In declaring her preferred gender pronouns at the beginning of a recent From Day One panel discussion, Toni D’orsay, PhD, dispensed with the usual earnest format. She said her pronouns are Empress, Your Majesty, and Thank you, May I have Another?, “but I do settle for ‘she’ and ‘her’ for your comfort,” said D'orsay, the director of transgender services for Borrego Health, a health care network based in Southern California. Aside from being an ice-breaker, D’orsay’s approach emphasized that pronouns are not only a personal statement of identity, but a respectful gesture. “It's the simplest thing you can do to make everybody else understand who you are instead of making them decide who you are,” said D'orsay.

D’orsay made her comments in a recent From Day One webinar titled, “Toward a More Inclusive LGBTQ Outlook in Corporate America,” which looked at how the visibility of LGBTQ employees in the workplace rises during Pride Month in June, yet these workers are still often marginalized when it comes to advancement and career development. It’s a pattern than echoes Women’s History Month and Black History Month. “Everyone has a month in their honor. What you're doing in that month might be your focus. But you should ask yourself, what are you doing the [other] 11 months of the year?” said Yvette Miley, SVP of the NBCUniversal News Group. “What are you doing to make members of that community feel included, heard and seen not just with the parade, or just with cupcakes in the conference room?”

Inclusion runs on parallel tracks–individual, organizational, and societal–and manifests itself at the intersection of symptoms and systems. “We're good at addressing the symptoms; we do that every symbolic month. We're moving from performative into systemic efforts,” said Chad Nico Hiu, SVP for strategy, innovation and impact at the YMCA of San Francisco. Perhaps we should not be overly cynical about the one-month efforts–and ask what comes next. “Sometimes, maybe over-optimistically, we think about some of these performative declarations or statements–or changing your logo for the month of June–as a starting point, the baseline,” said Toby Hervey, CEO and co-founder of Bravely, an employee-coaching platform. “Maybe there are just a lot of organizations that are still in that Phase One.” How to make progress from there?

Focus on Behavior

“If we're honest, the progress of one month can be outweighed by the stall of 11 months,” said Natalie Edwards, chief diversity officer of the energy company National Grid, who adds that people have mostly come around to understanding why diversity matters, but inclusion is one step forward. “Inclusion is a behavior. There's a behavior change that still needs to occur. The system runs based on people's behavior.”

A solution, in her view, is more workshop-based learning, as opposed to the standard lecture system. “We train to change behavior, but the organization has to hold itself accountable,” said Hiu. “What gets measured matters. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training will illuminate what is the thing that we need to address. There are behaviors rooted in beliefs that are acceptable and others that are rooted in beliefs that are not.”

“In order to change those [behaviors], then you have to identify them,” said D'orsay, who singled out four As to be mindful of: Animus, Anxiety, Aversion, and Apathy. “When you combine them with power imbalances, in any kind of relationship, you automatically now begin to understand how you end up with situations such as trans people being murdered, such as the kind of violence that's being engaged against Asian and Black Americans, and the erasure of Indigenous populations,” D'orsay continued. “We're gonna have our little flag, but that's just pink-washing unless we can follow it up with some actual action, as far as I'm concerned.”

DEI training, by itself, often feels perfunctory. “People come from different levels of awareness,” said Bravely’s Hervey. “There's the reality of the forgetting curve. Without the repetitive touch and reinforcement, that touch gets lost.” At Bravely, educational opportunities start with a more traditional training session, which then moves to a group environment where colleagues can process what they’ve learned, and then progresses to more targeted sessions for people to individualize that experience, Hervey said.

Be Mindful of Intersectionality

Edwards singled out an industry-wide issue she described as the “oppression Olympics,” which she described as a kind of competition among marginalized groups. “There's a lot of still sentiment about, What about us? What about me? Why are they getting all the focus right now?” she said. “We have to be honest about how everyone fits into more than one category.”

In this regard, D'orsay brought up the concept of the axis of privilege and oppression. “When you have an axis, you have to have a point on each end. A lot of people don't understand that the two points on each end are stigma and privilege. You cannot talk about one without having to talk about the other,” she said, acknowledging that “when we talk about intersectionality, we tend to confuse them when we're doing the training.” Especially given that individuals can have many layers of identity.

The overlapping categories can create a daunting complexity, especially in moving from concept to action. “I don't know how to fix it. I can't tell you right now,” said Edwards. “But I'm excited for us all to figure that out together as large organizations and even community organizations. How do we make sure that our causes for quality are not in competition with one another, because at the end of the day, you know, divided we fall,” said Edwards.

Be More Accepting of Discomfort

“Comfort is the norm, the standard, the baseline. If you want to be comfortable, it means you want things to not change,” said D'orsay. “I don't feel comfortable anywhere, I don' t trust cisgender people. I don't trust you. If you want to make me feel more comfortable, start feeling uncomfortable. Meet me where I am.”

On that note, it needs to be emphasized that disagreement does not mean disrespect. “We tend to conflate those two things. Discomfort is equated with anger, disrespect. I am uncomfortable on a rollercoaster, but it did not cause me harm,” said Edwards. “Comfort and growth do not coexist. If you go to a training where you are not getting challenged, it means you are not learning anything.”

Be Honest About the Ideal of “Bring Your Whole Self to Work”

At the start of Yvette Miley's career, the concept of showing your full self at work was not a thing. “When you get in, fit in,” was the creed. “Entering the room, I was always trying to calibrate because I was always trying to make sure I didn't offend anyone, that I didn't come across as being the loud Black female, or the angry Black female,” said Miley. “I am from the South. There were no gay people in the South, so I could not be gay. I could not be gay, nor Black. I tried to be a professional, and at some point I thought I am never going to enter a room and not be Black/a woman/and gay. That comes with me. Wherever I go, those layers come with me.” So she came out at work before coming out at home. “I found people at work who didn't judge me, that allowed me to be my full authentic self.”

Yet this awareness has to come with honesty about what's possible. “Unfortunately, the aspirational goal sometimes doesn't work,” said Hiu. “There's nothing wrong in saying we hope to get there, but we're not there yet. I can come to work as a gay man, but there are layers of me I am not comfortable sharing.”

Edwards echoed Hiu's sentiment. “One of my professors said data can tell the truth but not be honest,” she said. “We have to be very honest that the reality is not that you can bring your whole self. You can work towards it, but we like to look forward with rose-colored glasses. We have to keep it real for everyone. Do HR leaders know why LGBTQ people leave the company?"

Look Up Along the Hierarchy

In terms of setting goals, people with authority need to be held accountable. “If you have a diversity officer, in whatever title, the reason you hire them is to have that,” said D'orsay. “If you don't give them power, authority, and data, you hire them and ... why?”

“What are the CEO and business-unit leaders doing? Start with the top. People look up to replicate behavior,” Edwards said. “Then, once it's done, keep moving down. No matter how junior you are, you have to have a DEI performance goal. Culture is not what you say or write, it's what you reward. Look at who gets promoted and how they behave–positively or negatively.” Miley echoed this sentiment: “If you're training everyone, yet the person being phobic is getting the promotion, it's not as much as what you say, but what you do. That says more about your system.”

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Brooklyn.

Support the Change: Why Menopause Should Be Part of Your Women’s Health Strategy

Did you know that signs of perimenopause can start appearing in women of childbearing age? Many of us are lacking crucial knowledge that can help us or our women colleagues navigate this time in their lives.Offering solutions to improve and support needs specific to women can also be an important factor to retention. But a new survey reports that only 1% of US women have menopause support as part of their employee sponsored benefits. What’s more, according to a new survey, 85% of women said they don’t know enough about menopause, and 83% experiencing menopause report that their symptoms impact their ability to work.During a From Day One webinar, panelists shared how employers can better support women experiencing the change, and the impact it can have on productivity, medical spend and retention.Often, the concept of “women’s healthcare” ends with postpartum. But Dr. Leslie Saltzman, chief medical officer at Ovia Health, says health care support for women of all ages is vital. “It’s so important to support women who are experiencing perimenopause and menopause because the symptoms aren’t just a nuisance. Evolving evidence is showing that severe menopausal symptoms, which impact a great portion of our population, also have long term health effects and accelerate cardiovascular disease and impact brain health. They’re having lots of negative impact in terms of quality of life and performance at work. We see women dropping out of the workforce just because of the symptoms that they're having,” Dr. Saltzman said.Juliet Vestal, corporate vice president, total rewards at B. Braun, says 50% of their workforce is women. “As our workforce continues to age, these are issues that we know are not being supported within the community by providers. And so we need to find solutions to help,” she said.Even younger employees are starting to ask about these topics, despite perceived taboos, says Melanie Baxter, director of global well-being at Alorica. “As a collective we stop women’s health awareness at motherhood. Opening a space of easy dialogue about any health issues when we're in the workspace can create a much happier workforce, can create longevity and can increase retention. It’s also just the right thing to do,” Baxter said. “It’s a way to communicate with our employees that, ‘Hey, you matter to us.’”Lisa Hammond, CHRO at Veradigm, says that she is answering the relatively recent call from employees to address this issue by providing webinars on the topic. “For me right now, it’s thinking about, how do we articulate menopause to our leadership, which is largely male, and help them get context for this in a way that’s not overly clinical or overly emotional, so that they can gain an understanding and become allies with us as we move through this next phase of our benefits programs and our culture internally,” Hammond said.Breaking Barriers to Healthcare AccessThere are a few issues that make it hard for women to get accurate and helpful information about menopause, says Dr. Saltzman. She cites a study from the Women's Health Initiative that “has been widely criticized [and] created a lot of fear” around the standard of care for menopause.The panelists spoke about the importance of menopause support in the workplace (photo by From Day One)This includes hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which is again now generally considered to be effective, though the stigma remains. Doctors also primarily experience “hospital-based training” tied to birth, and are less prepared for the one-on-one intimate office conversations necessary to discuss menopause. And lastly, the current shortage of primary care physicians means “we don’t have enough providers who are trained to be able to support the needs of women who are experiencing these symptoms,” Saltzman said. And when they do find a provider who can help, Vestal added, “there’s a six to eight month waiting period to get in.”Another part of the problem is the stigma and discomfort associated with simply talking about menopause. “For so many years, menopause and the symptoms were seen as, “a part of life and you just need to get over it and deal with it,’” said moderator Alice Park, senior health correspondent at TIME. “Are we getting close to really treating it as a medical condition in the same way that we treat conditions that affect men?”The unfortunate answer: yes and no. “Anyone who has experienced these symptoms themselves knows that this is not a psychological thing, and this isn’t something to be solved by dressing in layers or using a fan at night. But I still think that there’s a huge gap and lack of appropriate research,” Saltzman said. “As long as this market continues to grow, [with] more and more data supporting how important it is to treat women, there will be more and more solutions.”That means employers can help move the cause forward simply by being willing to address it. “The less we talk about something, the less people are likely to research it. My simple advice is to talk about it,” Baxter said. Since employees may be ashamed to bring it up themselves, leaders need to be proactive in making the service available to employees first, so they feel comfortable coming forward.Providing the Appropriate SupportProviding inclusive healthcare support that addresses menopause can make a workforce happier and more productive. “By not addressing these issues, people are suffering in silence and people are missing work,” Vestal said. The more employees and leaders are educated about the topic, the more they will be empathetic in their responses and in providing adequate support and planning. Additionally, Hammond says, the information will even be helpful to male employees whose partners or family members may be experiencing symptoms.A single point solution may not work for most organizations. “The experience of menopause varies dramatically from individual to individual, even when it starts,” Dr. Saltzman said. For some, it starts in their 50s, but others in their 40s, even those trying to conceive may experience symptoms. Therefore, raising awareness in general is most helpful, as is making sure there is access to healthcare providers with the appropriate training, including telehealth for easy access.Bringing in speakers is also beneficial. But be wary, as there’s a lot of misinformation. “If you’re looking for those resources, if you’re looking on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, make sure this is a licensed physician,” Baxter said.Especially given recent political developments in the U.S., panelists agree women’s healthcare education is more crucial than ever. “It’s a perilous time,” Hammond said. “We want to do everything we can within our organization to support women in making sure that, no matter what political party we are, we’re all humans. We all have bodies. We all should be able to maintain and enjoy power over our own beings.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives

The skills required for success are constantly evolving and organizations are struggling to adapt without clear visibility of the strengths and skills gaps in their workforce. This uncertainty leaves talent management and employee development journeys to guesswork, resulting in lost opportunities and strategic missteps. Being armed with skills data and then acting on it is a key strategy to keeping employees happy, loyal, and developing.Organizations that utilize data about their talent's skills, or catalog and organize the skills workers currently possess, as well as identify the skills needed for future roles, are actively preparing their workforce to tackle new challenges as they arise. During a From Day One webinar, leaders discussed how talent skills data can transform your approach to talent management.As a first step, companies must identify which skills are the most relevant to their business’ present and future, the panelists shared. This decision should not be made just by HR, senior leaders, and stakeholders, but by employees at other levels too, says Marquisa Nash, Head of HR, performance materials at BASF. “[There might be a gap between] what leadership thinks is important and what people think is important,” Nash said.Tomislav Vujec, director of learning at Red Hat, says it’s easier for HR to get a buy-in from business leaders when discussing employee skills as opposed to competencies. “We get to be closer to their problems and we open a door to validate what we can actually do, which is develop a skill. As opposed to risking too much by promising a business change, which often does not only depend on the skill being developed, but other factors,” he said.The rapid changes brought about by the pandemic also emphasized the need to focus on skill-building, says Didem Onem, Head of TA operations and programs at Eaton Corporation. “That made us look at our talent and skills availability and ask ‘where are we headed – and are we ready for that?’ It meant bringing a new type of talent into the organization,” she said. For Eaton, this meant an initiative for upskilling in digitization techniques so that employees would be more prepared for a digital way of doing business. Her team mapped out the new skills plan based on manager feedback, honest self-assessments, and forecasted what would be needed down the line.Those self-assessments, though, can be tricky. “Oftentimes people are not terribly good at assessing their own levels of facility with certain things,” said moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor for growth and engagement at Fast Company. “Is there a way to make sure that what people are reporting is actually where they are?”The panel of industry leaders spoke about "How to Use Skills Data to Power Development and Achieve Business Objectives" in a session moderated by Lydia Dishman of Fast CompanyLarger companies, especially, must work hard to not lose track of each individual’s growth. “With 600,000 employees all around the globe, it’s hard to know who can do what and what they are good at,” said Abbe Partee, VP, head of global certified learning at DHL. So DHL created a Career Marketplace, which integrates both its learning and performance system. It includes an individual’s skills data not just from self-assessment but also manager feedback, succession planning meetings, and the combined skill profiles of their current and previous roles.“We want to build a culture of learning and continuous education,” Vujec said. That begins at onboarding and continues throughout an employee’s entire career journey, regardless of their level. It’s also important to recognize, he says, that “the foundational skills of today might not be the foundational skills of tomorrow.” In turn, the onboarding itself should serve as a mindset shift to prepare employees for continuous learning, rather than the expectation that development will stop after a few months on the job.Skills data should be something that is embraced by employees. “We know employees want to grow with the organization, and skills is a great conversation to get that going,” said Lucy Beaumont, solution lead, manager and leader at SHL. The biggest shift she is seeing is that the skills conversation during reviews is less about how employees are succeeding in their current roles, but rather where they want to go in the future. “What is your skills potential, and therefore, what is the right career path for you where can you lean into those strengths? If you do have those gaps, and they're relevant to the job you're doing or the job you want to do, how can we get around that and support that?” she said.Post-pandemic, individuals are more acutely focused on whether they are happy in their current position, so it’s important for employers to facilitate those conversations early and help workers move and grow internally, rather than externally, to boost retention.Beaumont says organizations should not only be measuring skills as they stand, but also tracking how those skills gaps are then bridged over time. While pulse surveys are helpful, they can sometimes have a tough time measuring soft skills, such as leadership. Therefore, the hard data must then be analyzed with a human approach. “We do take broad strokes, but then that aggregate view allows us to prioritize and see what it’s hinting at,” Vujec said. HR can allow the data trends to drive what areas will require a deeper, more complex dive.Nash notes this “human skills” area is, ironically, where emerging technology can be the most useful during employee surveys. “We use AI to go back into the comments to extrapolate, to see what other additional data points we can obtain to understand what skills employees are looking for,” Nash said. Then those themes are linked back to the organization’s business strategy and core values.What skills do the panelists see as most valuable going forward? All of them are tied to transformation. They include data analytics, to boost agility in reacting to needs; digitization, to make business more efficient; a digital mindset when it comes to problem solving; and an overall change in agility. And lastly, the skill of learning itself is vital. “Re-skilling potential: what does it take to be willing and able to learn new skills,” Beaumont shared, is integral in today’s rapidly evolving workforce.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Innovative and Engaging Approaches for Leadership Development

“The war for talent is over, and talent won.”This was a quote that resonated with Miguel Oliveira, senior HR director supporting the brand management and marketing teams at Danone North America, he said during a recent From Day One webinar.Leaders are now being evaluated “not only on the results they bring to the business, but on results from engagement, well-being, and retention,” he told moderator Lydia Dishman during a From Day One webinar about supporting tomorrow’s leaders.Amanda Grow, director of customer success for ETU, says the company has leadership training programs centered on skills related to values such as authenticity and courage, emotional intelligence, and psychological safety.“I always want to see inclusive and emotionally intelligent leaders, because that really does have a major impact on every organization and your culture and what you're trying to instill in your employees,” said Grow.Things have changed tremendously in the workforce in recent years, which impacts what leadership looks like, says Johann Laville, the chief learning officer at Merck.Remote work is becoming more commonplace, the workforce is younger and more diverse, and “technology is driving our future at light speed,” he said. As a result, leaders are listening more and focusing more on leading with humility, he says.Tips for Training Future LeadersEarly talent programs are a way companies can develop future leaders, says Minh Pham-Costello, vice president of business management at Santander. Employees can get an endorsement from their manager when applying.It’s crucial to make sure the employee is committed to the program “because sometimes you push programs to people and they either don’t have the capacity or the desire,” Pham-Costello said. It is also important to have programs that cater to senior leaders’ professional development needs.Programs for future leaders shouldn’t be one size fits all, according to Grow.“It’s great to have a global skill set that we’re trying to adhere to, but we also need to dig down and go to the level deeper and really understand how those skills show up at different role levels, different proficiency levels, and more, so that you really can personalize some of the training,” said Grow. For example, a senior leader who takes a junior-level course probably won’t find it engaging.The panel of leaders spoke about "Supporting Tomorrow's Leaders: Innovative and Engaging Approaches for Leadership Development" (photo by From Day One)Oliveira compared leadership training to trying to teach someone how to ride a bike. You can have trainees watch a movie on how to do it or “put them on a bike and have someone hold the bike to let them understand how it works,” he said.When exposing employees with leadership potential to management fundamentals, “It’s really important to create ways and mechanisms to give them visibility to what it looks like without the responsibility of leading someone directly,” Oliveira said. “I still see today many people stepping into their first managerial leadership opportunity and they still lack those fundamentals, and unfortunately, those suffering are those reporting to the individual.”How Employees Can Demonstrate Leadership SkillsAlthough organizations are investing in leadership development more than ever before, individuals still need to take the initial steps toward getting to the next level, says Pham-Costello.“Of course, other people can help you, but when you take the initiative with your career, you are not only developing your skill but also showing the organization that you are committed to the company and to your growth,” she said.Business resource groups (BRG) are essential when it comes to leadership development, says Pham-Costello. A BRG “gives you that visibility. People see you leading and influencing.”Laville said Merck has a true gig economy. This means if an employee wants to demonstrate their capability of being an effective leader and there’s something they are passionate about – whether it’s a topic, division, or product – they can apply internally, be interviewed, and be selected.That employee would then have support from the leader who releases them into the gig and the leader who would accept them “to come in and provide a new value,” Laville said.Seeking mentorship is another way for those who wish to be leaders to get to that level. Mentors are “subject matter experts that you can have some really open conversations with to help guide you on that path,” he said.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, ETU, for sponsoring this webinar.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

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