Most diversity and inclusion programmes don’t work. While companies may have training for D&I in place, most focus solely on unconscious bias or cultural awareness. It also tends to be mandatory, face-to-face, and one-off, all of which can be problematic. There are even studies that show this can trigger backlash.

Culture is a combination of shared values AND shared behaviours. So if you’re trying to change a culture, you can’t just update your values and expect things to change. You have to change behaviours too.

Traditional training often fails because it doesn’t give people the practical tools to change what they’re doing every day. On this episode of Inclusion Works, Fiona Young, Head of D&I practice at Hive Learning walks us through four specific ways to create a D&I programme in your company that can actually change the culture quickly.

It’s Monday and you’re at work.  

Your colleague asks “How was your weekend?”  

You think about your weekend, carefully filtering the details before you speak.

You don’t feel entirely comfortable sharing honestly.

This is the reality for many LGBTQ+ people, according to diversity and inclusion consultant Vessy Tasheva.

We were honored to speak to Vessy for the latest version of the Inclusion Works podcast, where she shared her insight into how companies can get inclusion right by taking action, getting senior buy-in and mixing culture and business to create a space where everyone - and in particular, members of LGBTQ+ communities, feel like they belong.

Innovation comes from diversity of thought. It comes from people from different backgrounds doing things differently - rather than the same people doing the same thing over and over again.

In this episode of Inclusion Works, we spoke to Yari Blanco - senior manager of culture and diversity at The Wing, a network of work and community spaces designed for women.

Yari shared her insight into how the privileged among us can foster innovation in our communities by simply passing the mic.

Being inclusive is good for morale, and can strengthen a company’s bottom line.

This is one of the things I learned from my recent conversation with Adelmise Warner, global head of diversity and inclusion for Sirius XM and Pandora.

People are their company’s strongest assets. If you treat them fairly, they'll stay. Believe it or not, this also limits or reduces a company’s risk of litigation.

If you treat people fairly, they feel like they're part of the whole. They will work harder because they believe they are part of a team that is pulling in tandem. Because they get the same fair and even-handed opportunities as their peers, they will have no incentive to malign or sue you.

Inclusion work is about making sure people feel like they have a voice at work and are treated fairly. An executive needs to make sure that (s)he is doing things that are right for the employees and that those things are not mutually exclusive from representing the best financial interests of the company.  

It is impossible to strip people of their personal biases. Deeply ingrained in us from a really young age, even when we become aware of our bias and have an intention to change, they’re nearly impossible to remove. While we can’t change our personal biases, we CAN change our hiring processes to remove our inability to be unbiased.

From demanding a diverse candidate pool to anonymizing the resumes and CVs, there are many ways to strip bias from your everyday hiring practices. Fiona Young leads content at Hive Learning where she also leads the diversity and inclusion practice. On this episode, you’ll hear about four practices you can implement this week to strip bias from your hiring practice.  

Our guest Sereena Abbassi, Worldwide Head of Culture and Inclusion at M&C Saatchi, had some suggests that a critical part of building a more inclusive culture is to take time to interact with people that you wouldn't usually interact with.

Far too often we dehumanize people without even realizing we dehumanize them.

Stepping into someone else’s shoes can be an eye-opening and powerful exercise to enable you to see how people relate to you when you’re out of your perceived sphere of comfort.

So step into someone else’s shoes, really seeing them and acknowledge their experience and how it’s different to your own.

Women are still under-represented in the executive suite, especially in tech.

Sue Unerman, Chief Transformation Officer at MediaCom, and Kathryn Jacob, OBE, CEO of Pearl & Dean, are the authors of The Glass Wall.

If you’re looking to rise through the ranks, or help others do so, these accomplished women have some advice on how to...

• Recognise that there’s a lot of work to do and that women’s representation in upper management is woefully inadequate.
• Understand the factors holding women back and how to overcome them - whether you’re a woman or not.
• Find practical ways to give others a hand up
• Create a support network with diverse experiences and us a different POV to untangle a problem.

Their rallying cry? “Avengers, assemble!”

How is your business doing when it comes to diversity and inclusion? While we can all agree on the importance of this type of work culture, it can feel daunting to put a plan into place. Where do you even start?

That’s why we’re (Hive Learning) launching the Inclusion Works podcast. The host of the podcast, Fiona Young, is the director of content for Hive Learning; a mobile-first learning app for enterprises. They’re a digital partner for putting culture change into action and inclusion and diversity is one area they’re especially focusing on right now.

Her team has spent many months researching and distilling out the most helpful, actionable, and practical information to teach leaders and managers how to be more inclusive. As they were building this new program, not only were they finding such great information from their research but they were meeting so many interesting people in the space. What better way to share these learnings and introduce the world to these experts than a podcast?

You can expect to hear tips from both worldwide experts and those in the trenches every single day on building diversity and inclusion initiatives across a wide range of industries. What really works, what has driven change for their organizations, top mistakes they see people making, and more. If you think you’d make a great guest or you know an expert we should hear from, email [email protected].