SparkNotes: Bringing Diversity & Inclusivity into the Workplace
This piece was originally written in April 2018 and published on Desk Lunch Issue 12 on May 9, 2018.
While recent popular news may have you believing otherwise, diversity and inclusivity in the workplace are not new problems or issues. The existence of widespread sexual harassment on the job has never been much of a secret. Women have been calling for “equal pay for equal work” since the 1800s. In the mid 1900s people like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn were arguing for “the right to work, to training, upgrading, and equal seniority; safeguards for health and safety; adequate child care facilities” for all workers.
While we may recognize that equality, equity, and inclusion are human rights, the law does not, and does not consistently. Many laws are obsolete, outdated, and contradictory; legislative decisions tend to reinforce and empower oppressive systems and institutions. Employee labor laws vary by country and state. In the United States, federal laws establish minimum baselines, but most of the day-to-day impact on your earnings, work life, and well-being depend on which state you live in. Successful Diversity & Inclusivity means creating a new, far-reaching definitions of acceptable and unacceptable behavior and putting into action comprehensive corresponding policies that go beyond the law.
D&I should not be a tactical move. It is not a fad. It is certainly not cause marketing or a PR move– although this seems to be a common misconception. It is a force of intelligence against ignorance. It is proactive. It provides shelter and space to grow. And it holds people accountable.
Oppression isn’t a neutral issue, and a noncommittal posture constitutes an acquiescence to oppression. It’s only from a place of privilege that people and companies can de-prioritize diversity and inclusivity. And real D&I means equality and equity for everyone; not just women, not just White women. Everyone.
Good workplace D&I has a lot of moving pieces. Today I’ll be focussing on seeking knowledge, diversifying your resources, and sharing insights.
Seek knowledge
You’re (presumably) interested in the topic of Diversity and Inclusivity for a reason– start there. Find your fire, get yourself hyped.
Problems cannot be solved without context, and thus you can’t ignore the specifics of historical, social, and ideological forces and structures that contribute and perpetuate oppression and discrimination when tackling problems of diversity and inclusivity. To be truly inclusive, you need to go beyond workplace D&I how-to manuals and McKinsey’s diversity reports on how diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams (which is not new information).
Everyone is biased; open your eyes to your own biases. Recognize that overcoming unconscious and conscious bias requires real effort.
Most importantly, don’t take anything for granted. Ask questions about everything and start to think critically. What do you think you know, and how do you think you know it? How accurately do we perceive ourselves and others? What reasoning do we employ to support our preferred world-views? What is the impact of not being valued?
Diversify your resources
When I first started Versett’s D&I initiative, finding knowledge and resources felt a little like carving a path through a jungle. What I’ve come to realize it’s that it’s a lot more like finding the jungle path that already exists; and beyond that, a path that’s going the right way and leads to other paths. Since “diversity” and associated words and phrases such as “unconscious bias” are now popular industry buzzwords, finding the right path can be tricky if you’re starting with a Google search. So how can you know if you’ve found a good, pre-paved path? And how can you know if it’s a path others will easily follow?
My general rule of thumb is that resources need to be diverse and they need to be useful.
When evaluating your resources for diversity and intersectionality, ask: Are your resources primarily written by White people? Are they primarily written by men/women/people who only identify on the gender binary? Are they written primarily by people or publications that are conservative/liberal? Are you only reading from and seeking out resources and knowledge that reinforces your own world-view? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, you may want to re-evaluate your sources.
When evaluating your resources for usefulness, ask: Are your resources valid and relevant? Are they written by someone who is an expert on this topic? Are they peer reviewed? Are they research backed? If so, is the research they are using or referencing useful? Is the data being interpreted in an unbiased and objective way? If the answer is no, you may want to re-evaluate your sources.
For starting out, Project include is a really great resource and one that I usually recommend. It’s a highly accessible, well designed introduction into D&I vocabulary, challenges, and suggested actions. I do think it’s important to note that overall I don’t find the sources Project Include cites to be very useful (or even well cited or paraphrased at times); the site also strikes me as under-cited since most of what they are publishing is not new information.
This month I read “Women, Race, & Class” by Angela Davis, “When They Call You a Terrorist” by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele, and “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow; the last of which I ironically (though unsurprisingly) found to be hetero- and White- normative. Next on my list are “Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment” by James I. Charlton and “Trans Bodies, Trans Selves” by Laura Erickson-Schroth.
Share insights
The are a lot of small, subtle opportunities to educate people outside of company meetings and diversity workshops. For me, this realization came when designing our benchmark survey. We found many existing surveys lacking especially pertaining to subjects of gender, race, ethnicity, and disability. In designing our own survey, we were able to make the questions and answers more inclusive as well as provide education. Most surveys and forms normalize cisgender individuals, who will normally not think twice before answering a question pertaining to gender. In inquiring about gender, our survey says:
“Cisgender means “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex”. Transgender means “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex”. What gender do you identify as?”
Answers include cisgender man, cisgender woman, transgender man, transgender woman, genderqueer/gender non-conforming, prefer to self describe, and prefer not to answer. By including the definition of cisgender in the question, it allowed us to denormalize cisgender identified individuals (many surveys ask if you are a “woman” or a “transgender woman”, implying that “woman” means “cisgender woman”) and begin a conversation about gender. We took this same approach with the other questions in the survey, receiving a lot of positive feedback from the team, as well as questions from individuals curious to learn more.
As a D&I lead, information, knowledge, and education is top of mind for me. I just ran Versett’s first D&I workshop- check out the resources here. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, feel free to reach out.
✌️ Versett is a product design and engineering studio. If you like this post, you’d love working with us. See where you’d fit in at https://versett.com/
