEI’s impact on your entire company, from the vendors you engage to the philanthropies you support. Set concrete targets for what you want to achieve, then budget out how to get there, just as you would in any other department. Don’t fall prey to the belief that DEI is an amorphous, ‘fluffy’ concept that can’t be quantified beyond basic employee counts. Use employee surveys and other data to track the success of your program and ensure you’re getting your money’s worth. If you’re not, change your tactics.

Making progress on DEI is difficult, but far from impossible. It simply requires strategic focus and effort, just like any other business imperative. If you’re considering how to best use your DEI dollars, consider an integrated solution that supports employee resource groups, provides best practice toolkits and trainings, and integrates surveys and people analytics. Workrowd offers all this and more, so if we can be of help, don’t hesitate to reach out at hello@workrowd.com. However you choose to proceed, just don’t back off of DEI at this critical time.

In the U.S. today, approximately 40% of the population identifies as something other than non-Hispanic White. With half of people identifying as female, that means that at the very least, 20% of Americans navigate society everyday with multiple intersecting minority identities. The actual number is obviously much higher than that, considering that identity encompasses everything from disability status to family structure and beyond. Given this fact, and as companies continue to make little to no progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion despite billions of dollars in spending, it’s time to reframe our efforts to focus on intersectional identities rather than just high-level racial and gender categories.

Originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, at its core, intersectionality is simply the idea that people experience discrimination differently depending on their overlapping identities. While it has become a rather maligned term during our hyper-polarized times, few people actually disagree with the core tenet that a person’s lived experience will vary based on who they are, how they identify, and to which demographic groups they are perceived to belong. If even bitter political rivals can agree that the fundamental concept of intersectional identities is valid, why aren’t we prioritizing it to finally move the needle on inclusion in our workplaces?

Why intersectionality is so important to better support employees

The events of 2020 have greatly increased the focus on issues around DEI, employee wellbeing, and employee engagement. Particularly amidst the rapid transition to remote work, many companies are struggling to adapt and deliver in response to new as well as previously unaddressed employee needs. If companies truly want to improve their employee experience though, how can they do so without knowing the composition of their workforce?

While some employees may hesitate to share information about their personal lives and/or how they identify with their employer, if companies don’t ask they will continue to make decisions based on ‘intuition’ rather than data. In order to be strategic, employers need to learn about, respect, and appreciate their team members’ intersectional identities so they know, for instance, how to build a benefits package that actually suits employees’ lifestyles. If the only demographic data you have and are tracking is race and gender with minimal granularity, it will be difficult to truly understand what your employees may be facing, and therefore what you can do to better support them.

How to move your workplace towards intersectionality

The first step in moving your workplace towards greater inclusion grounded in intersectionality is to reframe the way you think about diversity. So much focus has been placed on race (often without much regard for ethnicity) and gender that other important measures of diversity rarely factor in. Your diversity program should seek to truly acknowledge and value your employees as whole people with a variety of different assets and attributes, rather than a member of a monolithic race or gender category.

Consider that diversity can come in the form of cognitive and/or physical disabilities, caregiver status, immigrant background, religion, sexual orientation, and more. With so much to consider, it quickly becomes unreasonable to base your entire program around just two, often visually discernable measures. There is a lot more to your employees, and if you want to optimize your employee experience, you’ll have to start learning about them.

The next step is to reorient your DEI goals. Moving away from tokenism and instead towards intersectionality will enable you to bring more perspectives into your meetings and projects, thereby accelerating innovation and amplifying your competitive advantage. While it is certainly crucial that many companies increase the proportion of BIPOC and womxn employees on their payrolls, it is also essential that these individuals are recognized as more than just token hires once they’ve joined.

If you’re considering ways to increase the focus on intersectionality within your workforce, check out Workrowd. Our platform is a one-stop shop that enables employees to join affinity groups based on their identities and interests, and provides you real-time analytics to see how each group is faring. To learn more, visit us at workrowd.com, or reach out directly to hello@workrowd.com.

Amidst all of the deeply negative news of 2020, one positive has been the renewed energy around combatting systemic racism. While the events that precipitated this mobilization are both tragic and unacceptable, the drive for change could not wait any longer. The need to build more inclusive environments is especially urgent in our workplaces, where demographic-based disparities and discrimination abound.

Currently, 80% of Fortune 500 senior executives are men, and 72% of them are white. Women still earn just $0.82 for every dollar a man earns, with the burden falling disproportionately on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous womxn, who earn $0.62, $0.54, and $0.57 respectively. Moreover, the Economic Policy Institute reports that the Black-White wage gap has actually increased over the past twenty years, highlighting the enormous amount of work we have to do. Ironically, at the same time estimates suggest that companies are spending $8 billion every year on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Clearly what we’re doing is not working.

And now for something completely different

Here at Workrowd, we believe that part of what is stymieing progress is that every company seems to be designing and executing on their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals in a silo. When we started doing market research for this venture, we were stunned by the lack of data and best practices available to companies looking to start or expand their DEI work. Accordingly, we set out to find (or build) a solution.

In the course of our research, we learned about employee resource groups, or ERGs. Many of you are likely familiar with ERGs, but this idea was actually new to the Workrowd team when we started this journey. We instantly latched on to ERGs as being incredible vehicles to build support and power for underrepresented folx in the workplace, but we ultimately found that these employee-led efforts weren’t nearly living up to their potential.

In many companies, ERG leaders are at extremely high risk of burnout and lack the support they need from the company to enable their groups to thrive. Furthermore, over time, the focus of ERGs can shift to become more social rather than strategic. Given the devastating effects of non-inclusive workplaces, we knew we had to intervene and do our part to expand the set of tools available to ERG members.

A fortuitous partnership

As we started to dig into how we could best equip ERG leaders and members with the resources to supercharge their groups, we reached out to a variety of organizations that were already active in the ERG space. After a pretty disheartening series of strikeouts, we eventually connected with the Association of ERGs and Councils (AEC). Originally launched way back in 2005, the AEC had been taken over in recent years by a new owner who hadn’t had the bandwidth to give it their all. The effort was seriously in need of a refresh, so we set about discussing how we might collaborate to give the AEC a makeover.

After months of discussion and buildup, we finally were able to get down work, targeting a mid-October announcement. Our partner organization had decided to combine their annual conference with the University of Southern California’s Center for Effective Organizations’ ERG Leadership Summit Week, which seemed like the perfect time and place to debut our new collaboration. The summit started yesterday, so it is with great excitement that we announce the relaunch of what used to be the Association of ERGs and Councils as a brand new, digital-first experience.

Welcome to the next generation ERG empowerment hub

This new network is the premier community for ERG and diversity council members to connect across the globe. With best-in-class resources, exclusive events, and on-demand analytics, the one-stop platform is building the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion by empowering underrepresented employees with the tools they need to succeed. We’ve got membership options to fit every organization type and budget, including opportunities for individuals to join, so there’s no reason to let your employees get left behind.

We’ll be revealing more in the coming weeks, but for now, if you’d like to learn more please visit erg.workrowd.com. Memberships include the 24/7 networking community along with access to best practice resources and trainings, and dashboards to help you track your progress. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us directly at erg@workrowd.com. We’ll be sharing more soon, so stay tuned!

Do you know which of your employees are family caregivers? Statistically speaking, the majority of them likely are, although fewer than half of employers track this data. Researchers at Harvard Business School found that 73% of U.S. employees are caring for a child, parent, and/or friend. With the novel coronavirus forcing drastic changes to what caretaking requires, and pushing even more people into the caregiver category as their loved ones struggle to recover from COVID-19, it’s crucial that employers recognize the additional strain this can place on employees.

In the same HBS study referenced above, more than 80% of caregivers surveyed admitted that their caregiving responsibilities affected their productivity. Accordingly, beyond just being the right thing to do, taking steps to better support employee caregivers has a strong business case. While some employees may be hesitant to share details about their caregiving relationships at work, it’s important nonetheless that companies put structures and benefits in place to ensure employees can succeed no matter what they may be dealing with in their personal lives.

Considerations when designing a program to support employee caregivers

As mentioned above, the first items to take into account when determining how to support employees who are family caregivers are privacy and equity. Employees should not feel obligated to disclose their caregiving roles, nor should they have to question whether being a caregiver will potentially be used against them in deciding who will receive challenging assignments, promotions, pay raises, etc. While it can be useful to understand exactly which employees are caring for a child, relative, or friend, it’s more important to ensure that all your workers are aware of your company’s available accommodations as anyone’s caregiving status can change at any moment. Accordingly, focus on education and transparency more so than identifying your employees with caregiving responsibilities directly.

As part of your education efforts, it’s also important to ensure that employees know that your company both supports and respects employee caregivers. Build awareness about the challenges that family caregivers face, and how your company helps employees address them. Make sure that your sensitivity training for managers includes content on caregiving so that they can best meet the needs of their team members.

Lastly, don’t forget to factor caregiving into your benefits programs. If you can offer daycare and/or related subsidies, flexible work hours and remote work, and healthcare plans that are inclusive of a variety of family structures to ensure your workers can access coverage for those who need it, it will go a long way towards making your workplace friendly and welcoming to employee caregivers. Don’t forget to ensure that all your employees are aware of the full extent of the benefits you provide!

Recommendations for building inclusion for caregivers in your workplace

While the considerations listed above are crucial to form the basis of your program, these efforts will fall flat if your caregiving employees don’t feel welcomed and included within your workplace. There are a number of approaches you can take to building belonging for these team members, but we’ve listed our favorites below:

• Connect employees with resources. Beyond offering specific benefits to support caregivers as mentioned above, and especially if that’s not achievable within your budget, simply providing a list of relevant resources can be helpful. Assemble information about the services and supports that are available to different types of caregivers, whether they’re responsible for an elderly relative, have young children, or are the guardian for an adult who is ill and/or disabled. Host these repositories somewhere easily accessible, and remind employees of their existence as needed.
• Make your events inclusive and accessible. Obviously a lot has changed since the pandemic hit, but if all of your employee events are being held outside of work hours, they’re likely excluding folx whose personal lives include caregiving. Take people’s non-work commitments into account when you’re planning initiatives, opting for lunch and/or workday times rather than nights or weekends. If you do schedule programming during off hours, try to make it family-friendly, so people can bring their children/relatives rather than having to simply skip it.
• Create a caregiver employee resource group. Caregiving can be extremely isolating and emotionally taxing. By connecting employees with their colleagues who are facing the same struggles, companies can build their employer brand at the same time they’re making something very difficult for their employees a bit easier. Through this group, employees can share recommendations of care providers, exchange supplies (e.g. passing on gently used children’s toys), and commiserate.

How are your employee caregivers doing today? Do you know? If not, the first step is to check in with them, then take steps to address their needs accordingly. If you’re looking for an easy way to aggregate resources for certain groups of workers, connect employees with shared experiences, stand up employee resource groups, and/or easily monitor employee engagement and wellbeing, Workrowd is here for you. Contact us at hello@workrowd.com to see how we can help you better support employee caregivers and make your entire workplace more inclusive.

For more than a decade, a favorite trope of news outlets has been the war between the generations in the workplace. As Millennials began to enter offices, article after article appeared on how ‘Generation Me’ was going to create widespread strife with their need for constant feedback and praise, their obsession with technology, and more. These attitudes and habits, the reporters alleged, would put them completely at odds with their Boomer supervisors.

As we’ve seen, Millennials have deeply impacted their workplaces, but not necessarily at a faster rate than any other generation, and certainly not in a way that’s out of sync with the broader societal forces acting on their companies. Ultimately, having an intergenerational workforce can be of great benefit if it is effectively leveraged. We’ve assembled some suggestions below to help you make the most of the age diversity present in many U.S. workplaces today.

An unprecedented five generations working side-by-side

For the first time in history, there are now five generations active in the U.S. workforce. While there is some dispute as to the actual dates that comprise each generation, the groups are as follows:

• Silent Generation (born between 1928-1945)
• Baby Boomers (1946-1964)
• Generation X (1965-1980)
• Generation Y/Millennials (1981-1996)
• Generation Z (1997-2012)

The oldest members of Generation Z are now 23, meaning that some of them have been in the workforce for 5+ years at this point. Meanwhile, the youngest members of the Silent Generation are only 75. These 75+ workers comprise between 5-10% of every state’s workforce, while countrywide, their proportion is expected to exceed 10% within a few years. With more than 50 years’ difference between the lived experiences of these two cohorts, there are bound to be some disagreements and misunderstandings. However, just as with other types of diversity, having such a range of perspectives can also be a great asset to your business.

Strategies for enabling employees of all ages to succeed

Despite their superficial differences, regardless of age or generation, many employees ultimately want a lot of the same things out of their work experience. These include opportunities for learning and growth, camaraderie and community, and to feel valued and respected. Luckily, a number of these can be achieved through the same and/or overlapping initiatives. Below are some ideas for helping employees to bridge the generational divide and drive your organization forward.

• Provide everyone with streamlined, user-friendly tools. In order to mitigate any issues stemming from varying levels of tech-savvy, design your employee experience with a focus on easy-to-use tools that make everyone feel empowered and fully able to contribute. Particularly with your communications systems, provide clear training to all employees so that no one is at a disadvantage in conversations and meetings due to challenges with technology. While this is applicable to facilitating inclusion across all demographics, it is particularly relevant for an intergenerational workforce as younger people are often more comfortable adapting to new technologies more quickly than older populations. Putting everyone on an even playing field will minimize opportunities for frustration across age gaps.
• Develop a two-way intergenerational mentoring program. Young people have a lot to learn from their older peers in the workplace, but this sentiment holds true in the opposite direction as well. There is a lot that younger people can teach their colleagues from other generations, and that should be acknowledged and capitalized upon. Establish an intergenerational mentoring program where the exchange of information flows both ways. More seasoned employees should be encouraged to be open to the input and ideas of younger coworkers, and new professionals should be urged to be receptive to the wealth of knowledge that older peers have amassed over the course of their careers. Provide conversation and activity guides to help your pairings make the most of their relationship, and consider holding innovation events such as hackathons to help them put their combined knowledge to optimal use.
• Start an intergenerational employee resource group. While most frequently focused on race and ethnicity, employee resource groups can also be a useful tool for building productive connections in an intergenerational workforce. Historically, age-based employee resource groups have typically focused on one specific demographic, e.g. young professionals. Ultimately however, companies would likely benefit more from creating opportunities for what is effectively a group-based version of the mentoring program outlined above. By creating a space that’s not explicitly focused on work in which team members from different generations can interact and team up, companies can finally combine and leverage all of the knowledge and skills within their workforce into more than the sum of their parts.

Having an intergenerational workforce can be either a blessing or a curse. For those organizations that operate in opposition to it and pit older and younger workers against one another, they will find that the antagonistic relationship between employees of different age groups can become a significant drag on productivity, engagement, and more. For organizations that view it as an asset however, and seek to build productive relationships between employees of various ages, they may very well find themselves on the forefront of innovation and broader success.

If you’re looking for a straightforward way to seize upon all three of the strategies listed above, check out Workrowd’s platform. We can help you set up and manage mentoring programs and employee resource groups, all while centralizing and streamlining employee communications. You can reach us at hello@workrowd.com.

According to the CDC, 61 million U.S. adults live with a disability; that’s more than a quarter of the population (26%). The word ‘disability’ spans a wide range of physical and mental challenges across mobility, cognition, mental health, hearing, vision, and more. Some disabilities are readily visible upon meeting a person, but many are not. As businesses struggle to reopen responsibly amid the ongoing pandemic, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your employees with disabilities are supported. Read on for some tips to understand and equip your people with any disability accommodations they may need to remain safe from infection.

Many disabilities increase the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms

For a variety of reasons, your employees with disabilities may be at increased risk of harm from COVID-19. In terms of physical health, adults with disabilities are three times more likely to have heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or cancer than adults without disabilities. A study released in June found that patients with these and other underlying conditions who contracted the coronavirus were six times more likely to be hospitalized and twelve times more likely to die from it than peers without these compounding issues. Accordingly, while every employee should be maximally protected from COVID-19, employers should take extra care to prevent exposure risks among their employees with disabilities, in order to minimize the potential for dire outcomes.

Similarly, mental health disorders can be deeply exacerbated by the conditions the pandemic has created. Many people without a clinically diagnosable mental health condition are experiencing crippling levels of anxiety and depression from social isolation, financial hardship, and the loss of loved ones from this virus. Simply reading the news on a daily basis is enough to destabilize a person’s mental health.

As we wrote about here, mental illnesses and disorders can deal a crushing blow to metrics like productivity and engagement in the workplace. In fact, depression and anxiety conditions alone are estimated to cost the world economy $1 trillion per year. People with cognitive disabilities are also at increased risk of mental health problems, making it even more imperative that they have resources at their disposal to support themselves during these challenging times, as well as disability accommodations to keep them safe and healthy.

Steps to keep employees with disabilities safe from infection

The first step to protecting employees, whether or not they have a disability, is of course to follow all evidence-based recommendations to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Facilitate social distancing, require mask wearing, limit use of common spaces and appliances, and sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Make all signage clear and accessible, using high-contrast, large font and placing it at heights that are visible to those in wheelchairs. Ask employees for suggestions of how to make the workplace even safer, and implement those ideas where possible. Communicate your policies early and often, and require strict adherence in order to prevent situations where employees may feel at risk of exposure or peer-pressured to violate rules.

Another important step is to offer opportunities for employees to request individual accommodations to your policies. Being mindful of privacy guidelines, ask which employees have special circumstances, from having a disability themselves, to having someone in their household who is disabled, to ensure they have an open invitation to voice their needs. Seek to truly listen and understand their situation, so you can be positioned to best help them. Objectively assess their level of risk, whether or not their job is essential and if it can be done with limited in-office time, as well as what disability accommodations you can reasonably grant. Lastly, ensure that whatever decision you ultimately make is in compliance with all regulations, particularly those around EEOC and ADA.

Communicate the outcome of any deliberations clearly and compassionately to your employees. In instances where you were unable to grant accommodation requests, explaining why will go a long way towards ensuring that individual does not feel slighted or unduly denied. As circumstances evolve, encourage an open-door policy around accommodation requests and continue to remain aware of employees’ situations and health in order to provide the best employee experience possible despite the less than ideal circumstances.

Supporting employees with varied and changing needs during the global pandemic isn’t easy. Make it easier by talking to your employees and being transparent with your processes. Consider starting a disability employee resource group to help your team members who may be struggling, including those who may be new to disability as a result of COVID-19 complications. If you could use a tool to assist you in standing up an ERG, providing additional employee support, and streamlining your communications around pandemic safety, check out Workrowd. We can help you help your employees, and measure the results through automated surveys and reports.