Inclusive cultures and internal comms
We all want to work in an organisation where we feel a sense of belonging, where we can bring our whole self to work. The relevance of diversity and inclusion in all of our organisations has become particularly relevant over the last few years. That’s not just from a perspective of gender or ethnicity, but in all of its forms where we are looking to help our employees to feel more included and more able to bring their full self to work. So what we wanted to do in the podcast was to explore how we can help to build inclusive cultures within our organisations. There are a lot of initiatives going on at the moment where we have diversity and inclusion or D&I or DEI initiatives going on within businesses or within our organisations.
What we wanted to do was to really dig behind what actually drives an inclusive culture within our organisations. So one of the dangers is that there’s a one size fits all mentality or approach to D&I and this causes challenges. What we’re going to find out in today’s interview is that actually, there are four stages of what we call psychological safety, which is a key component of feeling a sense of belonging and feeling that you are part of an organisation. Those four stages are inclusion, learning, contribution and challenge. So we’re going to explore those today with our interviewee, who is an expert in D&I, and he is going to explain to us how those different levels look and feel.
In fact, many organisations don’t get as far, or any further, than the first level, which is inclusion. But our interviewee is going to explain to us the importance of those second, third and fourth stages of learning, contribute and challenge, and how they play into us actually having a fully diverse and inclusive culture within our organisations. Finally, we’re going to link that to the role of internal communicators as leaders of those of us who are responsible for employee engagement and organisational development within our organisations. What can we do to help to drive that inclusive culture? What about our work and how to influence within the organisation?
Guest profile
Arthur Woods is a social entrepreneur and LGBTQ+ and neurodiversity advocate, working at the intersection of equity, inclusion, and technology. He is the author of the national best-selling book, “Hiring for Diversity”; he is a global keynote speaker, having delivered 3 TEDx talks; and has contributed to Harvard Business Review, FastCompany and Forbes. Arthur is also the Co-Founder of Mathison, a venture-backed technology platform equipping employers with everything they need to manage their diversity hiring, analytics and training.
Useful links
Link to relevant episode of the podcast: https://thebigpicturepeople.co.uk/blog/podcast/diversity-communication-strategy/
Arthur’s LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/arthurwoods
Websites
- mathison.io (Mathison)
- arthurwwoods.com (Keynotes)
Twitter: ArthurWoods