TiER1 Performance This article originally appeared in The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue of Performance Matters Magazine. To request a print or digital copy of the magazine, click here.
An organization’s employee well-being or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts may garner reactions such as fear of alienation or saying the wrong thing. Despite those mindsets DE&I work matters deeply. According to research by Catalyst, only 31% of employees report “often” or “always” experiencing inclusive team norms at work—and marginalized groups experience even less. Yet, a survey by Survey Monkey found that 78% of employees say it’s important to work for an organization that prioritizes DE&I.
Being intentional about DE&I and caring for employee well-being are critical to someone’s ability to thrive. Yet there are misconceptions that these efforts are separate initiatives; or, that it’s complex or time-consuming and will add weight to everyday workloads. There may also be perceptions about the organization’s approach to DE&I and employee well-being; as reported by Lever, nearly half of employees who took required diversity training said that it felt like a checkbox on their company’s diversity goals.
This is why it’s important to incorporate both DE&I and well-being within ways of working. By providing accessible, realistic, and tangible ways to integrate both, leaders can elevate their real-time decision making and daily routines with increased empathy and listening. Keep reading to learn how organizational leaders at already embedding simple techniques for themselves and their teams to positively impact culture, employee experience, and DE&I goals.
As a high-performing organization, ESPN has ongoing goals to cultivate a sense of belonging and nourish well-being across their “always on” culture. They envisioned a conversational approach that would equip leaders to deepen their knowledge, create new habits, coach teams, and drive accountability. TiER1 partnered with ESPN to design and develop a leadership coaching series that repurposed their existing well-being and D&I framework so that they could successfully embed ideal practices into everyday ways of working. These actions included:
As you can see, these are not “separate” or “additions” to everyday workloads, but integral to leadership practices.
Here are practices to consider for incorporating DE&I and well-being into your organizational ways of working:
When it comes to impacting others, how we work is just as important as the work we do. The ongoing practices of acknowledging bias, mindful behavior, emotional intelligence, inclusive conversations, and willingness to examine team dynamics can seamlessly be incorporated within our everyday interactions. It takes curiosity and empathy. Organizational leaders already are applying these simple techniques to create new habits and ways of working for themselves and their teams positively impacting culture, employee experience, and DE&I goals.
This article originally appeared in The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue of Performance Matters Magazine. To request a print or digital copy of the magazine, click here.