A Call for Unity: DEI Imperatives to Measure a Culture of Belonging
This morning I read my three year old son the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, which may have been lost on him, but it did allow us a moment of reflection to gather and honor the cycles of life and recognize our duty to live in balance and harmony with each other. A call for unity over this Thanksgiving weekend seems like an appropriate time to revisit the DE&I conversation. At a recent summit I attended about workplace experience, one of the key topics that was discussed at length was Diversity, Equity & Inclusion imperatives for corporate real estate strategy. What we knew the workplace and workforce to be is not the same anymore and much of the conversation was centered around people, rather than space. People being the most important aspect that creates a sense of place. And people are getting louder about their expectations in the places where they spend most of their time. As they should.
To be honest, it became quite a tension-inducing conversation when individuals stood up to challenge one of the largest global real estate member organizations about whether they were doing enough to support minority groups, especially at large gatherings such as these conferences. While I was impressed to see that the ribbons one could choose to attach to their name badge included pronouns, it seemed that attendees crave more intimate settings for deeper conversations and more meaningful moments. A place to share personal stories to reveal that there is more in common with each other than we think.
A great starting point for workplaces and HR teams in general– start with special interest groups where people can feel seen and heard. We learned that 60% of companies see a boost in their bottom line when DEI imperatives are guiding corporate strategy.
But can we go deeper in the DEI strategy to allow individuals, and especially minorities, to feel empowered as leaders?
The answer, from what I gathered, to make belonging real in the workplace environment, is not to look at organizations at large, but to look at microcultures within each organization. Expectations for each group of workers are different, and this is why Employee Business Resource Groups (EBRGs) are forming at many organizations. These groups are meant to create a space where individuals feel safe to share their honest feedback and are surrounded by peers that have similar values and beliefs about the world in which they exist. By offering these special interest groups for employees, they will want to come to work and do their best and thrive.
Mentorship is a key component of this kind of employee engagement strategy. And it goes both ways: a space where everyone is learning and everyone is giving. Even better if there is a diverse representation in the C Suite. This increases the opportunity to develop future leaders from diverse backgrounds.
Surveys are great, but make it specific. Factoring in neurodiversity and the physical setup for how employees do their work is important. For example, employees who work in a manufacturing facility will have different needs than those in a typical office floor plan. Set the foundation early that DE&I is important in every encounter, every connection, and challenge your clients by asking them to think about their engagement goals and how they want to model them. Make the case that by focusing on these human driven imperatives, by gathering real data with surveys, retention metrics and engagement scores, can have a huge impact on their bottom line. Experts remarked at how exit interviews are one of the biggest opportunity costs when skipped. How do we measure the expense of DEI policies, operations and programming against the economic cost to replace someone or the burnout cost of losing someone else? One of the best phrases that came out of these summit sessions was “return on equity rather than investment”.
“Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is a behavior. But belonging is the emotional outcome that people want in their organization.” - Christianne Garofalo
Author: Lilli Markle, Well Adapted Group
