What happens after a surge of commitment to hiring for diversity? Only with the follow-through can progress be sustained. How can companies embrace their increasing diversity? What are the best ways to disrupt the old corporate culture without breaking what is still productive? According to employees, what specifically gives them a sense of belonging? And what are the benefits to the company? From Day One gathered experts for a virtual conference in February. Among the highlights:

Believe: Building a Corporate Culture of Trust and Transparency 

Depending on whether you're consulting Psychology Today, Healthline, the Merriam-Webster, or other resources, you are unlikely to find a cut-and-dried definition of trust. Psychology Today defines it as “the belief that someone or something can be relied on to do what they say they will.” The Merriam Webster dictionary offers: “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.”

That’s because, as pointed out by Alexa Teare, the chief people and coaching officer at the coaching program LingoLive, trust rests on the multiple levels: self-social-systemic, which translates in work parlance to individual-team-organization. “As humans, it's essential for us to have trust in our organization,” she told Courtney Connley, senior editor of the women’s membership network Chief and the moderator for a panel titled “Building a Culture of Trust and Transparency.”

Teare sees this multi-faceted and multi-layered definition of trust both as a challenge but also an opportunity. It is, for instance, an opportunity for leaders to talk about mutual accountability. “A leader is charged with creating trust. Someone in corporate is charged with creating trust,” Teare continued. “There's something to be said about reciprocity in trust amongst all individuals, starting with the definition of what it means to us, and talking about what role each of us is going to be playing.”

A core tenet of a culture of trust is curiosity. “Even though you're remote, don't lose sight of being curious,” said DeShaun Wise Porter, the VP and global head of diversity, equity, inclusion and engagement at Hilton. “Don't lose sight of the experience of building the relationships.” For instance, it's unadvisable to start a conversation jumping directly into work. “Practice active listening,” said Porter. "Seek to learn and grow beyond your inherent beliefs."

Where there's social and racial tension, for example, one must lean in and ask questions, and stop and check in on people: to create a culture of accountability, start within yourself. "It's not one singular, big training session," warns Porter. “It's day to day, moment to moment action. So many of us have things that we know or thought we knew.”

A strong sign of accountability is transparency, especially in terms of salary. Annie Rosencrans, who is leading the people and culture division in the North American expansion of the HR software company HiBob, has always been about establishing policies where there hadn't been any, and while the margin of error is quite narrow, she sees it as a possibility for improvement and positive evolution. “Make sure you're developing policies that are fair and make sense for your business,” she said regarding a matter of salary transparency. “Understand your business and make policies that don't have arbitrary rules.” When it comes to compensation, though, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. “But,” said Rosencrans, “it’s important that the philosophy is articulated and based on benchmark data and internal analysis. Make sure that when decisions are made, you abide by that [analysis.] The second you undermine it, you lose trust.”

Despite the climate of reckoning following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, leaders working with a multinational workforce know that diversity goes beyond ethnic heritage. Sheryl Battles is the VP of global diversity and inclusion at the global shipping and mailing company Pitney Bowes, where in the last year she spearheaded the rollout of a customized inclusive-leadership training program for managers at all levels. A particular success story involves a Midwestern manager, an older white man, who had a direct report who was a woman from Africa. Whenever they spoke, she averted her gaze. “In some work we were doing in advance, there was a discussion on culture,” said Battles. “In her culture, this was an act of deference to an elder, and the manager had an aha-moment.”

Similarly, Joy Dettorre, EdD, the global head of diversity, equity and inclusion at IBM sees empathy and storytelling as core tenets towards a more comprehensive understanding of diversity. IBM, a pioneer of remote work practices for the past two decades, had to take this into account when interacting with the Indian workforce: most of them, in fact, always went to the office. When they got sent home early in the pandemic, one of the local managers explained to her that in her multigenerational household, her need for an at-home workstation was invading on her family’s home space. “Culturally and socially, that's not where she worked,” said Dettorre. “We needed to be sensitive about that.”

In the mental-health conversation, leaders tend to be forgotten. They’re as exhausted as their employees, yet they’re most often called to provide support. “You can't pour from an empty cup,” said Teare. “As a leader, I think there's a certain level of responsibility we hold ourselves accountable for. Many leaders hold that burden: I think there’s a space for us to be intentional with when to charge the trust battery.”  One of the upsides of the past two years, she reflected, is folks feeling more comfortable being vulnerable. “What it taught me is how to share the burden in a transparent way,” she said. “Think about what drains us and what fills us up and be very intentional about that: mental health and wellness talk can be nebulous without a tangible practice–take what's nebulous and apply it to a daily practice.”

Vulnerability also means openly acknowledging one’s own shortcomings. Dettorre, for example, recalls that once she was tasked with creating materials for an experience titled “Gender Transition in the Workplace.” “We thought we were good at it, my heart was in the right place, but my knowledge was not there,” she admitted. She then reached out to transgender [colleagues], simply asking help me: will you co-create this experience with me? “It’s OK not to have all of the answers: I am not afraid to say, I am sorry I made a mistake, I want to get better,” she said. People are usually receptive.

Overall, what matters in building trust is consistency. “Trust is a thing that takes months to build and moments to crush,” said Porter. “Consistency in actions and behaviors is the one thing people will have to look to and rely on heretofore.”–By Angelica Frey

Maintaining Momentum After the Moment of Reckoning 

“There’s a 71% increase in DEI globally: it’s huge,” said Tanya Odom.

Friends jokingly refer to Tanya Odom, director of the equity and inclusion program at the Walton Family Foundation, as an encyclopedia. She has the habit of citing or quoting academic articles, data, and statistics when making a point. A former management consultant and an educator, she sees it as an effective tool to get her message and method across. “There’s a robust amount of research about some of this work, both what works and what gets in the way,” she told Erica Licht, the director of research projects, at the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project at Harvard’s Ash Center. “And I think sometimes, we don’t really respect the diversity, equity and inclusion space or the research around what it takes to do this.” Odom sees the main drivers of equity culture in leadership, communication and, mostly, education and accountability. She mentions Valerie Rainford as an authority on data collection on what she and her peers are trying to do. “The willingness to face the data is integral,” said Odom.

Since May 2020, she has constantly been asked the same question: is there a blueprint on how to move past this “excitable moment” pertaining to maintaining momentum after the great reckoning? Recently, she was on the phone with George Floyd’s aunt, talking about what happened in the aftermath of his murder and the overly enthused push for DEI in corporate America. “The reality is that there are people who are continuing to do the work, there have always been these people. When we look outside of philanthropy, I see the work of diversity leaders: They haven’t stopped, and are now working harder than ever,” she told Licht. “The challenge,” Odom continued, “comes when we think where the end point is.” It’s not about one incidence, one moment in time. She is sure that, out of the many organizations that called her in “to do the work,” some just did that to check a box. On a positive note, younger generations are seen as a critical component in the effort, as many of them believe that diversity is the norm. “There’s an expectation for it, there’s a concern and a real desire for companies to address some of these issues,” she said.

Still, good will and hard work bring short-lived results without knowledge and education. “The challenge that many of us are facing internally is that there is no set of shared competencies around what someone would want a DEI director to have,” she explained, noting that in her role, she is not dealing with HR issues like talent retention and recruiting. “I don't feel our skillset is recognized: We're the ones, often, if someone cares about belonging, we're the ones they come to. We're the ones that, when something happens in the world, we have to think how to talk about this internally. One day we'll see it, but at this point we still don't understand the scope and depth of people who inhabit these roles.”

In fact, Odom observed a lack of thoroughness in appraising past research and authoritative figures in the field led to “sort of stopgap measures.” Prior to this fireside chat, Odom was in touch with a professor around creating an inclusive workplace and helping people understand racial economic inequality. “But this exists on a university’s website, you know. It’s there,” she said. While a resource such as this needs to be actively shared and made readily available, Odom sees a good practice industry-wide: organizations are looking for coaches, namely people who have both DEI backgrounds and coaching experience. “It's the shared accountability, it’s the continuing education,” she said. “I continue learning, I don’t stop going to webinars. I don’t feel like I’m in a position of I know everything, and I'm done. And in fact, I feel a sense of responsibility to continue my own learning. Since my job, my role, my passion is to help others learn as well.”–By Angelica Frey

Easing the Emotional Burden of Representing a Rising Identity

The modern workforce is seeing employees from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds exhibit increased signs of stress–more than peers who do not share these backgrounds. At the From Day One conference, a panel professionals with backgrounds in mental health and DEI delved into the matter in a panel titled “Easing the Emotional Burden of Representing a Rising Identity.”

The rise in stress levels can be attributed to both a blurred work-life balance as well as said individuals carrying a heavier emotional load than most due to the varying inequalities that intersectional identities tend to bear. The combination of this reckoning and the heightened focus on supporting employees from marginalized backgrounds have led companies to the forefront of a revolution advocating for equitable, safe environments where people of all backgrounds can feel secure.

The question is: are they delivering?

Singleton Beato, global chief DEI o fficer at McCann Worldgroup, illustrates what a workplace that misses the mark on inclusion cultural sensitivity looks like. “It’s consistent behaviors that look like a lack of consciousness on the part of the dominant group of a workplace in the day-to-day exchanges, interactions and decisions, and create an environment where underrepresented groups don’t feel valued,” she said, adding that the impact results in a loss of talent and rich perspectives of employees.

“We spent decades telling people, ‘bring your full selves to work,’ but weren’t prepared to deal with the messiness of humanity,” said Khalil Smith, VP of inclusion, diversity and engagement at the digital content-delivery service Akamai, noting that in the wake of the pandemic, traditionally underrepresented groups carried the weight of losses more than others.

Regarding the oft-referenced lines barely separating personal lives from work lives, the truth behind just how intersectional identities lead to unique challenges and struggles has become more apparent as mounting video conferences shed light into people’s private worlds.

“As many organizations are there out there, there’s so many stages where they’re on their own DEI journey and on the way to building a culture of inclusion,” said Renu Sachdeva, an executive coach at Talking Talent. She makes it a point to note that there are companies that have been committed to DEI from the start, and others that received a wake-up call after the murder of George Floyd that sparked the mass social-justice movement of 2020.

“The first thing any organization needs to do is take a good hard look at where they are on their journey and where they aspire to go, and then map out how to get there,” she said.

Beato points out that there is a marked shift in interpretation behind the message of encouraging employees to show up as their authentic selves, acknowledging that the current climate has driven a different approach that companies are not equipped to manage.

And then of course, the concept of mental health and its correlation with encouraging employees to show up authentically. For many folks, boiling down the exacerbated burnout in the last two years to simply overworking doesn’t illustrate the full picture. In the case of many groups, it is the lack of community or availability of contexts that embrace identity, such as employee resource groups, limiting the spaces for marginalized groups to be themselves.

Historically speaking, society has only recently begun to take mental health seriously, recognizing a healthy mindset as a core tenet of well-being. The corporate work environment is not far behind, playing catchup in determining how best to leverage resources to support employees while sustaining Odom business as usual.

“We take technical leaders and ask them to be mental health professionals, people that are really strong as individual contributors, and say ‘Hey, go do that and teach other people.’ It’s not just the individual, it’s the system. We’re asking more of each person at work than ever before, and with fewer resources. But we’re starting to see how the system and the rhetoric are matching up.”

Apart from the fact that many companies are finally jumpstarting overdue efforts in supporting diversity and inclusion, the flip side is in contending for the exhaustion of groups who have long fought for equality and acceptance for all underrepresented groups, no matter race, religion, physical disabilities, and mental health, only to be met with little success. The renewed conversation around race that began in 2020 and the many issues around diversity and inclusion exasperated those who were all too familiar with these intersectional issues that were now making headlines, as though existing for the first time.

Mercedes Samudio, LCSW, a mental-health parenting coach forh Maven, the family health platform, sums up the experience of long-time proponents of change in one word: fatigued.

She points to the emotional burden that marginalized groups have always shouldered, such as pointing out microaggressions and passive-aggressive behaviors, or constantly having to explain their perspective or educate their peers. Before diversity and inclusion became a corporate issue, affirmation of this invisible burden was virtually nonexistent; over time, the compounding experience of microaggressions and feelings of invisibility inevitably impacted the productivity and demeanor of affected individuals.

Panelists agreed that the biggest hurdle in supporting marginalized employees lies in the lack of infrastructure built to accommodate for mental health and wellness, leaving well-intentioned leadership professionals struggling to adequately help their teams.

In addition, a meaningful aspect of reconfiguring organizational approaches to supporting employees with different needs lies in paying attention to greater cultural and political context in society. This can mean individuals must learn to identify unconscious bias and beliefs in themselves and others, and how to work towards resolving them.

“It has to be systemic in order for us to lift that burden off of supervisors who aren't mental health professionals, but want to be able to bring mental wellness into their workplace,” Mercedes said.–By Tania Rahman

Ensuring Equity in a Hybrid Work Environment 

As the shift to hybrid workforces becomes permanent, how can DEI professionals support employee engagement and ensure that virtual workers don’t get left behind? Felicia Robinson, chief people and inclusion officer at the child care provider Bright Horizons, addressed this question in a Thought Leadership Spotlight at the conference. Her presentation focused on how Bright Horizons thinks about reimagining employee engagement, benefits programs, and employee well-being.

“When we think about the hybrid workforce, folks working remotely, folks working in the office, folks deciding to move away to different locations that are not in the same city as their organization. How do we think about engagement, retention, onboarding, leadership development and, frankly, employee burnout?” Robinson asked. “When we think about DEI through the lens of the hybrid workforce, there are actually some positives and some not so positives.”

Flexibility is at the top of Robinson's list of positives, especially for people of color, parents with childcare concerns, and people with disabilities or chronic health issues. Greater job opportunities outside of the area where one lives, as well as lower impact on the environment and time saved by working from home, are other pluses of the hybrid workplace. But remote work environments also have the potential to promote inequity.

According to Robinson, people of color are less likely to be in remote-friendly jobs. One reason, according to a 2021 Pew Research study, is that Black and Hispanic adults are less likely than white adults to have the needed equipment and high-speed internet arrangements at home. Pre-Covid, when less than 30% of all workers could work from home, only 16% of Latino workers and 19% of black workers had remote flexibility. That’s compared to 37% of Asian workers and 30% of white workers. Those figures are much higher now. At Bright Horizons, 30% of employees worked remote in 2019, and that figure post-pandemic is up to 45% of employees working from home.

“Employees who put more face time at the office might be more likely to receive various opportunities, promotions, and the hallway conversations where sometimes business gets conducted," Robinson says, "while remote workers can unintentionally fall behind because proximity bias is actually a major challenge."

"Engagement looks very different in a hybrid work environment,” Robinson says. “Since the pandemic, we've asked for representatives from employees with different work schedules to participate in our Better Together engagement groups to make sure we keep all of our employees connected.”

Bright Horizons also reimagined their employee value proposition (EVP), which is called Passion, Purpose, and Possibilities. The questions they asked: How do you bring that to life in a hybrid workforce? What is the contract? How do we look at EVP through all angles of the various employee schedules that we have available?

“When you think about DEI, a hybrid workforce and making that work for all employees, we have to take to step back and think about inclusion,” Robinson says. “It can be a form of exclusion, to only have a mindset of ‘How do we engage if people are physically together?’ The good news is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you can just look at your current engagement offerings and activities and actions that you're taking, look at your talent development strategies, and reconsider those through that new lens of the workforce that you’re supporting.”

Employee benefits and employee assistance programs also need to shift with the changing landscape of hybrid work environments. Robinson points to offering a wide range of flexible childcare, elder care, and healthcare benefits to level the playing field for people with varying work schedules and varying degrees of working remotely. “Companies have been in this one-size-fits-all mode when it comes to benefits. We need to take a step back and think of the different personas we have, and what benefits actually align to optimize the various employee experiences.”

“There are a lot of folks who are frankly fatigued, and they’re burned out,” says Robinson, referencing the two-year pandemic. “So as DEI professionals and HR talent leaders, we have to make well-being a priority.” One step Bright Horizons took was to relaunch its employee assistance program and a new partnership with Spring Health that offers employees 24/7 support and unlimited access to a life coach and a navigator.–By Jennifer Haupt

How Your Culture of Inclusion Benefits the Communities You Serve 

The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a prime example of an organization with a DEI focus that aligns its internal culture with a campaign to address health disparities among marginalized groups. A big part of this non-profit’s mission is to improve the lives of cancer patients and their families. Thinking about that purpose through the lens of DEI means recognizing and addressing that many communities bear a disproportionate burden of cancer.

“We're working very diligently and intentionally to ensure that we’re developing initiatives and interventions that really get at critical issues around access to care, providing education and resources in ways that are culturally appropriate, and just being a presence in diverse and multicultural communities across the country,”said Tawana Thomas-Johnson, SVP and chief diversity officer at ACS, in a fireside chat with Spencer Whitney, digital editor at KQED in San Francisco, about how a culture of inclusion benefits the communities you serve.

According to Thomas-Johnson, the challenges she faces are deeply rooted in systemic racism and structural barriers that prevent equal access to health care for all. Addressing that inequity involves recognizing that communities are made up of different groups of people from all walks of life and backgrounds. That means looking at how to adapt interventions and strategies to make sure they are appropriate and relevant for different populations. It also involves developing a workforce of staff and volunteers that's reflective of the communities served.

Thomas-Johnson had the opportunity to sit down with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., when she first came to ACS. She asked him how to get into the Black community and help people really understand the importance of cancer screenings. His question to her was: Who can say it to them? Who should the messenger be?

“One of the things we know is that when you use leaders from within the community, respected individuals, trusted messengers, the message is delivered and received in a way that’s very different than when it’s delivered by someone from outside of the community,” Thomas-Johnson said. She pointed out a shining example: ACS recently trained 2000 members of the Lynx Incorporated, a national African-American professional women’s organization, to serve as community health workers. These women at the height of their profession, who are dedicated to community service, are trusted and respected in communities that ACS typically wouldn't have access to. As a result, they can go into these communities to deliver ACS messaging around prevention and early detection of cancer.

Overcoming mistrust is just one piece of the puzzle. The other piece, according to Thomas-Johnson, is around provider education. “Our providers have to do better,” she said. “We've got to educate our clinicians; they’ve got to understand the populations that they're serving. We have to help them be more culturally competent, more sympathetic and empathetic and sensitive to the needs of people from different backgrounds. So, there's a lot that has to happen both at the clinical level with providers, but then also at the community level where you're trying to engender trust.”

Whitney asked about the problem of diversifying clinical trials. “The clinical trials piece is about education, both with the community and with the providers,” said Thomas-Johnson. “But it’s also about workforce. The more diverse researchers we have, the more we have a workforce that reflects the population that we’re trying to engage in clinical trials.” ACS has donated about $20 million in grants to medical schools at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and the organization is also placing HBCU interns at the college level in ACS-supported labs across the country.

Thomas-Johnson concluded her conversation with Whitney by saying there are many barriers for marginalized communities in getting cancer care and treatment, including access to healthcare in their neighborhoods and transportation to treatment centers in other parts of town. “We're fortunate at the American Cancer Society that we're working in partnership with wonderful organizations,” she said. “We’re also addressing some of the barriers through the policy work that we do with our ACS Cancer Action Network, which is the legislative arm of the American Cancer Society.”–By Jennifer Haupt

A Road Map to Creating a More Diverse Future of Work

The world of HR is broad: people-and-culture professionals are responsible not just for hiring and firing, but employee engagement, employer brand management, learning and development, coaching, and especially now, retention.

In a Thought Leadership Spotlight at the conference, Zack Nunn, the director of diversity, inclusion and social impact for Momentive (formerly SurveyMonkey), talked about some of the key methods for ensuring success of another of HR responsibility: DEI.

It is a relatively new area for HR to venture into, he said, but one that is bringing increasing pressure to bear. It is coming not just from internal stakeholders like employees and potential employees, but also government regulators. Efforts in this area will have to be more transparent, and pledges will need to be shown to be more than words. People are also willing to go public when the words don’t match actions. “As you think about the workplace today, diversity and inclusion are the future of your workforce and culture,” Nunn said.

Nunn said there are some key elements of HR work, each of which can be instrumental in the success of a DEI program. “What is your talent acquisition plan?” he asked. “How do you differentiate it at different levels–for the entry-level talent, your junior executive, your C-suite level? The strategies will be different, but they need to be cohesive. You need to engage historically excluded groups in each aspect of your talent acquisition strategy.”

Job descriptions and messaging also need to be inclusive of a diverse talent pool. “Your messaging on your company website has to be clear so that people know what you s