How Companies Can Push Past Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Lip Service to Enact Meaningful Change

Change starts with leadership voicing support for DE&I initiatives and creating a runway for employees to drive efforts forward on the front lines. These individuals will carry out the mission because they connect with more people, day in and day out. At my workplace, we got this started by assembling a 21-member Global Diversity Advisory Council. It includes employees from all levels of the company, including the C-suite with our president as an advisor to the council.

You cannot improve at DE&I until you take full stock of where you are. Gather qualitative and quantitative data. Listen to employees in focus groups discuss the state of DE&I at work-- do they feel a sense of belonging? If not, what do they need?

Anonymous surveys provide a safe forum for employees to be honest. Be transparent with employees about how you will use the data. Encourage leaders to share, show vulnerability and they'll encourage others to do the same.

Data may reveal gaps in such things as women or people of color in leadership. But policies and processes perpetuate inequities and changing them will help bridge those gaps, too.

For instance, we looked at our job descriptions and found that the use of words like "strong" spoke more to men than to women. We dropped requirements for years of service because it measured time versus skills. We changed job descriptions as we found that white men applied if they had just a third of job requirements but that Black women didn't apply unless they had almost all of them.

Being more inclusive starts by recognizing biases that work against inclusion. We all have biases, often because of how we were raised. We counteract biases by watching and changing our behavior.

Calling out microaggressions is also a proactive act of inclusion. I once led a meeting on DE&I efforts. One of my male colleagues got so excited about the initiative that he interrupted me and started explaining what I'd already said. I listened, then I pointed out that his action made me feel inadequate.

Meet people where they are. If your organization thrives with collective learning, great. But if you have people in different time zones, working different schedules, give them multiple ways to access learning, including in micro-segments, which can be as short as three minutes. Allow for mistakes. That's what learning is about.

Changing long-held practices and beliefs is a long journey, not a sprint. But nothing happens without a start. Eventually, DE&I will become part of your DNA-- and that is truly the only way organizations can create meaningful and sustainable change.