“Inclusivity means not ‘just we’re allowed to be there,’ but we are valued.” – Claudia Brind-Woody. Promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a key part of building an inclusive, safe work environment. As a business leader, it’s important to be mindful of the various ways you can create this type of environment for your employees and customers. One company that is leading the charge in this endeavor is Slack. Slack is a freemium instant messaging cloud based company that is taking multiple initiatives to boost and promote diversity and inclusion within their organization, but how are they actually doing it is the question?
How Slack is Promoting Diversity and Inclusion Within Their Company
At its core, there is the Diversity Engagement and Belonging (DEB) program, which works towards developing an inclusive community centered on education, introspection opportunities and growth for its employees. Apart from the DEB initiative, Glassdoor highlights that Slack also has the Rising Tides program, which is a six-month sponsorship program aimed at providing support for talented individuals who may have historically lacked access to training or resources. They also have created Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that are designed to promote and celebrate groups of people that have similar characteristics or life experiences within the company to share knowledge and ideas and act as advocates for each other whenever needed. Furthermore, among many successful initiatives promoted by Slack is the Next Chapter apprenticeship program alongside the Last Mile initiative, which is focused on hiring formerly incarcerated citizens –directing them into engineering teams within Slack itself.
Tips To Promote Diversity and Inclusion
A great way to help foster greater understanding between employees from different backgrounds is to pair them up with a buddy system. Business.com highlights that assigning each new hire someone to hang out with during lunch or attend meetings together encourages meaningful connections that span cultural boundaries. This will also prove beneficial in terms of onboarding efficiency. Drawing upon employee’s variety of cultures, religions, gender preferences and races can be utilized by companies to their advantage when brainstorming innovative ideas or looking into creative solutions. For example, Hummii (a chickpea ice cream startup) uses its team’s varied experiences across cultures, which helps inspire unique flavors for the product line, thus adding value.
Ensure that everyone has access to resources such as senior management decisions, team leaders support, or training opportunities. Team Building explains that doing so will make all employees feel appreciated for their roles within the company and give them a sense of belonging. Be sure to regularly check pay gaps between diverse groups of people and provide fair wage structures across positions within the organization; doing so will create trust among staff members working at different levels within the company while helping improve morale overall. Building an inclusive workplace is not possible without preventing sexual harassment in the first place; part of that prevention plan could include proactively seeking help from a sexual harassment law firm to provide procedures that ensure everyone’s rights are protected. By doing so, you’re demonstrating a company-wide commitment to avoid any potential pitfalls with regard to inappropriate conduct or behavior at any level within your organization.
Creating diversity and inclusion means considering how employees interact with each other on both personal and professional levels, especially when it comes to their different backgrounds, interests, abilities and experiences. Implementing these tips can help foster strong relationships amongst team members while increasing overall morale – making sure everyone feels safe, supported and most importantly valued for contributing to the company goals regardless of their differences.
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