How to Build a Resilient, Inclusive Organization
BY Joyce Flory November 20, 2022Building a sustainable culture of inclusion calls for integrating culturally competent mindsets with optimized, inclusive HR systems. The result: An enhanced workplace experience and more equitable employee outcomes, says Chuck Adams, CEO and managing principal of Language and Culture Worldwide (LCW), which advises employers on building inclusive organizations. Many companies aspire to be best in class or the employer of record, but fail to embrace the synergy between mindset and systems. The result, says Adams, is inconsistent, irregular talent-management outcomes. Adams presented a Thought Leadership Spotlight about “Building Resilient, Inclusive Organizations” during From Day One’s Chicago conference earlier this year. His model for a sustainably inclusive organization integrates the mindset development of leaders, managers, and frontline contributors with mature systems of tools, processes, policies, and technologies to support the talent-management agenda. Mindsets evolve from emerging to developing to proficient, said Adams. Emerging mindsets generate instability and exclusion because leaders may minimize or pin negative labels on cultural differences. Developing mindsets generate vulnerability and inconsistency but slowly become more functional. Nevertheless, leaders at this stage still tend to perceive cultural differences as obstacles rather than opportunities. Proficient mindsets move from vulnerability and aspirational status to become more functional, stable, robust, and resilient. Leaders acknowledge and leverage cultural differences to drive performance, while employees experience feelings of safety, belonging, and engagement. Organizations should be eager to move toward a position of resilience where optimized systems meet proficient mindsets. “An organization’s legacy of inclusion, skill-building, cross-cultural competence, and system optimization will help it weather disruptions in leadership, markets, and process,” said Adams. Systems must complement mindsets. Organizations need policies, processes, tools, and technologies that minimize bias and value cultural differences. Systems should guide every stage of talent management, from talent identification, recruitment, and hiring, to talent development, inclusion, and promotion. “Only then does an organization know it can hire, promote, and retain diverse, high-performing talent,” Adams said. Like mindsets, systems reside on a continuum from unstructured to highly defined. Organizations often confuse system “islands of excellence” with systems that permeate every phase of talent management. “Systems must be well-known and understood, applied consistently, and optimized,” said Adams. “They need to be pressure tested, updated, and incrementally improved.” LCW’s work brought Boston Scientific, a multinational, biotech engineering and manufacturing firm, to a position of enhanced engagement, innovation, and high performance, he said. The company won the 2022 Catalyst Award, which honors diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that drive representation and inclusion for women. Adams outlined steps in a seven-year process of “dedicated and intentional work” and “programmatic change”: Roadmap: Develop a roadmap for where an organization hopes to go on DEI and sustainable inclusion. Bias Training: Deliver tools and training on unconscious bias. Inventories: Tap into tools like the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to assess capacity for managing cultural differences. Learning: Invest in cross-cultural inquiry and learning. Ask HR leaders and DEI team members to explore scenarios and case studies with the goal of sharing why they see the world differently. Survey: Conduct an engagement survey to surface perceptions of workplace opportunity, including the disconnect between employee experience and leaders’ perceptions. Audit: Implement a talent audit to build out metrics that enhance talent management systems. For instance, Boston Scientific created a 10, 20, 40 campaign that focused on becoming a top-ten inclusive workplace, with 20% of management from diverse groups and 40% of management and leadership roles filled by women. Systems: Reimagine talent systems, including talent acquisition, talent development, promotions, and talent review. “Interrogate and test systems to ensure bias was mitigated or eliminated,” said Adams. Mindset Revisited: Be willing to revisit mindset. “Well-intentioned people who lack cultural competence may try to get around the systems,” said Adams. Bootcamps: Expand training. Boston Scientific conducted boot camps on building a culture of inclusion and managing talent acquisition so recruiters could recognize the roots of their bias. Reinforcements: Push out content that reinforces DEI messages via e-learning, guides, and toolkits in a variety of languages. Goal-Setting: Revisit DEI campaign goals. For example, Boston Scientific raised the bar on becoming an employer of choice, recruiting diverse employees, and bringing women into management and leadership roles. “Policies are no substitute for lived experience,” said Adams. “Attention to mindset will prime managers and leaders to accept the cultural realities and truths of the workplace.” But avoid examining mindset on its own, he said. “As you develop insights on mindset, examine the systems that will move the organization to a position of resilience,” Adams said. “If you work on mindset alone, managers and leaders may engage in disruption and refuse to see the bias.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Language and Culture Worldwide, who sponsored this thought leadership spotlight. Joyce Flory, PhD, is a Chicago-based freelance writer with decades of experiences in public relations, marketing, and thought leadership with a focus on the health care industry.
The Workforce Is Aging. How Employers Can Respond by Supporting Older Employees
BY Joyce Flory November 20, 2022Demographic trends, including an aging population, migration, immigration, and population growth will reshape the workplace and the nature of work, asserts Vijay Swaminathan, co-founder and CEO of Draup, a sales and talent intelligence solutions provider. The average age of the world’s population is on the rise. People aged 65 and older represented 16% of the population in 2018 and will grow to nearly 22% of the population by 2030. The 85-and-older population will double, to 14.4 million, by 2040. Making the transition to new work environments requires employers to embrace the realities of age and an aging workforce. Organizations can leverage the advantages of an aging workforce, a remote and hybrid workplace, and an emerging metaverse where workers will visualize and solve problems in 3-D independent of hardware and space restrictions. Swaminathan addressed the growing importance of older workers during a Thought Leadership Spotlight about “The Impact of the Aging Working Population and What HR Should Do About It” at From Day One's Chicago conference earlier this year. Age is a vital but often neglected component of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The parameters of DEI must expand beyond ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion to embrace age and aging. “Organizations must look beyond a number or age range to an individual’s knowledge, skills, experience, and emotional intelligence,” said Swaminathan. Acknowledge Under-the-Radar Strengths of Older Workers While organizations typically pursue millennials and members of Gen Z as future workers, factors like empathy usually increase with age–particularly after age 40. Older workers are also more adept at problem-solving, according to 59% of employers in a survey. They’re more reliable, less vulnerable to turnover, and make better business decisions within diverse teams, Swaminathan said. Older Workers Have Jumped on the Tech Bandwagon The tech gap between the oldest and youngest adults has narrowed in the last decade. Social media use by Americans 65 and older has grown fourfold since 2010, and YouTube has gained traction among older adults. But technology acceptance doesn’t necessarily reflect proficiency. Just 24% of people in a recent survey report being involved in digital-skills training, Swaminathan said. While 17% consider themselves advanced in digital skills, 49% see themselves as beginners. The takeaway, says Swaminathan, is that every age group may need advanced workplace digital-skills training or reskilling. His Recommended Action Steps Employers have the power to identify, recruit, hire, develop and retain older workers. Swaminathan offered the following specific recommendations: Offer flexible work arrangements. Employers can employ retirees to complete short-term projects, offer full-time employees part-time hours for several years, or allow semi-retired individuals to work part-time jobs. Stay in close touch with retirees. Older adults could become boomerang employees who return to the workforce in digitally-enabled roles. Employers should prepare to offer digital skills updates and reskilling. Re-imagine job descriptions. Avoid jargon and tech-speak that might deter older workers from applying for available positions. Older adults may not understand terms like digitization, datafication, metaverse, RAM, or VPN, even though they may be capable of performing the work required of the role. Re-examine digital workload. Evaluate how automation, process re-engineering, and digital innovation could accelerate digital transformation and ease the workloads of older workers. Avoid viewing the aging population as a monolith. While some older adults are inching toward retirement, others may have retired, downshifted, or changed careers. Still, others may be newly minted entrepreneurs or gig workers who seek fresh opportunities. The bottom line: Older workers are skilled and experienced. They tend to have a strong work ethic and stay in jobs longer than their younger counterparts. They maintain an organization’s knowledge and networks and play a critical role in training the next generation. They offer customers and clients consistency, empathy, and attention, and confirm that top-performing teams are often multigenerational. “Organizations should recruit and hire older workers because they deliver experience, reliability, and confidence,” said Swaminathan. “Having a diverse workforce and a welcoming work environment reflects positively on any brand.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Draup, who sponsored this thought leadership spotlight. Joyce Flory, PhD, is a Chicago-based freelance writer with decades of experiences in public relations, marketing, and thought leadership with a focus on the health care industry.
How Sustainability Became Everyone’s Concern: the Allstate Experience
BY Joyce Flory October 25, 2022Sustainability is everyone’s job. Stakeholders, including employees, customers, partners, and investors, demand that organizations show commitment and progress on environmental, social, and governance issues, or ESG. Tara Leweling, VP of stakeholder engagement and sustainability and chair of the sustainability council at Allstate Insurance, joined Karen Weigert, director of the Baumhart Center for Social Enterprise & Responsibility at Loyola University Chicago, to explore sustainability as a strategic imperative at From Day One’s conference in Chicago.. Allstate’s commitment to sustainability is longstanding. In May 2021, it published its 19th sustainability report, sharing results on climate change, inclusive diversity and equity, culture, and pandemic response. Allstate takes a broad view of sustainability, incorporating environmental and social issues into programs involving employees, suppliers, investors, customers, and partners. A robust corporate governance process ensures transparency and integration with stakeholder needs. Allstate’s sustainability council leads the way. Forty senior executives serve as ESG ambassadors and work on ESG issues across the company’s many business units. Said Leweling: “Our chief legal officer spearheads the council, allowing Allstate to elevate and push sustainability forward as a team.” Why the Emphasis on Sustainability? Allstate’s sustainability initiative meshes with stakeholders’ growing demands for action. Investors want details and action plans on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), while consumers and employees prioritize sustainability and climate-change action. Leweling shares a compelling statistic: 70% Millennials say they prefer to work in an organization with a robust sustainability agenda, according to survey reported in Fast Company. Three-quarters express a willingness to accept lower salaries to work with environmentally responsible organizations. The takeaway: Younger employees are eager to influence ESG and sustainability results. Organizations committed to worker recruitment and retention must follow suit. Climate Change Calculations Environment and climate change surface in Allstate’s drive to protect consumers from weather-related incidents and disasters. A record number of billion-dollar disasters struck the U.S. in 2020 as the nation saw the fifth-warmest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The pain persisted. In 2021, the U.S. experienced 20 different billion-dollar weather and climate-related disasters, surpassing the record 22 disasters of 2020, Leweling said. “Disasters affect the way Allstate thinks about climate change and the impact of freezes, flooding, wildfires, and heat waves in an increasingly perilous environment,” she said. Allstate examines historical and future data to make pricing decisions while offering consumers greater control over how they influence the environment and how much they pay for insurance. Said Leweling: “Helping consumers control their carbon footprint, including how many miles they drive, could lead them to make different choices.” Allstate’s strategy to protect consumers has generated a re-examination of financial security. Forty percent of consumers have less than $400 in emergency savings, according to a Federal Reserve report. Said Leweling: We need to think of what we can do to make a dent in that $400, deliver more competitive pricing, and lift and change the difficult circumstances faced by consumers.” Allstate also championed consumer control and DEI when it tapped four minority-owned firms to complete a bond offering for an acquisition. “The initiative changed the way companies view bond offerings,” said Leweling. “The conversation shifts when you position a national brand like Allstate behind minority-owned firms.” Sustainability Anchors Allstate’s sustainability initiative is anchored in its shared purpose, three core values, four operating standards, and four behaviors. “Our purpose and values help us reflect on how to operationalize inclusive diversity and equity,” said Leweling. “People should be able to put their full identities into work and have the space to share their work experience.” And what of the future? Leweling predicts that Allstate will continue to reach out to stakeholders, identifying expectations that drive strategic decisions. “ESG is now engrained in Allstate’s business strategy,” said Leweling. “It drives decisions on products, services, and policies. ESG is at the center of what we do.” Joyce Flory, PhD, is a Chicago-based freelance writer with decades of experiences in public relations, marketing, and thought leadership with a focus on the health care industry.