"What does a workplace utopia look like to you?"
This is the question Dr. Ella F. Washington asks company leaders, and
often she hears about an ideal vision of an organization that values
diversity and inclusion and wants employees to bring their whole selves
to work.
But how can you get there? Organizations have largely missed the mark
when it comes to creating environments where all employees thrive in an
equal and equitable way, because they treat diversity, equity, and
inclusion (DEI) as a program that gets done rather than the necessary
and difficult journey it is. A truly inclusive workplace requires
invention and reinvention, mistakes and humility, adaptation to a
changing world, constant reflection, and sometimes significant
sacrifice.
The road to an inclusive workplace is a difficult one, but you can
traverse it, and there's help along the way. Start here with stories of
companies making the necessary journey, including Slack, PwC, Best Buy,
Denny's, and many others. Hear from company leaders about their
successes and failures, the times they were on the vanguard, and the
moments they realized they had much more work to do. These are profiles
in perseverance from people who are keen enough to recognize the need
for inclusive workplaces and humble enough to know they're not there
yet. Along the way, Washington provides a framework for thinking about
where these companies are on their journeys and where you and your
company may be too.
Progress is hard won on the necessary journey to becoming an inclusive
organization, but it must be won. John Lewis said it best: "You see
something you want to get done, you cannot give up, and you cannot give
in."
