Stacey Givens, founder of Givens Consulting Group, discussed how to keep organizational change management at the forefront of your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) journey.
- Be transparent about your strategy.
- Create a way to measure your progress and have clear KPIs in place.
- Go into this journey with an open mind.
HIGH PROFILE’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Lead with inclusion. Organizational change requires inclusive leadership. Leaders have to be inclusive. They create a welcoming culture and possess a strong sense of personal responsibility for change. Creating an inclusive environment takes time and energy and everyone needs to be involved.
- Use reverse mentoring – partner senior leaders with junior leaders.
- Offer quarterly speed networking – create opportunities for employees to provide feedback.
- Create an Identity Bingo game – highlight things about each employee that other people may not know.
- What does DE&I mean to you? Shared meaning leads to shared accountability. Diversity and inclusion is more than race – ability is important too. Only 4% of companies consider disability in their initiatives. (Harvard Business Review 2020) Engage employees with surveys and polls. Role models are important to win employee support. Recognize the influence of opinion leaders in your organization.
- Align behavior to actions. Employees need to see behaviors that demonstrate your organization’s commitment to the DE&I strategy.
- What happens to our employees after they join our organization?
- Lean into empathy. It’s ok to not be ok. Take time to check on your employees and encourage self- care.
- Commit to authenticity. Be honest in your recruiting efforts about what’s available in your organization.
- Address the “pink elephant”. Resist the fear of “saying the wrong thing” and encourage leaders to engage with employees when disruption occurs in the media.
- What about bias? Training, workshops, and programs reveal bias, they don’t resolve them.
- Encourage dialogue. Engage, listen, and respond.
- Create awareness: Implement policies, processes, and structures to prevent organizational biases from stifling diversity and inclusion.
- HR needs allies, too. Sometimes you need a fresh perspective on a career-altering situation. We all need a core team with whom we can be open and honest.
- Who is your trusted tribe? Who checks your biases?
- Do they offer differing perspectives, different approaches for you?
- Do they help coach you?
Stacey Givens, founder of Givens Consulting Group, is passionate about designing strategies to elevate and develop women of color as leaders in corporate spaces. Connect with her on LinkedIn and contact her at stacey@givensconsultinggroup.com to schedule a 30-minute consultation.